Author: tiffany

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

#100loveletters

Dear Tiffany,

This week is oil and vinegar – really good and really hard sitting on top of each other.

There are things to say about stepparenting.

There are things to say about expectations of gendered division of labour, and people’s reactions when your family unit doesn’t conform – the very friendly person saying ‘so nice that dad let you sleep in and showered the kids for you! So rare for a mom to get that kind of break’ – and the shame and discomfort in response.

There are things to say about kids. Like, a million things to say about kids.

But for now, just this:

You have rarely been good at group events that you aren’t in control of. You never liked going to group sleepovers in school, and you don’t like going to other people’s parties as an adult. You’re not really a ‘follow the group plan’ kinda person, and those tendencies are stronger than ever this week.

I love you even though you keep skipping the group events. I forgive you for putting yourself in the position of feeling lonely and isolated. You’re not a bad friend or a bad person.

You’re allowed to enjoy the time you do spend with other people and still not show up for ‘camp mom night’ or anything else.

Oil and vinegar. They coexist and they don’t cancel each other out. It’s okay for the good and the bad to both be present. Maybe we can find some metaphorical bread at some point.

Love,

Me

#100loveletters

#100loveletters

I noticed myself doing a lot of predicting failure this afternoon. I thought of it as setting reasonable expectations for myself, but I realized I was just stealing joy from the present in predicting future disappointment. What a silly spell to cast. I can do better heart magic.

(Love letter in black pen, surrounding a black conte drawing of a crystal ball. ‘Let’s find rituals that are more observation than divination. Stop using your crystal ball of pessimism. You don’t know the future. Rehearsing doesn’t help. (Neither does rehashing.)’)

#100loveletters

(Image of hurtful words in red, yellow, and orange, contained by a purple and black boundary. Outside the boundary, positive words in dark purple. Flowers, succulents, and trees are growing into the space of the hurtful words, with their roots reaching into the positive words.)

Dear Tiffany,

Okay, this weekend. It’s gonna be A Whole Big Thing. So busy!

It’ll be fine.

You’ll get through it.

I trust you, and even within that trust, I know that it won’t go perfectly, and you’re gonna drop some balls, and you’ll do some things incompletely.

Here is some advance gentleness. Creeping up on forgiveness, even.

It’ll be okay.

Love,

Me

#100loveletters

#100loveletters

I bought myself two sketching books (one black and one brown), chalk-pastel pencils, and conte. I had SO MUCH anxiety about spending money on art stuff when I am so doubtful of my merits as an artist.

Thank you to Joseph for responding to my anxious text without hesitating – ‘you’re already an artist!’ was exactly the right response.

And thank you to Lindsay, who reminded me that Zen tangles are art, and also put up with me taking forever to decide on what I wanted to buy.

The chalk pencils are so fun! The black paper is so fun! I feel both Gother Than Thou and the best kind of silly.

The ‘patent Tiffany stick figures’ (as Scott called them) are still art even if they are stick figures. And the Zen tangle was a lovely practice to come back to after years away.

Dear Tiffany,

Today’s love letter is this:

The blog post you definitely need to write and post immediately because it’s an excellent idea for marketing the summer course, and you’ve still got spaces open, and it’s important – you’re not going to write it, and that’s okay. You’re going to do some wrist exercises and watch some TV and have an epsom salt bath and that’s better than marketing right now, because resilience involves knowing when to pause. (I could find you resources to support this, but, not gonna. See? Pausing.)

Close your laptop, chickadee.

Grab a stress ball and squeeze the heck out of it.

I love you!

– Tiffany

#100loveletters

I have been practising making memes. #100loveletters

Dear Tiffany,

Every time I start writing this, it’s just… sass. Just overwhelming sass. That really snarky sass that covers up irritation and frustration and maybe even a little bit of anger at yourself and your life and your good intentions and shitty follow-through and your big dreams and tiny budget (oh, yep, there).

Although you’re not really hating yourself so much as capitalism and ridiculous individualism and the bullshit lies of bootstrapping and like, that’s a legit thing to hate, so, yeah.

Capitalism is garbage, you’re going to do good work despite it, onward.

xoxo

#100loveletters

#100loveletters

These bunny teeth are pretty cute.

Kids can be so mean.

You were a mean kid, too, sometimes. You hope that the mean things you said have not stuck, are not still lodged in someone else’s heart like slivers of cold, cruel glass. You hope that they have melted away, all the mean things that you said, as a child, and as an adult.

Maybe this could melt. Maybe this glass could be ice. Maybe it could become water. Maybe it could drip down to the earth and become nourishment for new growth. Maybe it’s better to let it melt and drip, not hold it so tight, and so close.

Remember that guy who said, ‘It’s so great how you just keep smiling despite, you know, your teeth.’

He was negging, but he was right.