Is it strange that I have not thought about you until recently, in therapy? Is it also normal that I think of you as not being a part of me? I’m sorry I forgot to introduce myself. I am Phoeby; I am over 30 years old and I am in some way you. I feel the need to introduce myself to you because as I said earlier, you are a stranger to me.
I feel like you are both a stranger and my best friend. The stranger part being that I left you seated in a dark corner of your pain and moved on without you. I see the surprise in your eyes when I mention that you remind me of pain. That is not entirely true: you also remind me of purity. You remind me of unconditional love. You remind me of unscathed laughter.
Sit with me for a while and tell me about yourself. Re-introduce yourself again and again and again until I am filled with your essence. Darling, what does is it feel like to be held by your mother? Does she smell like all things warm and bright? I am jealous of you. Jealous that you get to call my mother yours. That you can look at her and remember how her eyes warm up at the sight of you and my brother. You get to crawl into her bed late at night and snuggle with her and she chases away your nightmares. Can we talk about your monopoly of my brother? Of how he is your best friend? Of how you take for granted his friendship and unwavering protectiveness? Can we also reminisce about how he is so selfless when it comes to you? Hillary, but you call him Larry. I am sorry that I verbalise his name with tears in my eyes. To you, he is alive and full of life; yet to me his name is synonymous to broken promises of just the two of us against the world.
I see the confusion in your eyes again. Forgive me. This letter is not meant to change your view of your world. I am speaking to you like a friend I just met and yet I know you so intimately. I know your deepest, darkest moments that you have ever experienced. I know that when you crawl into bed with my mother, you want her to tell you that the violation done to your body is not your fault. At the same time, you are wondering why she doesn’t see your pain. I know that when you think of safety, your brother, young as he is, is it for you.
Baby, oh that endearment! Cherish it with all it’s purest meaning, because you will never be a baby again. Even at this age, that word and it’s meaning was stripped from you. I did not write this letter to remind you of the darkness you hide behind this need to be loved fiercely by your mother. Or for you to lose the awe in your eyes when you look at your mother. Speaking of unconditional love, baby where is your father? There I go again speaking out of turn the first time I speak with you.
If you forget the point of this letter, I hope you never forget what it feels like to be the center of someone’s universe. I hope the seemingly small acts of love shown by your family unit of 3; like your mother combing your kinky 4c hair with so much care as though if too scared to break you. I hope the fact that your brother is not ashamed to go wherever he is with you because as much as you are his irritating baby sister, you are also his world. Regardless of the two worlds; so much excruciating pain and the deepest, wildest joy and love that you feel right now, hope you choose to hold on to the latter, because I can tell you this pain will cripple you beyond measure. You will need those moments of joy to keep floating above the water.
Sweetheart, if I can give you anything at this point, I would sit with you in this dark place you are in and cover you like a fort until the pain passes.
P.S: You did not turn out bad at all!
Love,
30-something year old Phoeby
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