Dear Self (Letter 1)
Dear Self,
It’s been a while since I wrote to you. Not that you weren’t forgotten but life kept getting in the way. I wanted to let you know that the last couple of days were incredibly difficult to the extent I decided to shut off completely.
You might already have an idea about my periodic shutdowns, the kind where I’m incessantly fighting over my soul and mind, and as a consequence, I’m almost drained with nothing to offer.
Last week was no different from the rest, it started with just a regular day, and towards the end, the night cascaded me into darkness.
I had important deadlines to meet but I just lay in bed trying to avoid the light because rays of sunshine penetrated and punched holes into my soul while darkness cast its gloom around it.
But I’ve learned to take care of myself; I treat myself with kindness now. I’m finally trying to fight my patterns and as difficult as it is, I do see a silver lining.
Today when I woke up, I took a look at the mirror and I found my smile back. My smile stretched all the way to the cheeks making my crinkled eyes soft. I carefully traced my smile to see if I was dreaming but it wasn’t a dream and so I smiled some more.
At last, I opened the drapes to let the sunlight in; every ray that entered through the blinders examined my face, all the way from my prominent scars to my soul like a silent symphony whispering to my ears “Let’s start all over again”.
I decided to stay low even though I did feel better than the previous day and so I skipped an important event. I did contemplate if it was the right thing to do and for a moment I did cave in but I was reminded of my condition all over again.
I am equally aware that during your sporadic periods, you experience exhaustion while around people which is why I want to let you know that skipping the important events was the right thing to do.
I also wanted to fill you in about the romance book I’ve been reading recently. In a certain scenario, the male lead gives the female lead a very tight hug, so tight that I felt the tremors reach my heart all the way and in that moment I hugged myself warmly and let myself know that I did an incredible job hanging on.
The last time when you probed if I was doing better, I hid myself in the shadows but here I am wanting to let you know that I’m doing amazing now and decided to stop by to let you know that there’s another important event scheduled in next few days and I can’t wait to show up with my infectious energy like I always do.
I promise to make you even more proud than I did the prior time.
Love,
Dear Self
