Love letter to Ft. Bragg

Hi love. I get to see you today. I've been trying to stay busy, distracted...so that I wouldn't spend all of my time daydreaming about our upcoming time together. The anticipation has been taking me on quite the ride. Today I let the butterflies take flight in my belly and I'm piecing together things to bring with me...it's mostly whimsy. I bet you didn't know that a suitcase full of whimsy practically floats itself to the trunk of the car! On fairy feet. On gossamer wings.

You've been so much to me, evolving over the years from my first teenaged romantic getaway...when I thought gas station roses and dancing to Unchained Melody under your stars was the height of romance. (Wait, that still works for me. Let's have some of that this weekend, please). You were rowdy family reunions and days of watching my babies get to know your tastes and textures, your wildness and insulated safety. You were all magical forest camping and fires oceanside. You were glittering glass beaches full of dazzling wizardry and hikes where the towering ferns themselves made me feel my humanity. You were quenching and nourishing with your forests spilling over cliffs into an oftentimes stormy powerful sea...simultaneously grounding and lofty euphoria without a clear beginning or end. You were my honeymoon, my labor day, my birthday...you were disappointments and redemptions. You presented me with gifts from the depths of the sea, craft beers, whales and caves and even a coffin shaped like a big fish.

You mesmerized me...mesmerize me. You have embraced every love that I've brought with me, quenching and nourishing them just as diligently as you did me...young and old alike. I take you with me everywhere and each time we are together, I leave a piece of me behind.

I'm on my way...and we have magic to make.

For My Dad this Veteran's Day

If I could be with you today, it would be on a bench in a space specifically set aside, tended to and nurtured as a memorial. There would be a flag. There would be enough wind so that as we sat silently, we could hear its fabric song flapping softly.

I would hold your hand in both of mine, cradled in my lap. I would wonder where your thoughts were but wouldn’t burden you with my need to know. I would sit with you silently wondering how difficult your time serving our country was and how you managed to survive. I would be glad to hold you in that moment and be satisfied with the possibility of even a split second of peace in your soul that might come from that connection.

I wouldn’t be sure if my words should be that of thanks or apology so I would sit silently. I would wait for a cue or a sign or a sigh that might tell me which direction to go. I would hope to be a reprieve. To be a safe place. To be a confidante. To be brave enough to hear what you would finally share, knowing that I would gladly assume some of your burden if there was any possible way. I would hope that there was some sense to be made of your sacrifices.

I would send all of that to you through such a simple touch…and in that moment, everything would be okay.

It wouldn’t be a celebration, but it would be a beginning. I most mourn the loss of those beginnings.

Ain't it, baby.

Ten years ago this past July 31st, we met. We knew each other well by that time, but on that night, we met. Completely. It was a meeting that neither of us expected and certainly weren't prepared for in the least. It was fantastic and it felt so...forever. Immediately, forever.

Ten years later, I know in every cell of my being that things happened just as they were supposed to...with the love and the light and the pain and the dark. I know that our agreement was to love, learn and enrich one another's lives and hearts. There was healing to be done and lessons meant to be mastered. You were meant to teach me to embrace fun and easy while I was meant to show you the safety of deep and meaningful.

We did it. There were late Saturday nights after dancing for hours fueled only by round after round of tequila and laughter. There were trips with long naps after hours upon hours of lovemaking followed by beach picnics and bar hopping for that last hour before closing. There was hand holding and whispers, gazes and words of love. There were moments of connection so unbelievably tangible and kisses that brought butterflies and mutual dreams to life.

We bungled it. We taught each other that those lessons came with pain. The fun and ease came with shattered trust buried under piles of lies and deception. The deep and meaningful came with the willingness to take it all away.

We did what we did because we were who we were. We moved apart and together so many times that there is no number capable of capturing it accurately. We hurt one another. We hurt ourselves.

Ten years later, I asked my soul how to proceed. We've used up our chances. The pain has overcome the love, the agreements, the hope, the lessons. I'm not afraid of being separate from you any longer. I'm not afraid of letting you down. I'm not afraid of anything, actually. I know that we've done too much damage and that we have nothing left to learn from one another. I know these things. I know that my future holds lessons but I also know that we are no longer each other's teachers.

We ended ten years after we started, to the day. I felt it, like the absence of the itch when a wound has completely healed.

We are free.

The One That Got Away

Dear The One Who Got Away,

It kind of sounds like I had you shackled in my basement, doesn't it?

You are my "One That Got Away" not because you were my great love or because there was some amazing future to be had by us as a couple. You are my "One That Got Away" because YOU left ME. That was a first for me. Confusing. Humbling. Ridiculous. And you left me for HER. Pfft.

I'm writing you this love letter to say thank you. Thank you for getting away. Thank you for leaving me. Thank you for leaving me for HER.

I needed some humbling. I needed some lessons. I needed a great opportunity to handle myself with grace and class. With your loving behavior through those worst of times, I emerged able to hold my head up high.

Fifteen years later, the lessons are so clear. Fifteen years later, I'm still able to smile about the time together without there being a pallor dulling things down even one notch.

Dear The One Who Got Away, I know you loved me with all you had in you back then. I know you followed your heart and it's taught me to trust...instead of the opposite. I trust everyone, all the time. I trust for a multitude of other reasons but also I trust that people will do what is right for them in the moment. I trust that I attract strong people who are capable of hurting someone else if it's the best choice in the long run. I trust that when we peaked, it was good. It was the kind of good that brings back a smile fifteen years later.

I didn't learn to run and shut down when you did the loving thing and let me go. I learned that sometimes, no matter how hard I want something, the intuitive level must be trusted.

Love Letter to a Lime Tree

Dear Keffir Lime Tree,

I want you to know that you are where you are ON PURPOSE. I thought about you. I researched you. I called and arranged your delivery. I picked you up and nestled you into my car. After all of that, I delivered you and lovingly placed you into a new set of hands. You'll be cared for well. Very well. You will be fed and watered and admired. There will be worms and mulch and I couldn't do it better myself. You will be useful and you will bring joy.

You represent to me my ability to rise above circumstance. You proved to me that I am capable of letting go. You showed me that I can be completely unselfish and not be attached to an outcome...but that I can imagine and celebrate something that I won't have even a slight glimpse of. Something that for so long was tainted.

I sent you to a place to be with a person I can't be with...in a place that needed to stop having any meaning at all to me. I sent you to grow and fulfill your greatest potential, whatever it is. I sent you because I need to believe in potential.

Your purpose is already fulfilled.

The rest is bonus.

Thank you.

Love letter to me

I am participating in 40 days of Love Letter writing. Today's prompt is to write a love letter to yourself. Here goes...

Dear Tara,

I hope you take a moment in your favorite reality to read this. Brew some hibiscus tea. Put on fuzzy socks. Turn on some Sinead Lohan. Burn some incense and turn on the twinkle lights. You're pretty cool, you know.

You've been through a lot lately. Big changes. Adjustments of enormous proportions. It was kind of nice to see you finally lose your shit over the past few weeks. It's even nicer to see you balanced and twirling again. Hopeful. Optimistic.

You're kind of in a pickle these days with work and home and all those changes and adjustments. I heard a quote today that made me think of your situation. "It isn't easy but it IS simple." I see you working your way back to simple and I have to say that after all of these years knowing you, simple really really works for you. I'm rooting for you to get there, to simple again.

You are pretty, intelligent, fun and funny. You're a loyal friend and so very aware of your baggage. You're considerate and you have pretty good morals. Your baggage gets in your own way sometimes and at times you are curt or overly abrupt as a result...but you're extremely reliable for knowing when you're doing it and calling it what it is. When you're ready to be a bit softer, there are people waiting to get closer to you. In your own time, love. In your own time.

You worked very hard for the career you have, and it's inspiring to see how you took your natural gifts and found a way to have someone hand over money for it. Stop thinking you're tricking them, what you do has great value. I called them gifts because that is exactly what they are...you give so much and it comes from a deep well of specialness that is there because of who you are. Trust it. Trust it more. Trust it always.

There isn't much room in a love letter to tell you things that you need to change...but love isn't all about what is right and perfect. Sometimes love is about saying that tough thing that needs to be said. So here goes. I know you've been a little lonely lately. I know you cry. I know you want. I also know that you're a little scared...for good reason. But the tough truth is that you will continue to be lonely until you decide to stop being scared. People will lie, people will be insensitive, people will be selfish. But you're people too, and you do those things also. You want to be loved and brought in close...so do they. I told you earlier that there are people waiting to get close to you and it's perfectly fine to do it in your own time...but I see you suffering. I have to ask: what will it take for your want to be stronger than your fear? Can you start small? Can you start now? You can handle ANYTHING. Take some chances. I've got your back. Delve into your reasons, I'll catch you.

On that note, with that one area as an exception, you are resourceful, imaginative, creative and adventurous beyond belief.

Go get em, Tiger.

PS. Spend more time in fuzzy socks.

Selling out, one trail at a time.

I said, I love you...I know your demons and fears, your limitations and choices.

I said, I love you still...because of...despite...with gusto.

I said, don't hide your demons or pretend they are less or gone or shameful.

I said, I can love you knowing your worst. You can trust me to look at you with loving eyes...period. Disclaimer free.

I said, talk to me. Whisper your secrets if they are too terrible. I have to know you, KNOW YOU for this love to be what it can and keeps trying to be.

I said, look into my eyes and tell me the hard secrets then trust me to be able to wrap them up tight and hide them in the recesses of my heart...only bringing them to the light of day when you need them to be so, if ever.

I said, let's break some rules, raise some eyebrows and find our own secret formula.

I said, let's get dirty. Then let's get DIRTIER.

I said, my love comes with no obligation.

You said "okay!"

But what you meant was "no way!"

But you didn't say that, you only showed it out loud in your actions.

And that really pissed me off.

When my pissedoffedness burdened you, you ran and hid.

Now you're back. Offering some lighter version of love.

I've been considering your offer.

I decline.

My love doesn't come in a lighter version...and I have no clue how or why I'd want to spend energy developing such a boring diminished version of what I embrace a such a fundamental part of me and my life and my soul purpose.

So, let's hike. Armed, physically and metaphorically. Safe. Occasional. With conversations that barely come close to feeding our souls but activity that brings us both joy on that physical and spiritual level. Where we connect with nature...but never each other. Let's hike and be superficial for half days, because neither one of us can find anyone else interested in this activity. De facto time together by default.

But eventually that will change. At a place on the far edge of my enthusiasm, where the cancer of cynicism has started to infiltrate, this eroding corner knows this is not what it should be and that these hikes, while full of superficial laughter and memories, will head toward implosion at speeds faster than we could run from...if we were smart enough to try.

But in the meantime, there are trails to dominate if we can compromise our souls enough to get out there on them.

Love Letter to the Lost

There's something about forgiveness that is blissful. It's that expanding of your heart, character, integrity and capacity for love that is so heady and intoxicating.

Forgiveness has been hovering, shaking, aimed at my heart like the point of an arrow on a bow that's stretched to capacity. It's felt ominous and inescapable lately. I've tried to stave it off with righteousness and outrage and anger...unsuccessfully.

If I would have known it would feel like this, I would have surrendered much earlier.

When I forgave YOU, you lost every iota of power you have or ever had over me. That was intoxicating.

But...

When I forgave ME, I gained every ounce of power in all the galaxies combined. That is fortifying and liberating.

My heart is peace~full and my past mistakes no longer define me...those stories are about some other person in some other time, surviving as best as she could. I've nurtured that girl and loved her into evolving so far past what she was and the mistakes that were hers to make.

I highly recommend it. Nurture. Love. Forgive. Evolve. Rinse. Repeat.

Namaste.

Birthday Love Letter, Prequel to the Sequel

Last year, when I sat down to write your birthday love letter, it was with love wrapped in regret and a hint of sadness...more selfishness than I can stand to see in black and white.

It's amazing what a year can do.

This year, I wish you adventure. More than your imagination could even begin to believe is possible. I wish you deep connection to those who love you...who remind you of why you do the things you do and help you now as much as in the past to be the man you are. I wish you laughter and brilliance, new discoveries and the shattering of beliefs that no longer serve you. I wish you discomfort...cold toes and an empty belly, overtired Monday mornings, blisters and sore muscles...from being places and doing things that push you to live life right out there to the edge of possibility. I wish you moments of staggering beauty that take your breath away and make you wonder at this life in ways that knock you on your ass. I wish you belly laughs and naps and moments of deafening silence to reflect on all the amazing that surrounds you. I wish you soul freedom in intoxicating quantities.

I love you. I'm so glad you were born.

Love letter to an old friend...

When I met you, we were so very young. Still in middle school, trying to be clever and sophisticated beyond our years...succeeding rarely, failing miserably the majority of the time. There were three of us and for the life of me I can't remember who met who first or where or why. We became inseparable. We would walk and explore, lay on our backs and stare at the sky, dream and play. There came a time when I would become shy and tongue-tied whenever you were around. It was awkward and what I know now is that you were my first love. You weren't my first hand holding or my first kiss or my first date, but you were certainly my first big lesson about how issues of the heart can complicate the purest, most lovely of friendships...how convoluted loving someone can be if you allow it to be so...how baggage we never asked for as a child can screw things up completely.

My family had just relocated to that small southern town where you were living. I had decided to reinvent myself for this particular move, the third in as many years. To me, this reinvention was a chance to stop caring. To be more cavalier and less "sensitive" which was a word the grown-ups paired with an eye roll every time my feelings were hurt and I cried. There would be no more tears for the new Tara. I even considered changing my name.

The new Tara had an entire summer to define this reinvention before 8th grade would begin. Somewhere in the meeting of my new friends, I was lucky enough to meet you. You were captivating. I remember thinking how beautiful you were. My eyes would trace the outline of your features...your thick lashes...the emerging angle of your jaw...your lips. Sometimes you would catch me. The old Tara would have blushed under her freckles. The new, less sensitive Tara would just slowly look away as if she hadn't been caught doing anything out of the ordinary. I could tell when this confused you and I could tell when this hurt your feelings, this cavalier attitude of mine. Those times, I would continue whatever it was I was doing and stifle a whole herd of feelings threatening to run amok. I was concerned about your feelings...ashamed of myself for confusing or hurting you...and even more ashamed for being proud that I could pull off cavalier. That shame made me scared that my reinvention was failing...and angry at you for being an in-my-face reminder of what it's like to be sensitive. I wanted so badly to not feel those things. The timing of my self reinvention was bad news for our friendship and worse news for those little shoots of feelings trying to find sunlight.

There were three of us...me and you and him. He never made me feel that little flutter in my belly the way looking at you did...but he also never evoked any of those other feelings above. He was bland...without your thick lashes or love of reading. He was from a stable home where he was treated well, no need to reinvent himself...no wicked step-monster like you or I. He was never accused of being sensitive and actually, he had cavalier down pat. I pretended he was my first love, showering him with all of the adoration I had built up in my enormous pre-teen heart for you. I watched it break your heart and I hated myself for it. You pushed me and challenged my feelings for him and at one point you even tried to make me choose between the two of you. You could see the answer in my eyes and withdrew the ultimatum. What you couldn't see was that although I certainly would have chosen him, it was only because it was the easy and safe choice that would keep me from having to discard my reinvention. My heart was full of you.

We were 12...then we were 13...then you left. You moved away and when you did, you taught me a lesson that almost 30 years later I am still in awe of. You found a way to deal with the hurt and when you moved away, you stayed in touch. You wrote letters to me that were full of stories both real and fiction, poems and drawings and lengthy detailed accounts of what a day in your life was like in your new surroundings. You taught me what grace looks like and what unconditional love feels like. You taught me by example that loving someone does not mean that they have to have a title or role or that you have to have ownership in some way. You taught me that I could be imperfect, wrong and even borderline cruel but that even then there was something worth redemption within me...that I was still worth loving.

He faded into nothingness and 30 years later it is you...your letters, tied up with string that have made another eight moves with me. When I sat down today determined to write a love letter, there was no doubt who it would be addressed to. I was the luckiest girl ever to be loved by you.

Birthday Love Letter

Today is your birthday. Most of the year I can avoid thinking about you with just a little effort. It's either gotten easier with time or I've gotten better with practice. July 5th is the toughest one for me. There have been five July 5ths since we stopped waking up together. Yes, I have been counting.

You were the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep last night. That explains how I woke up this morning...moving my head gingerly on the pillow to avoid waking the sleeping giant of a hangover but moving my bottom in a deliberate wiggle to ensure waking another giant. I was confused for a split second when my eyelids parted and the sunlight didn't feel like shards of glass entering my skull and when my wiggle didn't result in a kiss on the back of my shoulder and a whole other metaphor that I'm going to leave entirely up to the imagination and memory. There was a split second of grief that I wasn't waking up with you, to you...but that split second was followed by seconds, moments, hours of my grateful heart celebrating your existence all day long.

You were my best friend and my most passionate love, but we were a mess...you and I. We were struggles and confusion and conflict and tortured, twisted, torn loyalties. We were white-hot and that kind of heat is a gift that we were ill equipped to handle. But there is no room for those kind of thoughts on this day, I won't be celebrating US in my mind and heart. I will be celebrating YOU. I will be rejoicing that this day marks the beginning of the existence of a unique, energetic, intelligent, imaginative, curious human being with boundless energy and charisma. I will be playing club music and remembering what it felt like to move in sync with you on the dance floor. I will be making Thai Lettuce Wraps and remembering the joy you took from presenting new dishes. I will be hiking and taking you with me in my mind's eye...blazing the trail ahead of me and keeping my way free of danger. I will be celebrating your you-ness in a bazillion little ways, keeping that version of you alive.

I will imagine you blowing out your candles and wonder if there is a small wish in your heart that we had reined in our greed when we had the chance so that this complete isolation from one another hadn't become so necessary.

Love Letter #1

Today these words came to me: "Don't forget the people who got you here, it's easy to lose sight of gratitude in the melee."

Six months ago, I didn't know that my life was lacking the presence of one lovely. There were a LOT of things I didn't know six months ago, actually...and many of the things I've learned came from you, my newest lovely.

You are political, where my political stance is to use my voice to vote only...and make a political stance by not making any further political stance. I continue to vote with my feet and my choices and you continue to vote with your words and your voice and your time. You are the political yin to my yang. You change systems while I protect the individuals hoping those systems improve.

You understand gray areas and know that although boundaries keep things safe, the gray areas are where the real magic happens. You taught me that although there are parts of my life that dictate clear and precise boundaries, I should question them on a regular basis and sometimes even turn a blind eye if the situation calls for a long tall ladder against a ridiculous one. You laughed out loud at me when I learned that the sky doesn't fall and the earth keeps spinning when rules get bent or broken. Even then, you patiently let me chew my nails to the quick until I finally got it.

There were a series of moments when I doubted my ability to even cope. You planted me on your couch, handed me a pillow and a blanket, shared your precious ewok with me and played movies back to back until the edges of my new reality didn't seem so dark and menacing. You shone a light into a darkness that I was pretending didn't exist...and you did it with love and smiles. You pulled strings and pulled rank and let me think out loud without judgement. Is there any better definition of unconditional love?

You seem to have been placed in my life to open my eyes.

I hope you know this about yourself: You are lovely. You are fierce and feminine and full of rays of sunshine. Your energy is contagious and the way you love is inspiring. Your generosity of spirit is humbling and a great example of how to live out loud.

I'm so glad to have you as a lovely in my life.

Love Letter...Butterflies, Baby. Butterflies.

I was curled up in a cozy corner booth with your momma, sore belly from laughing so hard, dry eyes after a few tears shed and tender spots on our hearts numbed with Guinness, Bailey's and 18 year old Jameson's. What else do you do in an amazing Irish pub? You tell tales and drink, that's what you do. I felt so insulated from the world outside with it's passion and promise and pain...every day, all day. I had arrived in a magical wet city and found a magical little niche. I didn't think it could possibly get any better.

Then you walked in. I was speechless for moments that felt like eons. What a well~kept secret you were...with your eyes full of twinkle, all smile and tall easy grace. That was my first impression of you and it exponentially got better and better minute by minute. I knew in the first hour that I wanted to keep you, that one of the people~shaped holes in my life that I had been waiting to be filled was the shape of you. I love it when that happens, when I trust and go with it and there is a near audible click between people.

It wasn't only you. It was your cousin with his big laugh and sweet vulnerable tentative confidence, his love with her sweet toughness and the rock star with his huge musician ego and absolute loving loyalty. It was an instant falling in love with each and every one of you immediately. Your chemistry as a tight little group took my breath away and when you let me fit in, fall in, be myself and pulled me closer into your fold, I was honored beyond measure. But it was you who continued to take my breath away. It was you with your whispers and touches, flirtations and invitations that made me dizzy and giddy.