Dear Rudy,
Dr Lim says I can stop writing you letters now. She thinks I’ve made progress since your anniversary in feeling my feelings and all of that, but I don’t want to stop so I’m not going to. It was only a suggestion on her behalf anyway. I’m going to stick with the original plan of writing until the end of the year, and I’ll see how I go after that. I do love a plan, after all. There’s something about writing these letters that is like releasing a pressure valve, and Dr Lim said it’s the writing part more than the ‘talking to Rudy’. I’m not sure. Do people even keep journals anymore? Is that a thing? I can definitely get behind the ‘buying new stationary’ part at least.
Our session today felt more like I was hanging out with a friend than seeing my psychologist, and it hasn’t felt like that in a really long time. Seeing her forces me to spend a lot of time wading around in my past and sometimes it starts to feel like I’m poking old bruises, trying to remember how I got them. It’s helpful, of course, to look back and assess and make sure I don’t remake the same mistakes, but sometimes I just want to sigh and start looking forwards for peace. So today we didn’t talk about the past, or you, or the accident or the anniversary or being autistic or anything like that. We talked about my future. I’ve got no idea what that is, but it was nice to talk about it anyway.
Afterwards I stopped in at the antique centre for a browse. I don’t think the owner recognised me, or if he did he was polite enough not to mention the coat incident. I didn’t feel the need to smell the old clothes today. I wanted to buy myself something, a ‘making it through the year’ present. I had a look at the old jewellery, I tried on a few things, but I decided not to pick anything from that cabinet as I don’t really like wearing jewellery anyway. I considered the pretty little red typewriter that came in its own case, but it was too expensive. In the end I picked a lamp. It isn’t the biggest or the prettiest lamp. It is actually quite plain. It is blue and brown pottery that reminds me of the ocean, with a little white shade. It makes me think of you, but it makes me want to look forward too.
I find it hard to reconcile some things, like how you always said the future was going to be ‘fucked up’ and now you don’t get a future at all. It’s like, you knew the world was getting darker and grimmer, but you never questioned for a second that you would be around to see it all happen. I try not to think about the state of the world too much, because things like climate change and political corruption stress me out so much I have trouble falling asleep. It feels like I need to stay positive about my own future. So that’s what I’m focusing on. It’s weird thinking of my future without you, Rudy.
Love, Erin