Dear Tiffany,
Last night, you got the first almost-full nights sleep of the week. And you woke up with a cold sore. So, there’s that. Oil and vinegar again.
In the draft blog post folder on your computer is a long post about self-care and cold sores. Every time you get a cold sore you open it up and add a bit – about the visceral shame they send out in an oily slick across your inner ocean, and about the discomfort and the feeling of betrayal and anger at your body holding this virus, and about the cognitive dissonance of your strong belief in destigmatizing herpes, and about the unfairness of the differential shaming of oral and genital herpes, while also feeling such overwhelming shame at your own hsv.
So much shame and anger, and so much irritation over it because it’s such a disproportionate reaction to a small thing that will be done in ten days anyway. (Ten days!!! Ten days of this!!!!!!!)
Today’s love is an invitation to let all of the feelings be here. The whole slick and slimy group of them. Just breathe with them and feel them and let them be heard and love yourself anyway.
I love you when you are ashamed of your shame.
I love you when you are trying to hide your suddenly-hideous (feeling) face.
I love you when you are irrationally angry at the unfairness of things.
I love you enough to build bridges between discordant selves, and I love that you see the value in that bridge building.
I love you when you are stuck deep in self-hate. We will build the ladder back out. One loving action, one loving word, at a time.
It’s a real Nine of Wands ladder – exhausting af and seemingly never finished – so maybe we can do some tarot about it today, too.
You’re posting this letter publicly and I am proud of you for that.
Shame is normal. Everyone feels it. We all deserve love even within it.
You’re not a monster, despite what your mean shame voice is saying.
Love,
Me