Gratitude Letter

I’m doing okay. I’m doing real good. I guess that’s why you’ve stopped talking to me. I don’t need you anymore you’ve decided, and I guess you’re right.

I wish I could write and tell you how well I’m doing. Or ask you about my career. I wish you could be my mentor… But sometimes the person who saves you when you’re most down can’t be the one to go the distance with you. I know I guess I can’t have you for life. That’s the nature of the beast. You were my emergency intimacy. My lifeline when I had nothing else to hold onto. But that doesn’t translate back into the world of the living.

The thing is though…. It’s just that nobody else really knows how much I was not a part of the world of the living. Nobody saw the dark woods I was in but you. You were my only witness. You still are. Nobody else saw…

I think for the first time ever you have become a figure from my past. Before I met you were the future.
I fantasized about you. Not sexually but it was just as intense. But now I have a boyfriend, and I  fantasize about him. And I pretend it’s always been this way. That I’ve fantasized about sexual objects rather than adult savior objects. Because what the hell else can I do? Just gotta act as if, and enjoy my friends and enjoy my life and enjoy my partner and my family, who I no longer have to shrink in shame from. I can be myself. I have the ability to act as if. Everything was too acture before. I was too different.

I’m so fucking blessed. So god damn fucking blessed. And loved. And loving and lovable. I have an amazing dad and an amazing mom and an amazing sister. I’m so flippin lucky.
And I have you. Or I had you.

I used to think I wanted to do for somebody what you did for me. That if I could do that my life would be complete. That’s why I’m becoming a therapist. Well, also because I’m going to be god damn fucking good at it… Not only did you save me from the trenches but you showed me the path to my greatest calling. And yet I’ve veered from you…

And maybe I’m going to move to new Orleans and go for my doctorate in social work and live with my amazing sister, or at least hang out with her. Maybe all my dreams are going to come true….

I wish I could write this to you. Usually I could. Even a few days ago I could.
But I think I’m becoming a broken record. And I Think that I’m becoming something that I wans’t when I last knew you well. When you last knew well my life.  Writing has become so important to me. Being an artist, cultivating my taste and my craft…..I’m not the one you knew so well anymore. I’m more. And I know that’s what you wanted and expected.

I should give you something. If this is the end, I should give you something… I should express my gratitude somehow.

It’s crazy, though. I’ve moved away from you ideologically. I trust your wisdom completely, but I’m gonna follow other methods. Of course this is what you would want for me. To find my own voice. I just never thought it would be different from yours. That I would end up believing different things about the nature of wellness and sickness and healing.

But don’t worry. I’m gonna be true. I’m gonna pay it forward. I’m gonna be me. I can hardly believe that I get to do this, that I get to be me and I get to be free and I get to do what I was put on this earth to do. And you are the only one who knows how radical it is that I'm okay. You are the only one who knows what danger I was in. You are the only one. So thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. For witnessing, and pushing me. Cuz now I get to be free. Holy shit holy shit I really get to be free? I really get to be free.