Tag: visitor

Dear Mom,

You know how I am. Not everything I write is flowery or tickled with flecks of sunshine. Sometimes it can be downright hurtful to digest. But that doesn’t make the words any less significant. When it comes to healing, subduing thorns tends to be more constructive than embracing petals.

I needed some time after the last letter. It was packed with confrontation of human frailties that stung to admit. I had to reevaluate the “why". Why am I writing these letters… why am I sharing them publicly if you don’t even need to read them anymore to know how I feel? I didn’t want to be sharing for the wrong reasons.

But writing is the way I process everything going on around and within me. Some people can process emotions by talking them out. Others by simply thinking them over. My thought processes are somehow tethered to the tangible byproduct of written language. To this day, I’m unsure as to whether the clarity of understanding comes more so from the actual process of documentation, or from hindsight analysis of penned introspection. Perhaps a bit of both. 

I know you don’t log into social media anymore to read my letters or posts. You can’t. But you also don’t need to. So why share them? It’s not for you… you aren’t in need of anything anymore. You’re being well taken care of by the One who made you … who made us all. No pain. No suffering. No tears. So why? For me? If that were the case, they wouldn’t need to be shared at all—let alone with the world, or at least whoever might stumble upon them from time to time. So why? A cry for attention? I don’t believe so. You know how I squirm and fidget when I know eyes or ears are on me. 

While some can speak their emotions to offer a voice to their psyche and others can organize themselves through other outlets, such as art, music, or writing… there are still those who have trouble untangling themselves at all… or even who simply haven’t discovered their how. I think that my hope is that by sharing the deepest struggles and vulnerabilities of my heart and of my mind, it might help others find pieces of themselves along the way, too. No one likes feeling alone. And see… I didn’t even realize the answer to my own questions until I spelled them out for myself with words… what a strange little idiosyncrasy to have. I don’t even understand myself until I read my own scribbles.
 
This letter won’t be any easier. I noticed I’m still wearing the orange “VISITOR" bracelet from the night of September 24th. The one that had to be renewed every day just to pass through security. I couldn’t tell you how many times it’s been through the shower, washed along with my hands, or gotten inadvertently soapy from the dish sponge. But it’s still there… worn and faded, with “71384” printed on the side like a reg number for an inmate. When it caught my eye earlier, I realized I’m still there too—even though you're not… at the hospital, chained to those moments by your bedside… reliving the loop because I can’t seem to let go even though you already have. Who am I visiting now? Guilt? Hypotheticals? Irreversible outcomes? I need to write it out. All of it… before a different type of sentence tries to consume me. But first, I need to gather my thoughts. 

I miss you.

Love always,
“Pookie"