that was fast.
Eight months have gone by since I sent my last tinyletter. Eight months since I held tight to my identity as a writer, to my determination to write, my pledge to myself.
Two months after I sent the last one, my mom went to the hospital. Three months after, she was gone. For months after that, I did little more than wonder why and how I could exist, and be anchored in the world -- without a mother.
It's been almost six months since she passed, now, and finally, I think of other things. I think about how I stated that it is a duty of mine to write. And how it is my duty -- while here in this world -- to anchor myself.
Many months have gone by with not a lot of writing. Editors I worked with have forgotten my name. I have felt like maybe I had forgotten that the writer in me is, by far, the most me part of me that I know. The me I knew when I was young, and living at home, the me when I left, the me before Bela, Nic and Ollie. My writing anchors me to me. Anchors me to the ground below me. Connects me to my memory. Connects me to you.
**
I've seen therapists for small stretches of time, for the past couple years. I always start therapy right when I know I'm about to blow something up in my life. I started seeing one when I knew I needed to leave Mike, when I met Nic, when I found out I was having a baby boy, and when I was about to give up on me.
Each time, there has been a very specific task I have signed up for the therapy to take care of.
Don't let me do this thing. Don't let me do this thing.
The therapist I've been seeing recently knows so many things. She knows bits about my past, and bits about my present. Bits about my family of origin, my friends, and my loving little apartment here. But here is what she knows more than anything: that I do not want to give up on me. And that giving up on my writing -- for me -- is the same thing as giving up on me.
So she pushes me. She reminds me. She asks me. "What are you doing to make sure you don't decide your dreams aren't worth anything?"
She pushes me. She reminds me. She asks me.
**
Last week, I found out that some of the food diary pieces I wrote surrounding my mother's death will be published in a publication I am proud for them to be in. (They're not in it yet, so the doubter in me still believes this will become untrue and that I'll be ashamed for believing it could ever be true, but here's hoping that it's really true.) I also found out last week that I got a scholarship for a writing conference in September. I also got an opportunity to (gasp!) review restaurants for a local publication here in Madison.
I also got a letter in the mail, from a woman I haven't seen or spoken to in years -- the letter was handwritten on ruled, white paper, and in it, she asked me, 'What prevents you from writing that book or getting paid to write? What do you need to make that happen?'
The answer to her first question is, of course, me. I prevent me. Because nine out of ten days, I do not believe in me. I do not believe that my dreams deserve to come true. Despite their unfolding in front of my eyes.
The answer to the second question can be found in the fibers of the white, ruled paper she folded up and put a stamp on. In the blue ink she wrote with. In the imprint of her hand. I don't know if it's 'right' and I don't care if it's 'wrong.' What I need to make it happen is what she gave me. Her validation. Her belief in me. Someone else's validation. Someone else's belief in me.
**
My mom came to understand that I wrote. That it made me happy. And while she was certainly a supporter of overall me, she wasn't necessarily a supporter of the writer in me. She didn't push me, or remind me, or ask me. And while I thought I didn't need that, it appears that perhaps I did. Maybe not from her, but still, all the same, I had need. I have need.
So -- know this. If you have ever pushed me, reminded me or asked me what I was writing, or why I was writing, or why I wasn't, or what it meant to me -- or told me you loved something I wrote or that it made you feel a little bit of something -- you have mothered me. You have validated me. You have helped to anchor me. You have loved me. Thank you for loving me.
Onward.