A letter from Jun 19th, 2021

Dear me, Hey, you! Okay, so, let's not sugarcoat it. Things are bad right now, just about the worst they've ever been. It's mid-June 2021 now, the world is starting to open up again as more people get vaccinated, and since April, you have been in intense fight or flight mode. You moved to Halifax with Kate, Nathan, and four cats, excited to get away from the disrespectful roommates you had the year before, and things got so much worse just as you were starting to get settled. You've experienced real emotional trauma. And there's SO. MUCH. You're scared of. You want a job so you can leave the house, but you can't currently fathom starting new work, going through training, meeting new coworkers, at your current level of emotional exhaustion. You want to act, but you continue to be full of self-doubt and uncertainty about your potential. So, lemme paint a picture of what I hope the world looks like for you right now. In my dreams for you, you are continuing to live in your beautiful house in Halifax. You have a vibrant, supportive group of friends. That dream you had when you were cooped up in the Toronto apartment, looking at homes for rent in Nova Scotia? The dreams about kitchen table parties, and big pots of shroomy ginger tea, and friends with instruments making music in your space? I bet that's happening. Maybe you even have a pal or two for smooching, who spend luxurious long mornings in your bed as the sun scoots along overhead! There are new, exciting forms of artistic expression that you're playing with! I bet you're going on auditions, even just now and then. I hope that by now you've made that 18th century bed sheet skirt, though I won't hold it against you if you lost interest in it. You have a job, and I bet it's one you're good at, and I hope it's one you like! It pays enough for you to live, and that's amazing, and it helps to make each day pass by with a normal amount of hours. You and Kate are closer and stronger than ever. You've come up with routines and systems that serve you both really well, and living together feels really good. The cats are all healthy and happy, eating well, running through dewy grass. And Nathan, well. I dunno about that ****** guy. Currently, here in June 2021, I can only see three potential futures for your connection with him. Either he starts doing real work on unlearning his toxic ******** and becomes a better friend and roommate, he gets a job that pays enough for him to move out, or he ***** himself. I don't mean to be blunt about it. But if it's that last one, I assume by now it's happened, and hopefully you've started to heal from that, too. Either way, SOMETHING must have happened. Because the world I'm living in back here is not sustainable, and something needs to shift pretty soon. I'm excited to meet you in your world and find out what it was. The present is a beautiful midway point between the past and the future, so for a second here, meet me in my present. I'm sitting on my (our?) bed. It's 8:30AM on a Saturday, and I can tell it's gonna be a hot, sunny sort of day. There are rainbows scattered along the walls, and all the plants are thriving. Miles has just jumped up on the bed, seems he's made his peace with not being let out immediately. And I'm wearing that soft yellow flannel, completely unbuttoned, my hair a sleepy mess, smelling the cool morning breeze. And every time I hit a punctuation point in this letter, I am pausing to look up at this little spider on the ceiling. It's freaking out, and I can't blame it. Life, eh? This is where I am. Meet me here. Sit somewhere quiet and dig back through the layers that you've wrapped yourself in over the course of this past year, and find me. I am hurting, I am scared, I feel genuinely physically sick with worry. And I am holding you in my mind's eye like a beacon, a reality that I'll inhabit soon, that will hopefully be better than the one I'm in now. Hold my face in your hands, and I'll do the same with yours, and, with any luck, only one of us will be crying. Touch my hands, plunge a fist through my sternum, and explore the scar tissue that has grown in criss-crosses over the surface of this silly ol' heart. If nothing else, dear little me, we have survived. And that's worth celebrating. I love you, I love me, now let's go drink some tea and shake the gloom off. Cheers, Laura