This is a letter to myself, one that is long overdue. I lived for over 3 decades in a mist of pleasing others, not listening to myself once. What mattered, was that I would not be left behind. That I would not be abandoned. Today, as I continue reforming myself, I thought it a good idea to address that neglect. To be open, and honest. Perhaps, I can have a heart-to-heart with myself.
To my oldest, dearest friend.
I have something to tell you, my dear, dear friend. In truth, I’ve neglected you, abused you, and tossed you to the wind. The only thing you ever wanted was to be heard. You wanted to look out for me. I’ve done it for years and years on end and I… I don’t quite know how you are still with me after the things I put you through. And not only that. I am ashamed to have let other people abuse and use you as well.
Your kindness is out of this world but it makes you easily influenced at times. And your patience, well, one might think you a saint for putting up with it all. I don’t say that as a bad thing, I really don’t. Yet, my attempt at survival required me to try and suffocate you on a regular basis. Obviously, you and I could not co-exist in this world. This world is too brutal and cruel for you. Yet, you kept smiling, even through the tears.
You are soft and full of love and wonder.
Naive in your giddy joyfulness and your unending pool of curiosity that affects every moment of your life. Your blue eyes look at this world and they see so much potential and light. Paired up with your willingness to give, I am afraid you will one day give so much you won’t have much left. It’s a miracle you are still here.
Because people take and take and take some more until you can not breathe anymore. They have taken your air supply. They will use you until you run out of assets, out of anything valuable, and then… Then they toss you as someone useless or as a failure or a heretic. Because you see they don’t only use you. They also think that it is fine to make you live by their laws. People wish to force you into their miserable lives and they will tell you any lie they can come up with to make it happen.
They don’t just lie, they also use emotions.
They get angry over things they have no idea about other than their own truth. Furthermore, they paint the people close to you as rapists, murderers, and god knows what else. They judge you heavily for living your own life and mourn for the loss of something that was not even a part of theirs. Their false beliefs lulled them into thinking that they could live through controlling you.
And they don’t listen. Generally, they upright refuse it. Your words, your life doesn’t matter at that moment. It is their life you messed up in their eyes. The goals they didn’t reach. The lifestyles they couldn’t get up to. The love they never had or had but lost.
It is no place for a tender soul like you.
Not at all.
But there you scream. You have kept screaming at me for years now. You don’t want to be locked up, do you? In that tower of solitude, that phallic brick construction that keeps you away from the world. In fact, you know you could light up the realms if only I let you out. I can see you crying there, you know, and it makes me have this sorrow. And so, I… I just turned away from you.
I am sorry.
Do you hear me?
I said I AM SORRY!
Please, please forgive me.
Come down, my love. My truest friend, the only one I ever needed to consider fully and respect and love and give my all to. Come down. The past is gone now. Surprisingly, we even have a Knight by our side now! Like Rapunzel, touch the ground with your bare feet, roll in the grass, and smell the freedom. Run around in wild wonder.
I will do my utmost best to keep you safe as you wander around in your moonstruck state.
You will be heard. I will become your voice, your vessel. Indeed, your hopes and dreams, your sorrows, and feisty and overly cute anger will all be outed.
I adore your creativity. Your love for the world and your will to live… God knows I had no will to live for a long, long time. God knows that I saw shadows instead of your light. I had no hope.
Or so I thought.
I should’ve listened to you sooner. I should’ve never stopped listening to you. What a fool I was, I didn’t have faith in you. And all these years in the darkness, you never once stopped having faith in me.
And when I came to you, crawling, beaten, a husk without a soul. You took me in and embraced me. The welcoming warmth of your existence surrounded me in love. You had been waiting.
And you weren’t angry.
You didn’t deny me audience, even if you were justified in doing so. All you ever offered to me was understanding, with a side of chaos. With you, I’ve birthed whole marvelous realms into existence from that chaos. I am forever grateful. I am forever in your debt.
Yet you clear all the debts and keep offering me your hand. Me, who abused you, used you, and locked you up in the darkness. Why do you keep being so kind to me?
I’ve come to realize, my dear friend. I love you. I always have. And I always will.
And as I look at you, smiling, caressing the flowers of the magical meadow of my mind, I can’t help but think… You love me too.
Why on earth did I lock myself up in that tower in the first place?