I worked hard for you to have this by midnight on January 1st. I hope this finds you in a better New Year of welcome change and honest reflections. I’m probably singing New York NY with Sinatra right now and nurturing my tender heart before Auld Lang Syne can rip me to pieces. I wanted the first thing in your inbox to be something of real love rather than promotions or sales. Happy New Year heres a story about old friends.
On my way home one evening as I got off the subway a cloud of sadness passed through me that I suspected had been following me for some time. Once home, I sat in my bed and wrote a letter to an advice column. It was melodramatic and it made me cry before I fell asleep. A couple of weeks prior my mom’s friend pulled a card for me about what 2021 would hold and the Two of Cups flew out. She called this the relationship card, which she noted was in part the relationship with myself being so concrete no one will be able to shake the understanding I have of myself, and the other part was a possible new romantic relationship.
Both of these instances relay to me the emotions I surround the process of healing. I feel this is clearly the topic of the month and yet find myself nervous to share it. Healing for me is something I don’t like sharing, not when I am in the middle of it. How would I tell you about the person I am becoming? Someone I hardly know? I felt the urge to wait. I knew eventually I must bounce back to the person I was before I started taking conscious efforts to heal the old wounds I carry. When she got back I could easily sit down and write about the beauty of being healed and how I understand it.
You can perhaps see the flaw. We aren’t supposed to go back from where we’ve healed from. This future self is why I wrote to the advice column. I felt frantic for an answer to the sadness that overcame me. I explained in the email that “I’ve noticed I’m waiting for a moment of clarity, an epiphany, or point of view that will alleviate this massive burden I have brought myself to, but also know that this will likely never come.” In doing so I wanted to have the answer I craved, which let me remain in my current state while simultaneously closing the wound until it fully healed, as if it were a bandaid. I was both admitting I knew that there was no other point of view that could change the way the moment made me feel, and also asking, desperately, for relief in the very way I had said I couldn’t get.
I’ve been asking myself what would happen if it never came, that relief when you begin to look at the bigger picture? Maybe healing isn’t so much a new view but a new self. This self who I don’t know well and feel uncomfortable talking to, but find growth the same. Yet feeling pain and healing are not mutually exclusive. It's becoming clear to me that there are things we never become older and wiser to, some pain is not alleviated by our distance from its occurrence. When I think of my future I can’t foresee a possibility where what is paining me now will be entirely gone, but I know that I’ve healed there.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m going to enjoy this little life so very much. I enjoy the rewards of outgrowing my old self. When I talk about my new self in therapy I take time to be proud. There are moments of calmness that I haven’t enjoyed in years: less anxiety in public, wearing sweatpants to the grocery store, falling asleep early, and waking up late. Healing for me has been what I imagine acupuncture is, built up tension has been released from these pressure points.
I think most of all the fear I felt was not having sense to make of this. I’m afraid to talk about it because there isn't much sense in pain, in getting better. I had a great day with friends and bumped into a deep sadness on my way home, the way you would a surprise rainstorm. There is a conflict within, between the parts of me that feel better, and the other side which longs to remain comfortably the same. I can’t make it make sense for you or anyone, especially myself.
The tarot reading, however, was interesting to me because it illuminated two ways I am seeing my own healing. What if this someone new, is really myself? She’s here, in my head. Old wounds mixing with new thoughts makes for some conflicting inner monologues, but I know that I will begin to enjoy her company, even understand her.
Because I am writing this in 2020, who am I to say who I will be in 2021. The confidence-in-myself portion of my reading was daunting, in a time where I felt both sure of my old self while aware that she was fleeting. I have accepted that admitting you don’t know is a form of self-reflection and understanding, one of the most important kinds. The way it can be brave to tell a classroom and teacher you don’t know the answer to a question you’ve been asked and to your surprise that's a perfectly acceptable option. As I said, we aren't the same people when we begin to heal, nor are the people we become when we’re healed. We move differently and make better decisions. Our point of view of the event unchanged perhaps, but the way we see everything else now is new.
The second way to read it, as it was shared with me, was the new relationship. I’ve always felt this sad story I’m healing from was too big to share yet also too big to keep within. It seems to burst from me while I simultaneously feel the sometimes inappropriate nature of rehashing it. That part of the reading frightens me the most. Moving from your old self to be something you’ve never been does not allow you the old pain you’ve grown to understand. It comes at different times and hurts and frightens us in different ways. Yet I suspect at some point I won’t scoff at dating apps, which months ago I deleted entirely. There will be a point where the wound I carry won’t be enough to keep me from the love I crave. I’ve reached a point in healing where the growing light at the end of the tunnel will reach me and I will have to go on as I have never been. Part of getting closer to that light has involved repeatedly telling my therapist, “I know this isn't true, but I feel like I will feel this way forever.”
Faulty logic for someone who is feeling something entirely new every day.
What I mean though is, I feel that I will be stuck in this liminal space where I am aware that I am reaching the end of something, but I’m afraid to leave the pain I’m used to. I mean I'm equal parts afraid of moving on and staying exactly the same. “I know it feels that way, but you won’t feel like this forever.” My therapist always replies and I appreciate it because I know this too.
Energies, they change. That reading could be true then and the course of my life may lead it elsewhere. In that moment though what seemed to be (and may still be) was this new relationship in its dual form. No matter when it happens there will come a point where I will be sitting in my therapist's office talking about the latest whatever and it will occur to me that what I'm saying now I had heard before, only the reverse. These feelings I imagined could never be, not for me anyway. Yet here I am out loud affirming their existence. I think about this often, not so much excited but aware of its possibility. I see it in my peripheral, the love behind the door at the end of this long hallway. I see the light slipping from the gap in the frame, I feel the warmth while my hand flinches towards the door handle. Until one moment of everlasting bravery decides healing has become healed.
I remember when quarantine first began I struggled daily to find inner peace. I wanted to communicate with people, go outside, my social battery at an all-time high. Things are different now, I have adapted, I’ve healed things I didn’t have the energy for a year ago. My social battery is smaller, I haven't been above 14th street more than a handful of times since March. My love language, too, has changed. I thought a lot recently, of how we and others show love especially when we get those few moments together. My mom, asking us if there is anything we want to do while we are home, my dad watching birds with us in the morning. Here are some specifics:
All of these I'm sure can be filed down to the five love languages we know, but I like the specificity. We all love with a dialect of our own. I want you all to be sure that what I include for you is an act of love from me. Even the banners, even small things. Make your own list! your capacity for love is large. It spills out on accident.
Q: What am I giving myself permission to do this year?
I ask myself this a lot because I often feel guilty for taking care of myself. Things like sleeping in, resting when I'm tired, or taking a break even if I have a deadline. Recently I found a way to avoid serious burnout though it still happens to a lesser degree is to give myself permission to listen to my body. I also gave myself permission to take my time on things I wanted done, but cared about. This year I wonder what other extensions I will give myself. What will you do?
As always my mood board awaits you here: click me!
I attempted to capture the feelings I have in January: tired, cozy, soft. All of these things I think we will and should be after 2020. One thing I thought a great deal about and put into the mood board was this:
I think about this goodbye a lot and goodbyes like it. They echo in my brain. When Russell Hammond tells Penny Lane, “I'm coming to you— this time.” Some goodbyes are as definite as the ending of one year into the next. 2020 is gone now. I don’t know a lot about film, but I wonder of the mediation that definite endings have often with the notion we’ll see each other later. When I get better, when I heal, it starts with a question. What’s wrong with you? Thus marking that the new me has gotten off the train and stands on the empty platform. That’s okay though. There’s a lot to think about, I’ll tell her next time I see her.
That’s all this month! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save +share your favorite parts and tag @chloeinletters
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My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!
Here’s to another month, our new selves, and Starbucks Fridays.
Love always
Chloé
Happy New Year Chloé! I love your vulnerability in these pieces and wish I am able to write/document my thoughts and link them as well as you do.
In this piece, you wrote: "How would I tell you about the person I am becoming? Someone I hardly know?" and about the fallacy of thinking we'll go back to the person we once were, so I thought I'd share a little something I've learned along my journey.
Beyond healing and reconciliation that you wrote extensively about in your piece, I have come to learn that the beauty in life is creating the vision and version of ourselves that we would like to become. This vision changes as we transition through different life stages and, in that way, grow with us. So you may not know the person you are becoming - and that can be scary, especially for people who likes to feel in control like myself - relishing in the beauty of the malleability of that future self and ability to decide that aspect of future can be healing.
That's my two cents anyway. I look forward to your next piece!
this is very good. keep going!