Dear T

When I lived in Los Angeles, one of my core friendships was with two women I'll call T and C.  We had originally been part of a women's group, in which superficials were mostly dispensed with and all of us shared deeply, going to those levels of our selves where fear and vision are housed, looking to find and heal those places where we felt broken..  That group eventually dispersed, but T and C and I remained close.  

Our homes were far apart, so getting together took planning, and were almost always around occasions and celebrations.  Although we were often silly and full of fun together, our conversations always went deep, and there were always tears to complement the laughter.  The good kind of tears, the kind that keep the heart soft and vulnerable.  When I moved from L.A., it was hard on all of us.  Our sweet, intimate triangle was no more. We stayed in touch, of course.  A year later, after an intense love affair broke up in an ugly way, T and C immediately came to me to be my shoulders to cry on, my arms to fall into.  They were still cherished friends, but I was starting a new life, and they were getting on with theirs.

The thing is, T and I were closer to C than to each other.  C and I have remained very close, talk on the phone, have taken a vacation together, and I often stay at her house when I go back to L.A.  Our conversations, whether by phone or email, are still deep and personal.  

T now has cancer and has moved to another state, where she lives in chaos and disarray with members of her family, who seem to take no particular care of her at all.

I have reached out several times to T, including suggesting that C and I come to visit her in her new home.  She is not doing well and we're both concerned about her and very much want to see her, especially as her health is so tenuous.  T has stayed in contact with C, but all of my reaching out has been, not rebuffed, but not reciprocated.  There have been times I've thought "This isn't a friendship at all, it's not balanced, not mutual", and have wanted to simply close the book on her.

Still, she was an important part of an important part of my life, and I still love her and wish her well.  So today, as my Something New, I wrote her a letter, not with any agenda, not to ask anything from her, but simply to let her know that I still hold as precious the times we've spent together and that she is often in my thoughts and always in my heart