45: A Love Letter to ©
Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.
― Alain de Botton
I’ve always written. I find expressing what is happening emotionally with me always translates better in the written word than in a conversation.
I’m a strong and confident public speaker but in a conversation with those I’m intimate with I’m hyper-vigilante and anxiously reading body language, voice inflections, and eye movement. In those conversations with loved ones I can be constantly filled with dread and anxiety, afraid of saying something wrong that would hurt the other person, cause me to be rejected, mocked, ridiculed, abandoned, or kicked off the team and out of the tribe.
If you really want to know what is happening, how I feel, what I am struggling with, what I want or need, turn to my writing. In this place your will see my heart.
Around month seven of my relationship with © I wrote her this letter. It was a synthesis of so much I felt, thought, needed, wanted, and believed. I posted it publicly because I was making a public declaration of my intentions to her.
When I reread this recently, it becomes obvious how much ©, and my relationship with ©, meant to me. The letter reminds me how far short I fell in some areas, while I thrived in others.
I realized I love her just as passionately now as I did when I wrote this…but that doesn’t mean we should be together. I’m reminded rereading this how much passion, courage, and enthusiasm I bring with my heart.
I’ve posted the letter below.
Thinking of her, she still takes my breath away.
I made mistakes. I’m learning. I’m growing. I’ll keep doing better but as I heal, examine myself in the mirror, and let people back into my life I hope this is what I can find within and bring back to the table as a more emotionally complete man.
Perhaps this is the letter I should have written to myself.
You don’t need a guiding-light
You are your own light but you lack confidence and belief b/c of the abuse, shaming and gaslighting. You lack love for self.
I will love you regardless if you learn the lesson…and if you do, or do not, I’ll love you, not more or less, but still.
I will walk with you but I won’t lead you. I will protect you, comfort you, shelter you and help your power grow without shaming or judging or ridiculing you. That is my power. I’ll share mine with you because I’m learning I am my own light too…I don’t need to take it from you.
…and when I need it I will ask you to offer me the same love too.
I want you to bring your light to me. I will share my light with you so we can both see better.
That is submission.
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