Thank You

A year of holding something within, afraid of what the repercussions of its seeing light might be, ended in a spontaneous 4a.m. letter, one I did not envision I would write, though with hindsight, I am thankful to have felt the spur. I could not sleep much on the 20th of January. I was excited. I felt apprehensive. Yet two nights earlier, a shift had occurred in my feelings, or rather in my understanding of them. I suddenly was confronted with my inability to find soulutions to the problems I had in my mind. Baffled. I had tried possibilities, new ways of thinking, attempted to origami myself an epiphany, as I had done many a times before, and after trying so many times to reach success without success, I felt the path of looking had worn me out. I felt, this wasn't the way. And it came as a bizarre emotion - an emotion that normally I would try to think through and soulutionise, yet this time, I couldn't, because there were no thoughts to think about. I tried making some, but I knew them as illusions and couldn't convince myself otherwise, of which I am thankful. So I took the day, the Wednesday, and felt. I said to my friends that it was a time of digestion. I needed then, to let my body digest, to pass this emotion that had been held within my chest. That night, conversation came. With the emotion still in my chest, but with few strings of thought tying it there, I described what I felt and why I felt that. Without my mental interference, the right words came. And then they were reflected back to me, my interlocutrice holding up that mirror I'd avoided seeing because I was too busy thinking about it, and I saw in it, a smile, in my chest, in my soul.

The shift. Overthinking, i.e. fixation would not yield answers to questions I had. Simple. The truth always is. I'd read that thinking would not bring answers, though perhaps I had not believed it with my heart. So it appears I had to stop, even for a day, looking for the answers in my mind, and let, trust, the answer to come to me. And she did, right then, in the evening. She looked at me with knowing eyes, with an expression of understanding and contentment that for the first time I was seeing her. I could not stop smiling. There she was, waiting for me. We embraced, because what can souls do when they feel love for each other, when they feel validated, known, trusted. We were one.

The beautiful simplicity of that shift had lead on to remind me that there was no further need to hold things mind-locked. So early the Friday morning, the absence of sleep allowed for my heart to open and indicate to me a letter I needed to write. It was a letter to a friend, a dear friend who lost someone and whom my mind had depreciated and disrespected, yet loved. I felt the impulse of an idea to write him this letter, explaining to him what I had held in my mind about his friend's death and how I had treated him, unworried in my heart about what he would think, because I felt it was time for me to know that he would not judge. I struggled to believe that, which is why I held the secret of my mistreatment of him in my mind. It took an hour and a half to draft, and then later in the morning, another hour or so to write up on presentable paper. It was cathartic, because I was releasing emotion. The letter was addressed to him, because I felt he was the right one to read it, though it was also meant for me, meant to be my release, because I knew that if I were to just let him know of the thoughts I had and why I could not justify them, I would be free of them, I would be free of trying to figure out reasoning for their being there, and then, I could just accept them as occurrences.

I placed the letter around the stem of a white rose, gave it to him inside a box, as a surprise.

The weekend came, and not hearing from him made me feel afraid that he may not have sympathised with me, that perhaps he had decided to cut me out. I did not hear about the letter until Sunday afternoon. Before that moment, I had been doubting in anticipation, his answer. I had become afraid because I was relying on a future outcome, an outcome I wanted to predict desperately though I could not. That was the old mental pattern. But then the shift from Wednesday made itself felt again, and I was reminded after watching a video by Kim Eng, that the answer, the reaction, I had been looking for from him, would not come when I wanted it to (a.s.a.p.) but when it was right for it, and that worrying about it in the meantime was not going to affect it. So towards the afternoon of Sunday, when I made this realisation, I finally was able to let go enough of thinking about how my friend was thinking to go on with my day. And sure enough, when the time was right, he began to talk to me.

He said he'd read the letter and did not judge me for it. I was very relieved to hear this, because my mind had also made up stories about how he would be vengeful or angry. Yet he wasn't. He was just... accepting. I felt like I owed him an explanation, as I told him. And he said I did not owe him anything. Then I said to him, perhaps I need to talk to him again, because I owed it to myself, and he accepted that. I came online earlier tonight, thinking I would talk to him but he was offline, so this blog post is the result of that. I was thinking about what to say to him, again, old mental patterns trying to get me thinking about answers beforehand so as to be prepared to give them. But nothing that I have thought of feels right, because there are too many factors to consider and I cannot judge them. I do not have that vision. Yet, I feel it in me to thank him. His acceptance, his forgiveness, is the answer I was looking for, the answer I craved, because it is love. He said he does not say "I love you" but shows it. And through this, he showed me.

So I thank him for his gift. I am grateful to know him, to know his kindness. We are blessed. We are blessed, truly.