Hi there my letter loving family!
Apologies for being missing in action around here and on socials. I’ve been wrapped in a self-imposed cocoon and I’m only just beginning to unravel. I now realise I slowly enclosed myself away without even being aware I was doing so. I’m picking at the corners of the swathes that have held me so please be patient with me my friends as I peel away it’s comforting strength opening myself with caution to the vulnerability of connecting to the world that I don’t think will ever make sense again without Doug and Mum.
In recent weeks I managed to get away for a few days to spend time with a dear friend. It was a great circuit breaker filled with hugs and conversation and nature and exploring. All welcome gifts for my soul.
This morning when the words started to flow again on the page, it felt like I needed to take time with sharing the unravelling of my cocoon. It’s something I need to express in real time as I give it air and space and let ‘whatever’ bubble to the surface.
So I’m going to write this experience as it unfolds in parts. Today is Part 1. I don’t know how many parts to this freeing of the swathes there will be. I rarely have a plan when it comes to writing. Seasoned writers would be gasping in horror at that thought right about now, but somehow being organic and winging it ‘mostly’ works for me. Yet, if there is a way to be organically consistent amidst my winging I’d welcome that too.
There will be no set day I’ll land in your inbox during this time. It could be twice a week or more, or less, so I’m afraid you’ll have to watch out for me.
Thank you once again for being on this turbulent journey of life with me… embracing it all… the splashes of joy, the realness of the heart, the light and shade of the duality of life itself. I appreciate you.
Dear Doug,
I travelled the road alone. There was no whistling to songs you loved. There was no tolerating of my singing. There was no meaningful conversations around living life conjured from the rhythmic rumble of a long car ride together.
Just me and Shania Twain belting out ‘You’re Still The One’ while tears rolled and voices cracked… actually, that was just Shania. If only she could hold it together we could re-record a duet (oooops, sorry, that was a daydream I had on the trip. It’s an ongoing work in process).
The first few hours I travelled familiar roads surrounded by familiar countryside. Familiar exists we’d take for health appointments came and went without detour.
No gloating was to be had with the rheumatologist over your footy team beating his.
No banter with the skin specialist accusing him of using blunt anaesthetic needles.
No sitting in hospital waiting rooms and specialists rooms being summoned into pokey offices without windows to hear bad stories from results.
No motel to arrive at hoping the wheelchair accessible bathroom promised was indeed wheelchair accessible.
No whistling, no tolerating, no meaningful conversation, no detours, no gloating, no banter, no bad stories, no hospital stays, no surgical procedures, no motel rooms far away from the comfort of home.
No you.
Road trips with you sometimes didn’t end well. Health related appointments were really the only time we took long car rides together - your body under too much sufferance for any journey to be of pleasure. Yet, despite the reasons we were on the road, the time we spent together travelling in the car were some of our most precious times.
For my solo journey the vehicle was full of bits and pieces and a suitcase (or two) of things I needed for my five days away yet the emptiness of your absence sitting beside me echoed around and through me like I was sitting in a giant shell. This wasn’t my first long haul without you but it sure was filled with a lot of first time noticing on my part.
A few hours further down the road I emerged from the urban sprawl greeted by expansive undulating country and majestic tall eucalypt forests that hid delightful villages steep in history and the abundant bubbling of healing mineral springs. You would have loved the unfolding landscape of ranges and valley’s to be travelled before me Doug.
I breathed a sigh of relief feeling like I’d passed through to a different dimension in time; one that held no history or familiarity for me, or of me.
Familiarity has become my safe space – I wear it like a protective coat against the elements of the unpredictability of life. It holds the safety of place, people and resilience of yesterday’s that envelopes and comforts me when I feel the harsh cold wind of uncertainty gather strength threatening to knock me off my feet.
Yet, oddly, I found myself inhaling deeply the air of this unknown landscape.
I felt a calm wash over me as I rode the rise and fall of the ranges flanked by forests that no doubt held magical pockets of serenity. And waiting for me, when I reached my destination, would be the most soul healing embrace from my long time soul sister that would continue nourishing me to my core long after the waves of goodbye had faded into memory.
Until next time, all my love,
Sandra Xx
Some readers prefer to fuel my tea drinking habit as I tap away publishing my letters. If this has been you, I thank you from the bottom of my tea loving heart. If this sounds like something you’d like to do then tap the ‘buy me a cuppa’ button below.
It’s so easy to hide & not know it. When I was 20 (ish) a colleague told me when I was hiding they noticed I stopped wearing colourful clothing to work. It’s so odd and interesting what our brains do in self preservation.
❤️❤️❤️