Letters of Love 5 - Live the Life You Love

This is a Letter of Love to Myself.

This is my opportunity to remind you that your parents, your siblings, your close family and the best of your friends have always wanted freedom, joy and happiness for you. You have wanted the same for yourself.

You're a brilliant person, a vibrant loving human, a complex puzzle and a simple human. Since the very childhood, you've been a bright spark, a talented speaker, a brilliant student, a poet, a writer, an orator, a singer, a creative hands-on DIYer, and a lot more.

And, you've also been a monster, a cribber, a complainer, a bitch (:D), a whiner, a loser, and / or whatever anyone may have said about you, or you may have said about yourself.

However, over the last few years or so, you've seen the true manifestation of what a human being is all about. You knew it physically first, intuitively next, sexually as well as spiritually around the same time and now you know it intellectually too. You have experienced what it is to think and meditate upon 'Aham Brahmasmi', what is it to get it tattooed on your arm, as well as what it is to experience it first hand.

You've suffered depression, you've experienced intense joy, you've suffered hunger, poverty, insecurity, and also luxury and comfort. You've been through fear, anger, love, insecurity, success, accomplishment and more.

It has been a great life this far and just when you were reaching a bottleneck, the universe opened so much more for you. It has been a life well lived and a life well loved. It has been a life full of people and it will continue to be so.

This letter is as much about what it has been as what it will be about. Life beyond this point will be what it will be. It will be what you manifest, what you create, what you say, it will be. So watch carefully and manifest what you want this life to be.

May this life henceforth continue to be a life that is well lived, a life well loved, a life well fought, a life which throbs with a life of its own. May you experience what being truly alive is, every moment from here.

Most of all, remember...

सुखावसाने इदमेव सारं, दुःखावसाने इदमेव ज्ञेयम्।
देहावसाने इदमेव जाप्यं, गोविन्द दामोदर माधवेति॥

© Anupama 2019

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For those of you, who I promised to post your letters, I am sorry I got too tempted to not forget my own feelings for myself, so I ended up writing this, out of turn. The regular flow should start again today.

Letters of Love 4 - Rosy

Rosy is a vibrant, happy, extroverted person. Had I met her on a casual day on the street, or in a café, I wouldn’t believe that this lady could hesitate in saying anything to anyone. When I facilitated this letter, we talked about a lot of things but kept dancing around the main subject. Knowing her as briefly as I have known her, I knew she will open up slowly, but authentically and beautifully.

Thank you for allowing me to see inside your beautiful heart Rosy and sharing what you shared. I hope some justice to your feelings and thoughts has come through my pen.

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Dearest Papa,

Honestly, I’m pretty overwhelmed. However, I know you perhaps understand that already. You already know how much effort it takes me to start topics and conversations, specially with you. That said, one has to begin somewhere. So, I’ll begin with the most recent conversation / chat / texts you and I shared. I told you I had a breakthrough with mom, but when you asked me what a breakthrough is, I told you I’ll explain it to you over the next call. That call is still due.

In the meanwhile, this letter is here.

I want to tell you through this letter, that I love you. Deeply, immensely and with a lot of respect and affection. I may not be as expressive of our affection as I want and I may have a thousand explanations for why I am the way I am, but the truth is that I am your daughter.

Since I was a young child, I have watched you from afar. From the hostel, from my room, from the other end of the dining table, I’ve observed you as a strong man. When you lost my first mother, I have no idea how you found strength to think of us. When you loved mummy the way you do, I have no idea, how you found the courage to do so. When you provided for us, despite all failures, relentlessly, I cannot fathom, where you found your unconditional love from.

After all these years, I don’t even think that you were not expressive of your affection. I do not have complaints from you. Truly. I do however, want us to open up something new, something that you and I have never done before. The ability to talk freely and let it flow.

Papa, I know it won’t be easy. You’re a strong man and I am your daughter. You’re a practical man with high values and a fierce sense of responsibility and independence. I’m a daughter who has always sought to make you proud. I know I succeeded. You may not have said it in so many words, but you have shown it. To everyone else. And I am just happy to know that I have made my father proud.

I would love to hear your approval. The way everyone knows you're proud of me, I want to know it too. I want to hear it in your words, I want to hear it from you.

However, I do feel helpless when I can’t just randomly pick my phone up, call you and say that I wanted to check on your fractured arm. I wish I could casually call you and just share what my day was like, hear what yours was like. 

I do not think there is any point wondering what would our relationship be like, if we had…. However, I really, sincerely want our relationship to bloom into what it can be. A relationship of a middle-aged woman with her aged father. A relationship where we can finally, freely say – I love you papa. A relationship, where I can hope to hear you talk and share freely, with no reservations, whatsoever. A relationship, where you can tell me directly - Rosy, I'm proud of you!

As difficult it may be, you and I are a resilient pair papa. We are used to create a lot of value, a lot of success, a lot of beauty from bare minimal resources. You and I have always done that, haven’t we?
 

This letter is an invitation for us to create a very loving, communicative and beautiful relationship together.

I love you papa. I know you love me too. I know you're proud of me as well. Just waiting to hear it from you.

Your loving daughter,

Rosy

© Anupama 2019

Letters of Love 3 - Dear Dr. A

This is my letter of love to Dr. A. Dr. A and my relationship was that of a mentor and a mentee at a given point of time. After so many years, my perception of right and wrong has changed. However, if anything, my emphasis on consent has only increased. This is my letter to Dr. A.

Note - Dr. A is an anonymized name for the person. Any attempts at identifying this person by anyone who reads this, are not my responsibility.

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 Dear Dr. A,

I was barely an adult when we had first met and I had a young girl's crush on you. I have a very strong feeling you knew it too and you used it to motivate me to study harder. You did not exploit that crush, you were very attentive, responsible and empowering as a fully adult man dealing with a teen.

However, at some point, you were upset to discover that I had a similar crush on someone who you thought was absolutely nowhere when compared to you. That is when you first got competitive and wanted to connect with me as a man would want to connect with a woman.

I clearly remember you telling me not to commit to any young man unless I really knew what I was getting into and that they might take me for a ride. However, when you grew competitive with a young man I chose to briefly experiment / explore with, you were willing to take me for a ride :D

For sometime I was upset. For the remaining, I just ignored you.Till we reconnected years later that is. However, your insistence on some or the other sort of physical / sexual intimacy or sexting / or talks didn't wane really.

All said and done, this letter of love is not about making a monster of you and a saint of me :D For the simple reason that you're not a monster. You're a human being. You're a man. You have various other references to contexts about why you behave, the way you behave.

I have written this letter of love to tell you that to me, you're a possibility. A possibility of being connected with people, a possibility of communicating authentically, which I might have done years earlier, had I known how to.

This letter of love is not about who did what and why. We did what we did, when we did it and or whatever reason we did it for. Both you and me.

This letter of love is about the fact that you and I are no longer in touch. We don't necessarily have to really be friends, that's certainly a possibility too :) However, this letter is more for completing what we left incomplete. What I left incomplete was I just gave up on the possibility of you ever getting my perspective. What I left incomplete was that I never trusted you to understand and respect my no. What I gave up on was the hope that you would truly understand my respect, affection without adding a sexual inuendo to it. Today I open up all those possibilities again.

I invite you to a possibility of being connected again. What you choose to do with these possibilities, is for you to choose. I write this letter of love to be free and be who I truly am. A person, a woman, a loving friend, a non-sexualized, non-objectified person.

Welcome to the world of love Dr. A.

Much love,
Anupama

© Anupama 2019

Letters of Love 2 - Ravi Singh

Ravi is a very quiet, but thoughtful person. I recently met him when we were doing some training together. When I conceptualized this project, he was one of the first people who gave me the permission to write a letter on his behalf. In his phone call with me, Ravi shared with so much honesty, the deep love he has for his parents, his wife, his kids, his siblings and their families. I hope this letter does justice to what he wanted to express. It was a privilege hearing him share and write for him.

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Dear Mummy, Papa,

This is my letter of love to you.

This is to tell you how much I love you. This is to tell you how much I miss being with you. This letter intends to share very briefly what drifted us apart, but more about what brings us together.

The truth is this – You’re my source and I love you. I am yours just like an apple grows from the seed that allowed itself to be buried deep into the ground. You allowed yourselves to give up on some of your dreams in order to raise the three of us as well as you knew. You allowed us to be stupid and live with some of our stories, because you knew we needed that space. You allowed yourselves to guide us, to care for us and to raise us with love.

I want to tell you that I truly understand you’re human too. And that it is not my place to sit in your judgement. It is not my place to be entitled and ask ‘why?’ or ‘why not’. However, it is certainly my place to give you the love that I withheld from you at a point in time. 

Through this letter, I give you your son back. The son who loved you unconditionally. Through this letter, I give you my word that I will continue to love you and my siblings and my wife and my kids and the whole extended family till I live.

I want to invite you to create more love with all of us. You were the ones who taught me how to love, how to stand for what is right. Today, I ask for your support in standing by my wife’s and kids’ side. Today I ask you to love us all again like you did then.

I might have been stupid and put distance between us, but I do hope that you will help me bridge it. Just like you helped me with Maths problems in childhood, you will also help me with life’s problems. Just like you allowed me to work with you during grocery shopping, or sometimes in the home, you will allow me to work with you in life.

Mummy, Papa, we have spent 10 years away from each other and not one day goes by when I don’t wish that you were here. I want you to know your daughter-in-law. I want you to know your grandchildren. I want them to have the values that only their grandparents can give them. Please allow us all to have that privilege. I am afraid that we may not have endless years together. Why not make the most of what we have?

For the love, which we always will have, please allow us to stay with you. The house doesn’t matter, home does. And our home is incomplete without you both.

Let's love again? Unconditionally? Please?

Your loving son,

Ravi

 © Anupama 2019