Dear,

Let me start with an apology.  It will be the last of them.  I'm sorries are tiresome to say, and likely more tiresome to hear.  I'm sorry begins to sound like my cat's plaintive meow, or like walking up a gravel driveway, or like the teacher in Charlie Brown.  It is wind from my damaged lungs, up through my vocal chords, bouncing around my teeth and tongue, and tepidly released to you and the world.  So, for the last time, I'm sorry.

It's not your fault.  I know that now.  I fancied myself an excellent communicator once upon a time.  I was wrong.  I'm still learning what it means to need something, to voice that need, and to hold on to that need, come what may.  There was a time when you'd convince me otherwise, voice your opinion that it was selfish, or foolish, to need this or that.  I'd listen and think, of course, of course you do know better.  I was constantly in a state of flux, my brain working overtime flip-flopping and adjusting to make everyone else comfortable.  But I can't do that anymore.  I'm thirty years old.  Do you see that?  Or do you still see me as I was at sixteen?  When I'd test my boundaries; when I'd embarrass you.  I've been the ungrateful, willful child who pierced her navel, who can't remember driving directions, who sometimes sneaks Marlboro Lights, for all of my adult life.  And I've been trying to patch that up, to be a nice person, to make you proud.  But that has been doing far more damage than good.  It's not your fault because I've never addressed it, never said, this is who I am, and I am different than you, and that should be okay.  I've enabled the very thing that has kept us apart. 

So, if you are the slightest bit curious, this is who I am:

I am silly.  I am creative.  I need to have an outlet for that creativity.  What for some is a childhood phase is for me my lifeline.  I am sensitive.  I am nostalgic.  I need music like I need air.  Eating and drinking are not about simply filling the hole for me.  I'm happiest when I get a few hours of that in the company of loved ones.  I don't give up easily.  I am proud.  I can be indecisive and easily influenced.  This is because I don't trust myself.  I'm working on these things.  I sometimes suffer from depression.  Working on that, too.  I can't be in the house for too long.  I love California.  It feels like it was made for me.  Or I was made for it.  I need trees and sunshine.  I like to be able to practice yoga and to go hiking.  Sometimes both in the same day.  I need other creative people around me.  I will probably live here for a very long time.  Don't take it personally.  I need my space to be clean and to be organized.  Through the years, I've relaxed my standards on this.  I'm not currently attending church.  Don't take it personally.  I find spirituality in the same trees and sunshine I mentioned earlier.  I should probably be working with animals, because people overwhelm me.  I'm girly.  I miss being an actor.  I don't have a lot of friends, but I would do anything for the ones I do have.  If you're reading this, I would do anything for you. 

I hope this helps.  I hope you can still love me.  I hope we can be better than ever.  I hope you trust me and my decisions.  Or at least, that they don't worry you unnecessarily.  I am learning what is best for myself, and I will honor that.  I hope you can understand that that is not a reflection on you.  If you take one thing away from this, please let it be those last two lines.  Oh, and this: that I love you, very, very much.