I discovered a letter to me recently. I had forgotten I had written it. To say that it was an eye opener is an understatement. I really wished I had written more of these missives to myself at various points in my life as they serve as a real reality check of where I was and where I was going.
Now, I’m not going to spill my guts about what is covered in these 4,524 words I penned to myself. After all, it was a letter to me, not to you. Besides, some of it would be very disruptive to others, and I am way over trying to hurt others in some misguided attempt to clear my own conscious or get a cheap laugh.
Suffice it to say that it was written at a real turning point in my life. It was not too long after the end of the “unfortunate series of interactions” I had had in Florida, what some people called a marriage.
I had been considering where to go after this series of interactions. I giggle a bit because I was actually thinking about moving to Jamaica, Italy or the Bahamas at that point in my life. Talk about escapism.
But the true destination, the one that I uncovered in the letter recently, turned out to be Seattle. Much of this missive was about wanting to return home and wondering what was holding me in Florida. I really had no support system there. I bemoaned the fact that I was lonely, that I could travel across the entire state and never meet a single person I had ever known in Washington. I was adrift.
I even made a list of the pros and cons about living in Florida versus going back home. The Florida list seems really stupid now, things like the palm trees, tiki bars, theme parks, the Keys and lots of pirate festivals. The downsides were more telling: the sweltering heat, the no-see-ums, boring food, flat terrain, Republicanism and the fact that it just didn’t feel like home. Never did, never would.
On the Seattle front, the eclectic culture, the friendly people, the mountains and ever-changing scenery, the diversity of food, and the long summer nights. Downside: earthquakes, rain or threat or rain… yes, the list was pretty short.
What did I learn from reading this letter? I should have moved right back to Seattle right after the unfortunate series of interactions ended and never looked back. I was a fish out of water and suffocating in the aftermath of a catastrophic no-win relationship. I didn’t really know my ass from a hole in the ground at the time, and was only going through the motions of life rather than living it.
I wish I had known then what I know now about why this was all unfolding the way it did. I held onto a lot of needless blame and made some decisions that I shouldn’t have, such as deciding to stay in the house with my ex instead of getting the hell away from a toxic, narcissistic environment that was Florida.
I should have also stopped pirating there. I couldn’t escape this individual, drawn into constant drama and reopening old wounds continually. Where pirating had once been my safe place, it had become equally toxic. I was totally lost on all levels.
The funny thing about letters like this is that it has so much truth to it as well as a lot of bullshit. We are all works in progress and this particular Letter to Me shows that I was in the shop at the time, up on the rack, parts of me strewn about, with no repair manual in sight. Worse, I was the mechanic, having absolutely no skills for trying to put myself back together after being in a wreck of a relationship where I was totaled.
Even so, there are plenty of grains of truth in this tome. I could have reread it a year later and saved myself some more pain and agony, as I continued to recycle and revel in the past, wondering what I could have done different and whether I should have done things differently going forward.
I didn’t, of course. Part of the reason was that I was flying low in life at the time. I was at the treetops, trying not to crash and burn into the ground. If only I had been able to have a higher viewpoint of my life then, viewing it a 20,000 or 30,000 feet, so I could plan my journey more fully, having a bigger picture of where I could go and how I could get there.
I wish this whole analogy of flying was mine, but it’s not. It’s something I’ve learned only recently. And I have really embraced it. This letter shows clearly that I was at least trying to gain altitude back then. I knew that I was flying at tree level and was trying to pull up.
I didn’t back know any of this back then. Only recently have I started to see my life from higher altitudes, seeing where I want to go and how to get there. That’s been part of this change that’s been going on lately. I haven’t changed so much as my view has. Oh sure, I still like the excitement of flying just above the tree tops these days, but it’s only because I have a better view of what it’s like at a higher level. I can actually see where I am going and how to get there, rather than just wondering what’s over the horizon.
This Letter to Me shows the danger of always flying just above the trees. Several options I considered then could have sent me right into the ground, a total crash and burn with no survivors. Thankfully, I never set a course for those destinations.
I do think that there will be more letters to me in the months and years ahead. I have found this one so helpful that I wish I had more from my past. Thankfully, I’m not looking at where I’ve been as much anymore. Quite frankly, the view from 20,000 feet is pretty nice, so much so that my treetop antics will be fewer and farther between. I survived the barnstormer years, now on to bigger and better things.
In the Emerald City, plotting my course,
– Robb