Dear Self

Dear Self,

It is cool today. Sunlight heats the window but doesn’t warm the house. How many times have I stood in the center of a room wanting heat to warm you from the outside and discovered that warmth must radiate from the inside out in your search for things sacred and holy? I reach for you through the mist of consciousness and come away with hands full of leaves. It has been a beautiful fall.

I marvel at the fact that you have lived in the center of your life free from psychiatric hospitalizations for fifteen years now. I have trusted your psychiatrist enough to feed you medicine that eases you into wakefulness, keeping you planted in your feet. Broken glass may have been thrown in your path, but you have remembered to lace your shoes, not fearing to walk through distraction.

I have been gentle and fierce with you at the same time. Gentle in that sometimes I turn to the voices only you hear, easing out the sounds of the common reality, and I don’t berate you for your lack of attention. People who love you understand that sometimes you are sloppy in your engagement with them. It is important to remember that people who don’t love you can still be kind. I have allowed you to sleep extra when there is no place for you to be and not called you lazy. I know the medication makes you tired. I have been fierce in dragging you out of bed on days you work, demanding you don’t be late. I am also fierce in my demand that you exercise and not eat cake all the time.

. You coax me out of myself, convince me it’s safe, allow me to feel the spirit of life nestle in my coat pocket. I pull peppermints from my pocket and offer them to Ken, the postman, Sheila, the clerk at the store, and Sam the gas station attendant. You teach me that there can never be too many peppermints, and I believe you.

I am safe in your hands; a baby bird that falls from its nest and is willing to drink water from the eyedropper.

I thank you for your persistence, for your nudges, for your unfailing desire to seek all that can be and shake off like loose rain all that cannot be. We are in this together. I go forth.

Loving you,

Kristina