September 25, 2023
This Isn’t the Way It’s
Supposed to Go
Dear Friend,
This will be my last letter to you. I thought it appropriate
that, while looking forward in exploration at where we might go, I might look
backwards at how I came to be where I am now.
If you asked me when I was young, I wouldn’t have told you I
expected my life to end up this way. Not
that I dreamed of being the blond princess running away with the dashing rich
prince. When I was a child, we girls all dreamed of being married to a
strapping strong man (if not a prince, could I at least be rescued by some sort
of noble knight?) while raising a couple of children. While I was an undergraduate in college, I
had endeavors to be single, childless, and have an impressive career in the
federal government through the research division of USDA or the regulatory
division of NRCS.
I never imagined at 47 that I’d be a disabled divorced
(twice) queer working at the bottom of the totem pole of a large seed sales
company in a small city, living alone with my adult son with over 930 poems
written but barely having one book published, still living paycheck to
paycheck. But here I am.
What will my future bring? Will I continue in my job here,
coming to the office daily, my son eventually finding another home and moving
out, leaving me to live alone again?
Will my son buy my house and my parents need my help, meaning I live a
hybrid situation, working half of the time in the office, the other half of the
time from their house while I assist them?
Will I move to another career this late in my life? Will I find someone
that sees past my disability, and finally learn to not lose or suffer in love?
Will we live together, or move between our two homes? I don’t know.
I spent most of my life trying to fill a hole I felt inside
of me. That sounds so cliché, I know. I
have a love-hate relationship with food: this is the first thing I tried to
fill the hole with, developing a strange sort of eating disorder that has
affected my body even today. I tried rescuing cats. I tried drowning my hole in alcohol, or at
least forgetting it with my blackout drunks. I tried bad relationships with men
and sex. I tried filling my rooms with things, a material lifestyle. I have
tried nearly everything: being an alcoholic, I can become addicted to nearly
anything. Nothing worked.
Now I’m over nine years sober. It got worse before it got
better: there is a difference between being chemically sober, and being
emotionally sober. When I quit drinking, all the problems that I was ignoring
(and the hole) were still there—I had to face them first, and fight them. I had to find a new way to live. And for me, sometimes I have to learn
something a few times before I get the message. Especially when it is very
close to me (especially when it is ABOUT me).
I can honestly say that I’m better now. And the hole?
Sometimes it is there, sometimes it is filled with contentment, with
serenity. I wake daily and tell myself I
will fight. No matter what kind of day
it is.
The United States is obsessed with this idea that we always
have to be happy. We are forever in a pursuit of happiness. Yes, it is a good thing to be happy, but we
must also allow ourselves to feel sad. And mad, and disappointed, and joy, and
peace, and grief, and the whole gamut of feelings that life sends our way. I believe this partially where my hole came
from: I wasn’t feeling everything. I was trying to numb it all away. We feel, and we deal. The key is to not get stuck in just one
feeling. And to not feel it alone. You can share your feelings with me. Needing
help is okay, and all feelings are okay, and as long as my overall life is not
miserable….as long as I have decided to be content with what I have and with
what I can reach and that I am not perfect and that no one is…this is a good
life.
No, my job is not at the top of the company. But it is a job with good coworkers that has
benefits that I need and hours that help me keep a sane schedule. I haven’t
published many books, but I have one book coming out soon, and it is an
exciting thing to say I am an author, and have two blogs, and people are
excited with me to see this coming to fruition finally…and all things have
their time and their purpose. Perhaps there is a reason for the delay. I did it
better now that I know more. I do not have a huge circle of friends, but I am
involved in groups that understand me, and have a small selection of intimate
family and friends that accept me for the strange misfit that I am, and that is
better than pretending to be someone just for a large following of fake
relationships that fall apart when I need them the most. I know I am wanted
when people make time for me.
Speaking of friends….can I count you among them? Where do we
stand? In Evan Jones’ essay collection I’ve Been Wrong Before, he says
“…we settle for so little knowledge of each other” and this is why I’ve been
writing these letters. Now you know more about me. Will you tell me more about you? What are you
afraid of? It is your turn.
But if you take me, you have to take all of me. I have had men approach me, ask for Rita. I
didn’t write these letters, talk about my hypersexuality and mania and illness,
to bring her out. She is destructive and
messy and obsessive and possessive when she gets called out. I didn’t write
about her to be used or abused again, to be someone’s affair, to be a secret
fuck until they work things out with their significant other, or a one-time
stand again. When Rita is here, my feelings get confused and my hypomania
emerges and scares people away.
I’ve written many poems.
And some of my poems are exploring my feelings about romance, about all
kinds of relationships. My next poems? You wouldn’t be just a line in a poem. I’ve
learned from that. I’ve also learned that I don’t want to suffer for love (any
kind…platonic, romantic, family). I won’t be disposable; I want someone who
will choose to make time for me, even when there doesn’t seem to be time to be
had. My friend who lives miles from me? We make it work. Even when we are being
pulled in opposite directions. Perhaps these letters are a little for him, too…
we have learned through the many years how to get closer, how to keep it going
through decades of change, of friendship.
But now he knows me better through these letters, too.
After all that you have read, after these seven letters, are
you still hanging with me? Through the distance, through the miles and the
years and the pixels and the Wi-Fi and the reasons for keeping all this inside,
the reasons to run away, despite what might hold us back…do I have you to count
in my group of fellow misfits and family? Will you want all of me, Julie and
Rita, both?
Are we headed towards something, other than a cliff? Am I
the one that got away? Do I play You’re Gone for you, too?
Is it too good to be true, or do I still have you?
Hoping to count you as one of us, I sign off again.
With my love to you, dear friend,
Julie
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