Day 30: A Letter to Myself

Well Hi There Good Looking!

Wow, the temptation to hide this whole letter behind a thick curtain of irony is frighteningly strong right now. However, I’m going to try really hard not to do that, because to be perfectly honest, I’m so sick of hiding. I’m tired of finding the corner in a crowded room, I’m tired of trying to make myself small and un-noticeable (yes that is ironic, since there is nothing small about me!) and I’m just plain tired of hiding who I am behind who I think I should be.

A good friend of mine recently picked me up on the whole hiding thing. She said that my willingness to share my deepest and most personal life stories with every man and his neighbour is just another way of hiding. I shield myself with these stories like a careful camouflage, using them as a distraction. Much like the tail of a peacock. It dazzles the eye, distracting you from noticing that the bird is actually a dude, and that he’s dressed like the love-child of Elton John and Dame Edna (ironic). If you do happen to notice these things? Well, hopefully you’re still too captivated by the intricacies of that tail to care. Apparently I do that with my dazzling stories of depression, and being overweight. Who knew!?

So, what does all of this mean? Will I start wearing magenta spandex wherever I go now? Will I now announce my arrival into a room with a hearty rendition of ‘Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’? No, I don’t think that’s the point of all this revelation. It’s not about me being noticed or unnoticed, it’s about coming to a place where I finally see the person I am and just accept her.

These letters have been a revelation. They have been a chrysalis, a journey and a birthing. They have revealed so much of what is within me, and they have opened my eyes anew to the extraordinary and miraculous people around me. I have been hugged, thanked, encouraged and embraced by people in a way I could never have imagined. I have reflected, and explored and articulated my life and self and I have been changed because of it. These things just don’t happen in a corner, they don’t happen when you are burying yourself in the sand, they don’t happen when you are trying so hard to be what you think is acceptable to everyone else. They’ve happened here, in this piece of cyberspace where I am front and centre. Where I have poured out my self and discovered a person I kinda like! she is caring, and insightful. She is witty and naughty. She is flawed and in some places a bit broken. But she is emerging, and she is brave, and I have a sneaking suspicion that she is also going to be a bit fierce!

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know it is big, I know it is good and I know I will play the main character! There are no limits, there are only possibilities and opportunities waiting for me to seize them. My life is immense and it’s about time I started to explore it!

And this will be my theme song!!

Now, chin up, shoulders back, and move away from the corner…

Love you xo

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Day 28: A Letter To A Friend I Haven’t Met Yet

Hi,

Image by Christopher Spiewak

I know we haven’t met yet, but I’m just going to write this to you as if I had known you forever. I hope you don’t mind but I have so many things I want to share with you, and to be perfectly honest if I had to stick within the traditional lines of friendship – well, it would take forever and there is no way I can wait that long! So, I guess that’s the first thing you have learned about me, I lack patience.

Another thing you will discover pretty fast is that I tend to jump right into the deep end, I love chocolate and I often have a highly inappropriate sense of humor, there’s probably lot’s of other stuff, but that’s what’s popped into my mind just now.

So, here’s where I  do that whole jumping into the deep end thing.

I hear that things haven’t exactly been going according to plan in your life, you know those plans we make when we are 8 years old and  playing with our Barbies or Cabbage Patch Kids? Did you have a Cabbage Patch Kid? Personally I preferred my My Child but that’s not important right now. What I was saying about ‘the plan’ is, that we only ever saw good things: a wonderful man, a beautiful wedding, noisily pushing out babies like they did on TV… It never enters into our mind that ‘the plan’ can make a major left turn and lead us along a path we never imagined. Yet here you are, in a place that you never pictured yourself, dealing with issues you really have no clue how to address. Perhaps have never felt so alone in your life, please don’t read that the wrong way, I know that you are surrounded by people who love you, people who care and are devoted to you in the closest way possible. But I figure, if I were in your shoes, there would be so many things floating (or bashing – which is more likely the case) around in my head – things that I couldn’t talk to any of those people about, so what do I do with them?

I don’t know the answer to that, but heres some stuff I have been thinking about lately instead.
Have you ever noticed how many people refer to hard times in life as storms? Heaps right? I think greeting card companies have made a fortune off that analogy! So, here are some of my own thoughts about storms:

• Storms aren’t all bad – Sure they whip things around, they make a bit of a mess, but they always serve a purpose, even if we don’t know what that purpose is.
  I was in Beijing in 2007 and the smog got so bad at one point you couldn’t see more than 500m down the road, then there was this huge thunder storm, the kind that flash and rumble all night, while a steady deluge just buckets from the sky. Eventually it did end though and for the first time since arriving in China, I saw the blue sky. Yes, I know this is dangerously close to cliché but just bear with me. The storm cleansed a city, I’m sure it made life hard for many people while it rained, but that same rain cleaned the air that everyone breathes. It accomplished something that was completely beyond our ability to do for ourselves.
• There’s an awful lot of space between raindrops – People don’t drown in the rain! I suppose this is a ‘glass half full/empty senario’. I mean, sure – yes it’s raining and there is no doubt that you are stuck in the middle of the downpour. You are dripping wet and surrounded by muddy puddles. But you aren’t swimming, so you aren’t even close to drowning, the reason you can feel where every drip hits is because of all the places they aren’t hitting! I have to admit, this thought made me want to go and dance in the muddy puddles and feel all the places the rain was missing me!!
• Storms are a contrast, not a conclusion. They are a shadow that passes over a landscape, they are not the landscape itself. They are transient, no matter how fierce – they may impact, they may make a mess but they do not last forever.
• There’s no point yelling at the storm, it can’t hear you.
  Imagine when Hurricane Katrina came rolling in, what person would waste their time on the shore, raging at the thunderheads? What would that achieve? So, when ‘storms’ strike in our lives why is it that we stand there impotently shaking our fist at circumstances we can’t change anyway? Yeah, I don’t know either.

I can get carried away, so I will stop there. I guess what I’m trying to say is, that I know you are having an awful time at the moment and I don’t know why. I don’t think anyone ever knows why bad things happen. I do want you to know that even though we haven’t met, and even though you might think this is really weird and strange – this letter is completely for you. 100% because I want you to know that I am thinking about you, praying for you and supporting you. I am a bit quirky, and I can ramble on, but I hope I have said some things that you needed to hear.

If you ever need to talk – especially about those things you feel you can’t share with anyone else, or if you just want to rage at the storm – you can talk to me. I am close enough to care but distant enough that you needn’t worry about upsetting me or hurting my feelings, most of all I want to be there for you. Because that’s what friends are for, and we are friends (great friends) even though we haven’t met….Yet

Love Always

Amelia xo

amelia@ameliahunter.com (just in case ;))

Day 24: A Letter To Someone Who Is On The Path

Dear Traveller,

You know there are some places that are just filled with profound treasures? The Matrix is one of them! This is a quote that just smashes through your thought processes and dumps the truth right at your feet.

“There’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path”.

I wonder though, if you realise how much this applies to where you are right now? In case you don’t I am going to try to break it down for you real quick okay? Okay.

So the world is filled with billions of people, but let’s just look at the general population you’re familiar with for now. Every person has within them the potential to be, achieve, attain, anything they set their minds to. Yet for some reason, most of them achieve very little. They finish school, enter the workforce, start a family and tend not to wander too far outside of this pattern for the rest of their lives. Now, I’m not saying that this is wrong, far from it. This is in itself a ‘path’, but what my question is, is this the path they always knew for their life?

What I notice happens within the framework of ‘growing up’ is that responsibility and reality evict dreams and aspiration. They simply crowd out the space where vibrance and adventure used to live. Replacing them with an anesthetized landscape that has all the personality and potential of an elevator. Sure, you think your moving, but in reality you’re just visiting the same floors over and over again.

Now I am not saying that those who live with responsibility and reality are creatively castrated, remember I’m both a mum and a wife and I have more than my fair share of both! I am just saying that it has taken me a long and often very bleak journey to rediscover some of those dreams and to recapture that vibrance that I allowed to be choked so many years ago. Those destinations that I knew existed and were integral to the landscape of my path.

‘Knowing your path’ doesn’t mean you’re going to know every step, every pebble and pot-hole. What it means is that you should know the landmarks, those things that you have a passion for: writing, aircraft, caring for the sick, tapestry! It really doesn’t matter what the landmarks are, you just have to make sure that they feature upon your path. Today it’s too easy to know your path, know what you love, know what you dream and then allow yourself to be detoured by doubt, insecurity and sometimes, open opposition. Walking your path will take courage, it will take conviction and it will certainly take choice.

Look at the choices you have made so far, celebrate those which have led you further along the path you know, and perhaps look at road-blocking some of the choices that you can see aren’t really getting you anywhere. Choosing to go after your dreams might be hard, it might mean hours of study late into the night, it may mean ignoring the mocking of those who are close to you, it might mean years of financial sacrifice, but those are your steps to take. You have to remember it’s your path, no one else’s.

I look forward to watching your path unfold. Remember, always choose the red pill! While ignorance might be blissful for a while, eventually you will see that you’re simply wasting away in a bubble of frustration. At least with your eyes wide open, you can see where you are going!

 

 

 

 

 

xxoo

 

 

 

 

 

Day 23: A Letter To Someone Who Has Changed My Life

Dear Dr Paul,

I guess it’s about time I told you all of these things, it’s certainly been a long time coming. You see when I began this blog, my first post was dedicated to one of the two people who had a huge influence upon me taking steps toward becoming a ‘writer’. In that post I hinted that I would eventually tell the story of the first person that nudged me onto this path of words. The person who quite literally changed my life.

That person was you.

It’s better than fiction really. A depressed, overweight housewife goes to visit the local GP at a sleepy country medical practice. She wants to lose weight, expecting to be glanced over and handed a prescription for diet pills (again) she has no idea that her life is about to change.

I don’t know what you saw that day, or if you even remember me, but I will always remember you. I remember leaving your office with an assignment instead of a prescription, you asked me to write the story of my life and bring it back to you in a week.
So I wrote, and wrote, and wrote! I remember my husband asking me one night as I scratched away in my notebook, if I was going to have to pay you extra for how long it would take you to read it! Eventually, satisfied that I had captured how I saw my life I gave you the missive and waited for your evaluation. I also suspected that as well as diet pills you may also add a couple of extra prescriptions!

I will never forget your face as you sat before me the following week. You held my chronicle in your hands and looked me in the eye.

“I want you to make me a promise. I want you to faithfully promise me something”.

My heart was in my throat by this stage, I think I murmured a strained “okay”.

“I want you to promise me that you will go to university”.

I’m fairly certain I stopped processing most everything else after that, university was the last thing I expected you to say! Yet, with that one word a light switched on inside my soul. To this day that light hasn’t dimmed, it continues to burn brighter with every step I take on this path of words and tales.

I know I left your office that day filled to overflowing with encouragement. Filled with vision as I hadn’t been before, you looked beyond the frumpy and lost person who wandered into your office, and deposited hope and possibility. I could write for decades and never come close to explaining the profound and pivotal role you have played in my life, I will be glad if this letter provides you with even the slightest glimpse of the changes your influence has wrought.

It may seem strange to others reading this, that from that point my contact with you was very little. I think the last time I saw you was to show you my acceptance letter into university. So let me take this opportunity to give you a quick ‘highlights reel’ of the last 4 years…

• 2008-2009 Achieved a HD average across all subjects.
• 2009 Gave birth to Samuel Shaun.
• 2010 Began this blog and continued with study maintaining my HD average.
• 2011 Was accepted into Oxford University’s Creative Writing Summer Program and spent 5 weeks studying and exploring England and Scotland.

• 

  The birth of Samuel Shaun Hunter, October 2009.

  

  Me at Exeter College, Oxford.

  

  
  

Obviously I could expand each of those points a million times over, but I really just wanted to give you a glimpse of how my life has changed. Because of you.

Because as a doctor, you chose to see me as a story instead of a case study. You unlocked something that allowed me to make choices I didn’t even know were available to me. You opened my eyes to a new future, if I was brave enough to jump into it. I am so glad I was!

I don’t know how many other people you’ve influenced or empowered as you have me, and though I’m only one I hope that you understand how thankful I am for you. My life has forever been made infinitely more wonderful, adventurous, imaginative and colourful because you dared to be more than every other doctor I have known.

I now understand that we can never know just how much our words, our encouragement, our belief can transform a persons life.

Thank you from the depths of my heart.

Amelia xo

P.S. I’m still chunky 😉

Day 20: A Letter To Someone Who Is Working Too Hard

Dear Overextended,

I have been watching you lately – not in a creepy voyeuristic way or anything, just in the way a person watches out for someone they care about. I have to say, I’m a little concerned. Some people bite off more than they can chew, you seem to jump right to the chewing and don’t even look at the size of your portion! Believe me I’m the last person to lecture anybody about portion control, so it’s just as well I’m not pursuing the food analogy any further, but seriously I am worried that you’ll make yourself sick one way or another if you keep going the way you are.

The thing about gifted people is, they often have infinite possibilities available to them at any given moment. There are so many things that are within the realm of their ‘Possible’,  that they often mistake their opportunities for obligation.

For example: I have a car – therefore it is within the scope of my ‘Possible’ to offer a lift to every single person I see walking along the side of the road.  Being the kind hearted and good willed person I am, I know that my offer of transport could have a positive and uplifting effect upon the recipient. I could mean the difference between them arriving at their destination late or on time, wet or dry, even dead or alive (although if they were dead they probably wouldn’t actually arrive, but you get what I mean).

So, knowing all of the above, acknowledging that my assistance could have such a huge impact upon someone else’s life, knowing the fact that I have a car when they do not; am I therefore obligated to offer them assistance? Don’t look at me like I’m being stupid, I’m making a point!

Just because you can do something, doesn’t always mean that you should.

That’s why God invented busses, trains, taxis, horses and bikes, heck he even invented feet! That’s what I’m saying, while yes, you are a possible answer to a need, there are also many other answers available as well – even if you aren’t aware of them.

You know when they give the safety announcement on a plane? One of the things that always makes me uncomfortable is the part when they talk about the oxygen masks. They calmly tell parents to fit their own mask before they attend to their children. The mother inside of me is screaming “Are you insane!?” because in everything, my kids lives will always come before mine. But the fact is, the pretty lady with the yellow life jacket over her perfectly made up head is right – unless I have enough oxygen to keep my brain functioning, the chance of me being any kind of help to my kids is greatly reduced. You have to take the time to make sure that you’re okay, before you can be confident that you can help someone else.

I’m not saying that you need to stop everything that you’re doing, I’m not even saying that what you have been doing is too much. I’m just saying take a breath, check your oxygen levels, check those around you. If you need a break, take one. There are other hands, feet, taxis and busses all around you who will do whatever you need them to, all you need to do is ask.

Waiting for you to exhale.

Amelia x

Day 16: A Letter To My Afflictions

** Before I begin, I should take a moment to clarify just what I mean when addressing my  ‘afflictions’. I’m not referring to any chronic illness or devastating disability (for which I am truly grateful), I am simply referring to those parts of my make-up for which I am constantly making, apology, allowance or restitution.

Dear Afflictions,

You really outdo yourself at times. Honestly, I have no idea how it is I have managed to live as long and fruitful a life as I have. I am astounded (and reluctantly impressed) by the tactics you employ to hijack my body and hurl me into all manner of awkward and usually embarrassing situations. Thank you for your excellent tutelage in the subtle arts of the delicate backpedal, the nonchalant recovery and the barefaced confession. Whilst my education continues, I really feel those of you who work hardest in my life deserve some attention of your own.

I’ll begin with my old friend ‘Inappropriate Curiosity’. I honestly can’t remember when you first came into my life, I do know that the older I get, the more aware of you I become.
I love the way you blindside me with your arrival, you bypass every filter between my brain and mouth in your quest to suck details straight from the source. The concepts of boundaries, manners or even good taste earn little more from you than a scorn filled scoff. So far you have had me:

• Ask strangers “So, why did you have to go to the doctor today?”
• Interrupt friends who are clearly in the midst of a deep and meaningful conversations with “Oooh, what are you guys talking about?”
• Ask off duty policemen to recount their horror stories
• Exclaim over a newly coiffed male friend, “Oh, look! You got new hair, was it through Ashley and Martin?”
• Upon noticing a couple who looked especially in love “Did you get lucky last night?”

Every one of these cases has been followed by a moment of awkward silence in which neither party can quite believe what has just occurred. It is solely because of your tireless persistence that I have the slap-hand-over-mouth-eyes-wide-in-horror move down to perfection. I am also great with the follow up, “I’msosorrythatwassowrongpleasejustignoreeverythingIjustsaid”.
I wonder if anyone else is as familiar with you as I am?

Another great teacher over the years has been ‘Spatial Dysfunction’.
When you came stumbling into my world is anyone’s guess, perhaps I was dropped one too many times as a child. Perhaps it was because I never learned how to do the monkey bars properly as a child. Perhaps it’s because I’m really a size 8, but I’m stuck in a size 22 body….
Regardless of your origins, due to your constant and untiring attentions I can lay the following achievements at your feet:

• 16,784 items knocked from shelves, racks, tables and displays.
• 9,827 feet stood upon.
• 22,456 tripping incidents, of which 11,001 were in public and 8722 involved me landing on another person.
• 4,366 missed steps.
• 1,283 children knocked over 1,008 of whom ended up crying.

There are so many more credits I could give you, I haven’t even mentioned the instances involving food. Suffice it to say I am well schooled in the ‘find-a-corner-and-stay-there‘ method of dealing with crowded rooms. I am also good at the ‘bump-and-freeze‘ move, this is especially useful in avoiding the ‘domino-disaster‘. That cataclysm of clumsiness, where one bump leads to a trip, followed by several spilled drinks and crescendoing with a squashed child and underwear on public display. After the ‘Wedding-gate’ incident of 2007 I have never been able to look at a dance floor without breaking into a cold sweat.

Indeed, as far as afflictions go, you guys have been my constant companions ever present reminders of my propensity for disaster. I do want to thank you for (so far) avoiding all video recording devices, for the record, I would like to make it clear that I have no desire to become part of the next ‘overweight-woman-should-know-better’ montage on Australia’s Funny Home Videos.

So cheers for the memories, and here’s to the future!

Thanks for teaching me to laugh at myself.

Amelia

xo

Day 12: A Letter to Someone who Procrastinates

Dear Procrastinator,

You wonder why you feel so frustrated some days. Seriously? Take a look at yourself and be honest, you waste time like a Die Hard movie wastes buildings, cars, helicopters and the F-word. At least you don’t use the F-word! You wander around with your eyes closed pretending that you aren’t avoiding doing all the things that need to be done. What you seem to forget, is that while you’re busy avoiding the little things you are also avoiding life. Life exists within the small things, it happens when you are doing something, whether it’s washing clothes, doing homework, or writing a letter a day for 30 days! It’s the little things that lead you to those amazing big moments in life. Those special, momentous, memory-worthy moments in life only happen when you’re actually living not just existing. There’s a big difference

There are two types of people in this world, the watchers and the do-ers. The do-ers live their lives engaged, active and switched on. Sure they aren’t always climbing mountains, building skyscrapers or saving lives, but they are moving. They’re getting the things done that enable them to achieve incredible things – when Sipderman’s Spidey-Sense tingled he didn’t spent 15 minutes turning his house upside down looking for his Super Suit! No! He didn’t spend his down time watching funny cat videos on You Tube, he did his laundry!

Then there are the watchers. The ones who always seem to be on the sidelines watching the do-ers do life. They content themselves with being up to date with everyones else’s lives, all the while bemoaning the fact that their own life is so severely lacking. They crave adventure – so rather than cleaning the kitchen and then going to a park they haven’t visited before, they sit on their couch and watch a new action movie (downloaded illegally). They crave connection and relationship, so instead of having a shower and meeting up with a friend they haven’t seen in a while, they spend their time in chat-rooms and web forums complaining about how genuine friendships no longer exist.  These are the people who sit on Facebook, forever commenting on the status’s of those who actually have a status, yet never have anything worthwhile to share themselves!

The irony of the division between the watchers and the do-ers is nothing more than a choice. There aren’t any excuses that can prevent a watcher from becoming a do-er! Not money, not transport, not time. The fact is the change happens in a split second. Some call it motvation, some call it inspiration, but really all it is is the choice to finally make something happen and get it done. It begins with the little things, but those little things are actually the foundation upon which the big things can happen. Begin to change the first and soon enough you become the one with a status people want to comment on!

So, what are you waiting for? quit reading this letter and go and get something done!

Love you lots, you are amazing and incredible – I can’t wait to read your new status!

xxoo

 

Day 11: A Letter to My Dreams

Dear Dreams,

Actually, you know what? Just forget the whole ‘Dear Dreams’ thing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s like starting a letter with ‘Dear People’, it’s dumb! I mean, to which dreams am I referring? My sleep dreams? My daydreams? Dreams, as in my aspirations, or do I mean the dreams I had as a child? The ones swept away on the tides of time – I never did become the Cabbage Patch Kid Spokesperson.

Let’s start with my sleeping dreams, I dream vividly. Every night. I don’t always remember them, but usually I’ll hold onto at least a few frames of memory, enough so I know that my mind was wild and active while I slept. I love to dream, I’ve dreamt of the most wonderful things and places.

I’ve walked through a mansion created out of a living rainforest. Ceilings that vaulted into the sky, where the light was soft and green and the air smelled of a waterfall. The massive trunks would merge and divide to form rooms, doorways and windows. Nothing was cut or manufactured, it was all a part of a peaceful majestic whole.
I have flown through the halls of my primary school, felt the exhilaration as I burst out of the doors and into the sky; free, high above everything I ever experienced there.
I have been presented before medieval royalty, wearing an amazing gown of deep silver. I bowed before a throne and solved a mystery hidden within a tapestry.
I have woken myself up with my laughter, and I have woken my husband up with my swearing (sorry!).
I love to sleep, because when I dream, there my imagination is free and unconstrained. I learn about myself, I am told stories, I am brave and adventurous.

Do you dream?

Then there are aspirational dreams, these are trickier. I think their trickier-ness is tied up in the whole childhood part of our dreaming. How many times in your life were you told that for one reason or another, the dreams you had conceived for your life were at best, unlikely, at worst, downright stupid? Yeah, me too – we’ve all had ‘well meaning’ adults kill a dream in it’s infancy with a good dose of reality. Well I think it’s about time we kick reality up the bum (yes, Mummy said bum – she’s sorry).

I lost all my dreams for a really long time. It was awful. Life was so grey, so boring! Then as I began to seize some crazy ideas, some not so crazy and very do-able opportunities opened up! I announced one day that I wanted to be a writer – people looked at me with polite surprise, eyebrows raised and awkward murmurs. But while the dream seemed crazy at the time – the steps I took eventually led me to university. Since then I’ve grown into that dream a little bit at a time. Reality would have scoffed at the notion of me studying at Oxford University, but I did that too!

I have other dreams: I want to live in America – San Francisco has a special place in my heart. I want to walk through Scotland and Ireland and watch my husbands face as he inspects the ancient stone walls. I want to inspire people on a global scale – I want to share hope and life. I’m sick of watching people shrink and decay in lives without vision. I want to write books, lots of books – stories that shatter the walls people have built to contain their imaginations.

Dreams are amazing things, but unless they are coupled with belief and action. They are nothing more than wisps of smoke in the space between waking and sleeping. A dream is a seed, within it is the potential for that final destination. Unless you plant it, and surrender to the processes that must happen for it to grow it will always remain simply words on your wall, a line in your journal or a secret in your heart.

I guess this wasn’t really a letter to my dreams after all, it was really a letter to dreamers.

So My Dear Dreamers,

Dream Big, Be Brave, Be Strong, Be Extraordinary!

xxoo

 

Day 10: A Letter to Someone who Pesters My Mind.

Dear Depression,

You like the dark, you like secrets and hiding places and whispering. You crawl through my skin and infect me like a virus.

You are clever, I’ll give you that much. You don’t just attack like George W. Bush went at Baghdad – all ‘shock and awe’ but no intelligence. No, you’re much more subtle than that, first you lead and coax and goad me away from the sunshine, you do it so gradually I don’t notice the dimness. Then at just the right moment you take pleasure in pointing out that I have wandered off the path again, “another failure” you sigh. You do it with just enough condescension to make me feel concerned, you’re careful though, concerned can quickly turn into action and that’s not what you want. Instead you show me how far I have gone, not so far that I can’t find my way back – but far enough that I should be tired, and so I am. Weary to my bones, my scalp feels too heavy upon my skull, my arms are filled with lead and my brain simply cannot follow a complete thought through. I’m just so tired. So you nurse me to the ground, “rest a while” you say, “it won’t hurt to take a small break, you’ve been doing so well”.  You stroke my brow and soothe my thoughts with hollow congratulations while the world slows down around me.

Then I awake in the dark, and all I hear is you. You know my pain and you torment me with it. You slice into me with my doubts and feed while I bleed, then you mock me as I struggle to fight, to cling to hope – you laugh. The worst part is the rage, it’s like wearing a coat of fire, it burns at the base of my skull and hooks into my gut. It’s violent, every hopeless thought, every agonised cry of self destruction  amplified, intensified and unleashed directly into the core of who I am. It is the void within. It is your home.

But.

That was then. I know you now.

You are a fraud, a thief and a liar. You are the cuckoo who forced me to do your bidding for far too long. I was never alone as you kept telling me I was. I was never without hope or love or a future – you just kept me from feeling it and seeing it. You’re strong but there is one who is stronger.

No, it isn’t me. I can’t take the credit for winning this battle, it would be so wrong of me to even pretend I had anything to do with it. God saved me, He saw me wretched and broken and dying. He loved me where you had nothing but hate and venom. I chose Him over you and now I am held by grace. My weakness to your voice is now covered by His strength. You must really hate that!

How did I choose Him? I asked Him in – simple as that. With that choice a door flung wide, shining light and hope into my darkness. Then I asked for help, the help of those who love me and the help of professionals. Every day I grew stronger until I was once again living and breathing – once again me.

I know there’s still times when you get me to wander into darkness again, but I’m anchored to Him – to love. That love shines in the darkness and you are so afraid of its power. You are such a coward.

Even if only one suffering  person reads this letter, I hope they’ll finally see you for what you are. I hope they recognise your presence the way I did, I hope they ask God to shine His light so they can find their way out. I hope they reach out to those who love them and ask them for help. I hope they seek medical advice and trust that God is holding them in His grace, as He promised He would to anyone who calls out to Him.

I hope you are afraid. The tables have turned. I am not ashamed of this weakness anymore, because I will use it to fight you on behalf of others.

Amelia.

**Thanks again Zaldy for the Photo!

Day 9: A Letter to Someone I Wish I Could Meet

Dear Mr Heston Blumenthal,

I just have to put it out there right at the start. In my book you are sautéed  in superlatives, caramelized in compliments and flambéed in flattery – in short I think you’re just dandy!

As far as calling myself a die hard fan – well, if I’m honest I don’t think I’ve ever been ‘die hard’ over anything, except maybe Kevin Bacon in Flatliners, but that was when I was 10 so I don’t think it counts. I’m not the type to line up for hours to get a book signed (sorry), nor will I stake out your hotel so I can steal a toilet roll from your room (reassuring). What I am, is an avid admirer of Heston’s Feasts.

The first episode I saw was your Victorian Feast – Drink Me Potion = GENIUS! I was riveted, but it wasn’t just the concept of bringing history into the present, or  your outrageous use of ingredients – a cows head? Seriously? No, what captured me was you, it was your unbridled enthusiasm for your vision, it was the joy you exuded when your imagination and your vocation collided. I believe in that episode you stated “I cannot resist the challenge of turning a fictional drink into reality”; I get that, I get how it feels when an idea takes hold of you. Suddenly it’s like there’s a map inside your head and you know it’s going to lead you somewhere really cool. Only no one else can see it, they can’t feel the anticipation that bubbles inside of you, they don’t understand that compulsion to jump in head first and see where the adventure takes you. They can’t always understand the fact that it’s not about getting it right, it’s about discovering what will come out of the quest, to get it right!

That’s how I feel about writing. I get an idea, an imagination, or a  thought, it’s ethereal, a possibility; but once I begin to tell the story, thats when the lightning strikes! Pathways open up inside my brain – choices, hidden doorways, chance meetings, a man with a wooden leg! I don’t know what’s going to happen next until I write it, and if I don’t like it I erase, delete, cross it out!

I was in England recently, I studied at Oxford University’s Creative Writing Summer Program (awesome huh?). Knowing how much I loved your show, some very special people booked me a table at your Hinds Head Pub as a surprise farewell gift. I caught the train from London, and then a taxi to Bray (excellent directions on your website -thank you). The whole experience was like a story. I was alone so it was a little bit scary, but I savored each moment: the journey, meeting your lovely staff, feeling like a bit of a loser sitting all alone in a crowded pub. Oh but the food! It was un-be-lieve-able! I felt like I was in a dream, a part of something that happens to other people, but not to me!

I guess what I’m trying to tell you, is that you’ve helped me to search out a bigger life, to embrace the joy in everything I do, and to just get out there and do something! I like to think that just a little bit of ‘Heston’ has come back with me.

So, thanks for being super – and as is inscribed on just about everything in England “Keep Calm & Carry On”.

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Sincerely,

Your non-stalkerish fan xo