This Year…
22nd December 2025
Hello my most beautiful and precious starshine,
How are you my lovely? I really do hope you’re keeping well, feeling completely relaxed and enjoying doing the things you love. I also hope you’re sleeping restfully and blissfully {} xxx
I still can’t really write. Crash is very bad and brain is struggling severely. I can’t seem to get back to how I was before all the medical appointments, but therapy is taking a huge chunk of energy as well. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions.
I needed to write to you because I’ve just watched the final episode of The War Between the Land and the Sea. It’s absolutely brilliant isn’t it?!! It did make me cry though, I could feel their immense grief throughout.
Bowie’s Heroes has been popping up over the last week, so it also brought me to tears when Alison Goldfrapp and Lorne Balfe’s rendition of it played during the final scene. It also prompted me to write this and send you Depeche Mode’s fantastic rendition of Heroes. I remember introducing it to you, and you loving it. I’m sure Bowie would as well. We can see and hear David Gahan feeling it in every bone {} xx
Someone posted a question, “What word describes your year?” What’s yours? Mine’s undoubtedly grief. I feel it greatest with you, but then it punched me in my heart and stomach a few days ago. A dear friend who I’ve wanted to write to over the last few years, but couldn’t because I didn’t have the energy, wrote to me. It was so wonderful to hear from him. He’s my second oldest friend. Coincidentally, when I moved home with my dad, for my stepmum’s arrival, my friend and his family lived in the house opposite.
He didn’t know that I never recovered from Long COVID, and that I’m confined to my room and bed. He was so lovely. Due to the many lost years throughout the decades, I do miss and regret the friendship I could’ve had with him. His friendship is precious, along with everyone else’s. I feel the immense grief of that loss with him and everyone in my life.
He also reminded me of the person I was when I was healthy, and that grief is there as well. As you know, I try not to think about everything I’ve lost with this illness, but the grief has a way of catching me off guard, and it does give me an almighty reminder.
It’s so difficult at the moment. It’s like my heart’s breaking all over again. It’s everything, and it’s hitting me like a ten ton truck. I don’t have the energy to keep it at bay. So much pain. It feels like I’m feeling decades worth of emotions on one year. Yes, Pandora’s box was definitely unleashed last November, and it released all the things I’ve been running away from, from my childhood. I guess it was long overdue. It’s 13:13.
I really do hope you are okay my lovely, I really do {} xxx Again, I wish I could write to you directly, but it’s not safe. There’s still a lot of untangling to do, a lot to work through, and a lot of emotions to be felt. I don’t know if you’re reading these, but I’m still keeping everything crossed. If you are, I really hope they help give you some comfort in some way. I do hope so {}
Writing to you is also helping me keep my sanity. This isn’t a project, it just gave me a vehicle to do what my soul needed. It’s to make sense and work through everything, and it also helps me feel connected to you. It’s the only way I can speak with you {} xxx
I’m getting bursts of anger. It’s displaced much of the time. I guess it’s because it’s safer. My therapist is right, the anger is sitting there because my understanding of things stops me from feeling it. My understanding is like a shield and a safety net.
I think what’s buried is rage, the same rage my dad expressed, and this terrifies me. I’ve had slight glimmers of it. It’s been there for decades, and tied to all my traumatic experiences. She’s right, we need to slowly chip away at it because it’s also keeping me prisoner. I fear it, especially because I don’t want to be anything like him.
Knowing that my dad is also the result of the neglect and abandonment he’s experienced, means that it wasn’t his fault, but the big difference is that I’ve never fucked anyone’s life up like he has. That’s because I internalised it and directed that rage towards myself. He externalised it and directed it towards others.
As an adult, he is fully responsible for his feelings and actions, he can’t blame others for them. They are his, and it’s up to him to recognise that he needs to seek help, but he will never do this. He’ll always be the victim and inflict his pain on others, destroying their lives in the process. He also does many things intentionally, just like some of the others in the family. It’s what they learnt from their parents.
My dad’s still the hurt, angry and wounded child, just like me, but I’m trying to help my child now, and give her what she desperately needs, my love, care and compassion. It’ll take time. I have rejected her and ignored her feelings, in the same way my dad and his family did.
This was meant to be a short hello to you, but I guess my unconscious had other plans. I will stop and rest now. I really need to.
I imagine you’ll be enjoying something amazing for lunch. Thoroughly enjoy every gorgeous mouthful for me too my lovely {} xx I’m not sure what I’m having yet. It’ll be something from Cooks.
Take the greatest care of yourself, and take everything at a nice and gentle pace. It’s 14:14. Thoroughly enjoy the most beautiful, fun and relaxing day, and give yourself lots of love, care and wonderful treats for me too {} xxx
I love you and I’m sending you the biggest and tightest of magical healing love, protective bear hugs and kisses {} xxxx
I almost forgot to send this to you. It’s Je Danse Sur Toi by Fatoumata Diawara and Siân Pottok. I hope you love it my precious starshine {} xxx
It’s 15:25. I just read Chris Rea has passed away. So sad. I hope you’re okay my lovely {} xx I can’t help but think of your brilliant rendition of Driving Home for Christmas.