Dear Courage

I really want us to be the closest of friends. I want this because I just think you are amazing. I think you are full of power and that if I could just spend enough time with you, if I could just figure out how to hold on to you and make you stay, that we could just conquer the world. Or, we could conquer my world.

I will be the neediest of friends at first, I admit. I will constantly be looking for your reassurance and support. I will be desperately trying to please you. I want you to feel that I am worth your time. I want you to think the world of me. I long for you to wish to be with me always.

I need you because there is so much I want to do yet. There is so much that I feel needs to be said; so much that I have finally understood, or have begun to understand or even just realize. I want it to be known, but I don't know how to say it in a way that will be heard. There is so much that needs to be recognized; to be seen.

I locked so much away. I hid it, changed it, or denied it to please so many variations of others and it won't be kept in the tower anymore. Yet the habit means I don't know how to let it be free. The light feels too bright, the noises are too loud and there is no safety net. The uncertainty as to how to manage it or share it is maddening. There is always, always the fear of it being criticized or mocked or misunderstood. The fear is terrible. The idea that it would all be locked up again is worse.

I need your help while I figure it out. I will stumble and falter but I want to go forward. I feel like I can hear you saying to me already:

Things will change. There will be criticism and mocking. Some people are looking and others are not. None of that matters. It is too hard holding it in now. You have to let it go. You have to make the changes.

I already agree with you. I am reasonable, Courage. I will listen. I want to change. Changing doesn't seem so scary to me, honestly. I am afraid of doing it wrong. I am afraid of making more mistakes. I am afraid of more regret.

Someone said something today that made me think of you. They said they were ready to be brave enough to not hold on to the comfort of misery anymore. Or something along those lines, but I got it. I got it. I will need your help because I think the sort of fearlessness I desire will be isolating and I need you to remind me that it's still right, at least right for me.

I know how desperate I sound. I know that there are so many more important issues in the world. I know that to anyone else, it seems very easy. You just do it. I wish it was so easy for me because I think that I would do it if it were. For me, it is hard, and I want your help with that, too, please.

Please.

I will do the work. I will try to be better. I will sit in adoration at your feet. I will praise you to the hills. Take a chance on me.

What do you have to be afraid of?

me

Dear HORROR

Sooooooooooo remember when I was all, I will take pictures and see the world anew? Yeah...that didn't happen. I tried. I carried my camera with me everywhere and I kept repeating to myself: see the things like it is the first and last time.

Nothing. The only thing I consistently wanted to take a picture of was food and that just didn't seem emotionally healthy. I was feeling discouraged with my photographing ways when the universe, i.e., you, sprung this on me:

Is that not the scariest thing you have ever seen?! Imagine my terror at leaving my apartment for work in the morning, walking to my car and seeing that, that, staring down at me. Sure, you might see a child's toy, but I see demon eyes. Why would anyone procure that for an innocent child? And do you know the scariest part? It wasn't there when I returned home from work that evening. All windows were evil stuffed animal spawn free. BUT! When I left the next morning for work, IT. HAD. RETURNED.

I took a picture because I couldn't believe the horror and also how fortunate it was that I had finally happened on something that I could imagine I was seeing for the first and hopefully the last time. The devil doll hasn't reappeared but I look for it everyday.

Watch your backs, you humans. Those eyes follow you.

Everywhere.

me

Dear Distracted

Whilst engaging in my morning beauty regimen, I took some of my hair mousse, glanced at it and began to rub it on my forehead. I then looked at myself at the mirror and yelled: "LIANTONIO!" (Interestingly, I often do this. I yell at myself by my last name. Like, LIANTONIO! Why did you watch that movie? LIANTONIO! Look out for those pedestrians! LIANTONIO! Hair mousse doesn't go on your forehead!) I quickly realized that there aren't any hairs on my forehead which require mousse and wiped it off.

My forehead has held it's shape all day.

Methinks I might require a vacation. Or post it notes on all a.m. products reminding which should be applied where.

me

Dear Idea

So I finally finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I loved it. Near the end of the book, there was this quote:

"To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: thus is your time on earth filled with glory."

I think these are such inspiring words. This, to me, is what makes reading magical. The truth in what someone else has said. The transformation that can occur within from reading for a few moments on a weekday night.

I have decided to try looking at things this way. I am also going to use this as an inspiration to take more pictures. If I take a snapshot of what I am seeing as though it's the first and last time, I hope to find beauty, inspiration, humor and happiness. Here is picture one:

My office has this Bucky Badger blanket (which I purchased from the Craigslist to cover up the ugly white walls). My friend and I started dressing Bucky-THE BLANKET up for various times of year. As you can see here, Bucky was celebrating the winter Olympics from a couple of years back.

The thing is, I really think the mascot itself is horrifying, but when I look at the blanket I will remember the first time I came here to begin college. Those first days were scary and challenging but on the day that I finally leave, I will think of all that I experienced, how fundamentally changed I am from leaving home at 18 to the person that I am today.

The glory was in the learning.

Until picture number two...

me

Dear Book Addiction

I had sworn off purchasing any new books and only getting them from the library. This past weekend, though, there was a sale and I purchased several. Currently in the queue:

Things Fall Apart
My Life in France - Julia Child
the latest Shopaholic book by Sophie Kinsella

I am currently reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I have been reading it for approximately 476 years. I am a slow reader, but every time I open that book and read some of Betty Smith's words, my brain feels better. This is reason number four that I adore books and language.

me

Dear Stranger

Today whilst procuring for meself a coffee drink at the 'Bucks this morning, a stranger in line behind me warmly greeted me.

"Good morning,!" he belted.

"Good morning," I did not belt in reply.

"You look sparkling this morning," he said and threw his head back and laughed.

"Oh. Thank you. Heh, uh," I graciously and now nervously replied.

"You see, I've lost my mind, so I am looking for replacements," he said and heartily laughed again.

" Ha?," I said.

I got my coffee and quickly left.

That's how mama rolls, homeys.

...

Me

Dear First-Hand Knowledge

Have you ever been asked how you would describe a sunset to a person born blind? It seems an impossible question and an impossible task. How do you help someone to see a sunset when they do not see? I think there is a way to do it, kind of, because you can read a book and imagine a place or person you have never seen on account of the author's descriptions. There is still the issue of explaining something seen to someone who has never had that faculty but if you love a sunset and you love that person, I bet you could do it, you humans. I bet you could do it.

Except.

Now the issue is the love. For me, that is the problem because people are always talking about love and I know there are things I love; I think there are people I love, but I don't know what that is supposed to feel like. Is it warm or cold or like stomach cramps or dizziness or what? When someone loves me, how should it make me feel? Warm, cold, full of stomach cramps?

There is not one sound definition of love. It is too dependent on people who are delicate variables. It means something different to all the humans and the responses you get always come down to: you'll know it when you feel it. Which puts me back at square one, blind, standing in front of a sunset, awash in descriptions, but not truly understanding the words well enough to envision the sky.

What I know right now is that there is someone I think I love who all evidence points to loves me back but since I don't know what that should be making me feel just leaves me feeling confused. The confusion makes me feel like I don't have love because I didn't think a love symptom was confusion. But maybe is. I know that I want to feel confident that they love me back. I hope that they do. I hope to one day see.

Me