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Dear Tiffany,

For years and years and years now, you have been terrified to spend time alone.

There was that terrible time when you first moved into the basement suite, and it was going to be your first time ever really living alone, and the fibromyalgia was so bad at that point – that was around the time that nights were just constant aching, nothing helped, Dylan made you a self-care kit with magic bags and you heated each one of them up, every night, and put them on your shoulders and your hips and your knees, and it was awful.

And when you were alone in the house, you were petrified. You had to leave the bathroom AND the kitchen light on, so that there was never a gap of darkness to be traversed in the night. You were just so scared, all the time. And then Scott moved in, and you didn’t have to deal with that daily flood of panic.

You are still scared to be alone.

You don’t talk much about this because it’s embarrassing and shameful. You invite people over for work dates when you’ll be home on your own. Go out to meet with people. Keep the flow of social media and text communication open wide, all the time (when you sleep alone, you sleep with the volume turned up on your phone, so texts will wake you, so people will be there with you, present because you are accessible).

It’s weird and ridiculous and other insulting words.

You’re jumpy when you’re alone.

Your back tenses up, even more than usual.

You’re more open to your shame gremlins, too.

Once upon a time, you were great at being alone. You used to go on regular writing retreats to Canmore by yourself, and you loved them. You’ve gone to San Francisco and parts of Europe by yourself, and you’ve loved it. You used to be relatively good at being alone, and you’ve lost that.

You’re in Costa Rica alone.

Not the whole time – you’re here to visit, you’re visiting every day, most of the day – but in the evenings, and the evenings are always the hardest, you’re alone.

Before you left, you came close, so close, to begging someone, anyone, to come with you. You did, actually, beg a few people, tried to keep it chill, no big deal, certainly not panicking right now, desperate to not be alone, to have someone, anyone, there. To be in the room. Be there in the evening so that you wouldn’t be alone.

You were terrified to go on your own. Not for the understandable reason that this is an emotional trip and emotional support is so valuable, no… not for that reason. For the other, less speakable reason. The fear of being alone. Alone with yourself, and your fears, and your failures, and your stupid racing heart and your stupid broken body and every single thing wrong with you. All of it, in the room, with no-one to protect you from being present with yourself.

Mom offered to come with you, and the sincere offer settled it. The desperate desire to say yes felt like a less-best self in action. You said no. You came down here alone. That’s what you do. Feel the fear and do it anyway. That’s who you are. That’s how you survive. You are scared all the fucking time, and you do the thing anyway. Eventually. Mostly.

And it was time for this one. Time to feel this fear and do it anyway.

The first night, you slept with the bathroom light on.

The second night, you slept with the bathroom light on.

The third night, you fell asleep with the bathroom light on, and when you woke up in the middle of the night, you weren’t all that afraid, and you turned it off, and the streetlights from outside were enough, and I am so proud of you for that.

I am so proud of you for being here alone.

I am so proud of you for awkwardly floating around the bed and breakfast, sitting in a chair by the pool for ten minutes before feeling self-conscious and going back to your room. Finding a restaurant and fucking up the order and almost crying from the shame and humiliation and having enough self-awareness and compassion and intention to take those deep steadying breaths you recommend to your clients, and coming back to this room, and sitting on the bed feeling awkward. Walking up and down the stairs three times because you don’t know if you can handle working in the common room but you’re not really feeling more time in your own room, and inevitably ending up in your own room. Sitting on the balcony for five minutes before getting freaked out by… something, it varies… and coming back inside. God, you’re such a goof.

The moments alone are so awkward and you are just doing them. You are just present in those awkward moments and I am so proud of you.

I love you.

I love you even when you’re alone.

Love,
Me

#100loveletters

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Dear Tiffany,

Four or five times today, you sat down to write and didn’t manage to write anything.

I forgive you, and I love you, and you’re still allowed to call yourself a writer.

Love,
Me

#100loveletters

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Dear Tiffany,

This afternoon when you were walking back from the cafe, you felt really strong and good and hopeful.

You have ten thousand ideas for courses to run, resources to build, books and articles and papers to write, services to offer, careers and degrees and activities to pursue.

You are a wild and vibrant rainforest of a person – the sun shines so brightly in you, and the rain falls so often, and the shadows are so deep and so full of terrifying and amazing beasts. Every part of that is true. The bright and the dark and the terrifying and the creative.

You have done good things in your life.

You will do more good things in your life.

But there is some value in the things you dream up even if you don’t accomplish them, even if you don’t do them the way you imagined them, even if you do them and fail at them.

Walking back from the cafe – your head and heart full of new ideas just planted, and older ideas just starting to sprout, and older ideas than that getting ready to blossom, and even older ideas ready to harvest, and the oldest ideas mulching down into rich and usable soil – walking back from the cafe, you felt the wholeness of your Gloom Fairy heart.

Not gloomy like a dry and abandoned basement corner, like you’ve so often felt. No, a deeper, richer, more fertile gloom, like deep shade and dark earth.

And the fairy part, too. Bright and sparkling and magical. Yes, magical.

I love you, Gloom Fairy.

You are as worthy as you know everyone else to be. You are the expert in your own experience. You have the skills and the tools and the ability to narrate your own story, and it is a good story.

And you have so many good ideas. When I let go of the shame I feel about where I am in my life, and about who I am (and who I am not), and about my finances and my workaholism and my ever-present inner monsters – when I let go of the shame and see myself as a whole ecosystem of self… I like me. I think I am pretty cool. I think this abundance of ideas and this wealth of passion and energy – it’s pretty great.

Gloom on, little self. You’re loved and loveable.

Love,
Me

#100loveletters

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[Picture of a three-part drawing.

First, a stick figure. Text reads ‘We are ourselves. Whole, wholehearted. Full of potential and power and with unique and lovely voices.’

Second, a stick figure with harsh red and yellow bursts obscuring them, and a small disassembled stick figure beside them. Text reads ‘Trauma obscures and fractures us. Pushes some parts away, introduces new shapes and gaps and struggles. Now we have a trauma body.’

Third, a stick figure reassembling a little stick figure. Text reads ‘Trauma recovery can mean collecting the fragments and reassembling. But we still have ourselves, and access to our hearts and power and voices. We can help ourselves – help our trauma bodies – because we are amazing.’]

I was thinking about how trauma distances us from ourselves. How it can close us off from our memories and our self-awareness and even cut us off from making the choices we want to make with our lives. And I was also thinking about how trauma recovery is so slow and painful and iterative. How it takes so long and is such a fucking slog. And yet how we do it. How so many of us have experienced trauma and still work towards healing. How the heart inside us is so strong and we are never too old or too weak to do some healing.

I was thinking about intergenerational trauma. And maybe even intergenerational healing.

This isn’t great art, and I would do a lot more to frame this in ways that don’t slip into harmful individualism, before I made it a blog post or whatever.

But today this is my love letter, and this is what I am thinking about.

How so many of us have been blown apart by trauma, and have walked through our lives with obscured and fragmented selves because of it, and how many of us have done such beautiful and meaningful and magical work to heal.

I love us, all of of us trauma bbs with our trauma bodies and our trauma minds. I love those of us who parent with trauma and those of us who are parented with trauma. We are so amazing. We are *so* amazing.

#100loveletters

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Dear Tiffany,

You ‘should’ write in your journal. It’s a good way to process things.

You ‘should’ read your book, or even just listen to an audiobook.

It’s okay if you don’t want to.

You don’t have to do the things you’re supposed to do. The voice in your head that makes so many demands is well-meaning but a bit overbearing.

Drink some water.

Lay on the bed.

(You even have permission to watch a show if you want. *gasp*)

Sleep.

I love you,
Me

#100loveletters

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Dear Tiffany,

You made it to the airport.

You got yourself packed, and all the time sensitive work done so nobody at either of your day jobs will be left in the lurch if you don’t manage to log in tomorrow, and you figured out the cellphone stuff. And you didn’t cry on the phone to the help line and didn’t cry going through security and didn’t cry when you said goodbye to Joe and Hawk at home and didn’t cry when you said goodbye to Scott at the airport. Check you out, you veritable desert, cactus heart… no, succulent heart self.

You even bought a bottle of water and a cashew-blueberry-vanilla bar, since dinner was lost to the discomfort of anxiety-belly and the delight of chasing Astrid through the shoe store.

Your nose is running. Your throats hurts. Your back hurts.

(You packed light, but no amount of light is light enough. And you tried to check the bag but you’re not so good at letting go and you like to keep things tight and controlled. Recently, you told a client that it sounds like they are stretching themselves so far, working so hard, trying to keep everything nailed down. And you said that makes sense, because chaos is often traumatic, but it also likely isn’t sustainable because none of us can actually control all the things we stretch out from our bubble of selfness to try and control. So, I mean, you know that choosing not to check the bag doesn’t actually mean you’re in control, but I forgive you for that gentle lie and I understand the motive behind it. Someday you’ll come to the world with hands more open, palms instead of clutching fists. But not today.)

It’s really okay, chickadee.

It’s okay.

And you’re okay.

And I love you.

Remember that one trip to San Francisco, and the nearly-vomiting panic attack, curled up in a ball in the hostel bathroom? That was such a rough afternoon, hey? But you still loved that trip.

And remember getting lost in… well, basically every city you visited in Europe. Still, you went. And you loved it. Assisi on your own, that amazing sandwich in the town square with that dog who barked with the clock tower? It was so good. And remember the dogs that chased you and trapped you in a phone booth, growling, until their laughing, mocking owner called them off? (Vienna was not your favourite city.) You still loved that trip.

What I’m saying is that your anxiety is such a powerful force in your life, but you, like the T-Rex on your very intentional shirt, are (mostly) unstoppable.

You’ve got this.

I believe in you.

Love,
Me

#100loveletters
#365feministselfie

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Three things I am grateful for:

1. Snuggles with little humans. Small people who trust me – I appreciate that trust. It is special and it reminds me of how deeply our actions can impact the people around us. It took a long time to get to the point of regular snuggles.
2. Good food and good people to eat it with. Dinner with Scott last night and Sue tonight and mediocre cherries with Joseph tonight, made good by the context.
3. All my lovely plants and plans and principles.

Three things I am not grateful for:

1. Intense and seemingly endless existential dread at the state of the world.
2. Constant sleep deprivation, constant noise. I love the snuggles, but oh my god. Kids are hard.
3. Fucking late stage capitalism. Like. So much.

#100loveletters

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Dear Tiffany,

Drink water, take your vitamins, sit up a bit taller, keep breathing.

Thriving is the goal, but just surviving is a completely acceptable outcome, too.

Love,
Me

#100loveletters