Love Letters
I had therapy today. It has been a month or so since I had therapy. I had a lot to fill her in on all that has happened in the past month. The most significant thing being that my rescue dog got kicked out of my apartment and he is staying with friends until I can re-home him or find a foster for him for the next several months.
I immediately began crying, because I cry a lot now, as I told her about losing him, about how having this happen on top of everything else has broken me. We talked about how much I have lost this year and how I am grieving. I then told her about my friends and how they have helped take care of JD while I cannot. I talked about how Kevin made the screensaver of his phone a picture of JD, how Kathleen and Tony buy JD all these treats and new items and how JD has a peanut butter jar in the pantry labeled “JD’s Peanut Butter”. They do not just take care of him, they love him. I was telling her how much these people mean to me. How I could not have gotten through the past 8 months without them; without LaToya and Tont; without Shay; and without many others. I was crying telling her how much they all mean to me. How many people have stepped in and been there for me in ways I can never properly thank them for. It is above the call of friendship, it really is. They are more than my friends, they are my family and soul mates and I am so in love with my friends. You could never convince me that I deserve them.
As I was blubbering on, I told my therapist “sorry, this is just my love letter to them” and she said “no, this is their love letter to you.”
And I’m not sure any truer words have been spoken to me.
This is their love letter to me. And I do not even think they know they are writing it. They do not see what they are doing as anything other than being a friend but it is so much more.
These people who brought me food the day after my breakup because they knew I would forget to eat, who guard my office door so that I do not have to deal with any more than I can each day, who pack up my stuff and tell me to go home early when I am stressed, who make me laugh and keep me busy and remind me who I am, who help me look for apartments and then help me move, who encourage me to get back out there, who remind me that someone would be lucky to have me and that anyone who doesn’t know that is a fool, who let me bring my dog to work so I can spend time with him, who care for my dog like he is their own, who pray with me, walk with me (figuratively and literally), who keep me laughing and talking and present—they are writing me a love letter. The best love letter I have ever been given and it is not words on a piece of paper, or an email or a card, it is action.
My pain has made me selfish in many ways, especially in the beginning. Sometimes pain requires us to tune everything else out to address ourselves. Sometimes the mind and body just won’t let you do anything else. You are front and center in your own pain but just like with any production, the main actor who gets all the credit may not even be the person working the hardest.
I get a lot of credit for ‘how I am handling this’ from people around me. But the truth is, while I may be front and center in my own situation, this healing wouldn’t happen without every single person who has shown up for me and when I can see past the healing and the work I need to do and see this love letter being written for me by others, I realize that maybe that has been the point all along. I may have lost a love and I may have been betrayed and heartbroken but I have a much better love letter being written right in front of my eyes, everyday, by the people who mean the most to me. I will never see them the same. I can’t. I thought I loved them before, but I didn’t know what love was until I had to rely on them to get through each day and I didn’t know how much they loved me until I watched them do it every. Single. Day. like it was the easiest thing in the world.
