Today I responded to emails.
The number of messages in my inbox was overwhelming. It’s now 11pm and I’ve been typing all day. I haven’t finished yet, but it has made me think. Think a lot of good things. Like how much I am loved by people. It’s actually a very humbling thing. I have messages from people from many parts of my life; from previous workplaces, from friendships, from school and university. Every one of them is expressing their goodwill and their desire for me to be happy.
Yet, some of these messages have sat in my inbox now for months. I isolate myself terribly sometimes, and yet the messages still come. It would be easy for the people who sent these messages to imagine that I am indifferent to them, but in honesty the opposite is true. Sometimes I think the problem is that I have found it hard to accept the manifest affection that these messages carry. You know, the old story, that it’s impossible to accept anything from another person that you don’t feel you deserve.
So the truth of it is that these messages of care and love and concern sustain me. I treasure them. I have kept a copy of every message that anyone has ever sent me. I often read through these and reflect on the friendship and even when I find it hard to initiate contact and interaction with people, I feel like I’m still somehow in contact with them through reading messages from them.
Some of the messages are from people who have decided in a definitive way that they no longer want a friendship with me… and there are some people who I have lost contact with in a less deliberate way. No matter what, these items of communication are of tremendous value to me. They represent the value I place in the people who wrote them. Those of you who persevere with me and are patient and tolerant and have stood by me through what have been some very challlenging times for me.
Thank you!