// grief + loss
| 02/16/2004 - 10:57 p.m. |

2-16-04, Monday, 1:30pm Group (Grief+Loss)
write a letter to person (or thing or whatever) you have lost + are grieving for, addressing:
1. appreciation of person
2. regrets
3. resentments

Dear former self,

I miss you. I try so often not to even think about you because it feels futile. It feels that you abandoned me, jumped ship, + are never going to return even partly. People try to tell me you haven�t gone anywhere, that I am still you, somewhere, beneath the thick choking layers of depression. But I can barely even remember you, what it felt like to be you, + I don�t sense your presence at all. I do believe you are dead.

Who you were was a smart + passionate + driven woman. A work in progress surely, much work still to be done, but you appeared to be so resilient�despite the crap hand you�d been dealt, despite how far + how many times you�d fallen, you kept getting back up, kept fighting, + kept wanting more, more than just surviving.

I regret that you never got the chance.

Or perhaps I resent that you dared to believe you ever had one�

continued 1 week later, Mon 2/23, same group
�I resent that you wanted so much + dreamed so much + felt so strong. Because it was just an illusion, setting me, the empty broken shadow, up for a crash of unimagined magnitude. And you didn�t even seem to fight for yourself, just up + left + let the self-destructiveness reign unchallenged.

And I still don�t get why.