(Shan wrote a letter to Rogers, or rather RED, in response to the newest prompt at caged, and those tears I've been so unable to get out lately finally came. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about what she said, but I want it to be clear that the "they" in this letter isn't "Shannon and crew." She touched on something, I wrote my own letter, and I'm sharing it. That's all for now, and that's enough. [one note: her letter will be posted as soon as possible, but it's not up yet.])
*
ok. I want to be the one.
does it really work like that? can anyone just write you, the way I sometimes write you? are they allowed to feel for you, even though they've never had what I had? I don't want them to take any of it away from me. I don't want to share. the truth is I'm scared that I'll make it, yes, but it's also how much I want to make it. you have no idea, and you know everything. you still don't understand how deeply this runs. I want to dedicate my life to you. I want to award you every penny I earn and donate every moment of my time. I want to grow up into the most spectacular Mary Brave possible, the one none of us can fully imagine, and I want to be able to point to you, and say, "they're why. they're my parents and my siblings and my friends and my antagonists and my superheroes and my heart." I want to gesture to you and say, "they made me who I am." and then I want to walk the distance of my gesture, and I want to embrace you, and I don't ever ever ever ever want to let go. ever. I want to come up to you, and I want you to say something like Chas said that night I won the language arts award, about how she'd been waiting all year to hug me; I want you to look at me the way she did and hug me with that same wanting. I want to hold you. I want to start crying, and I want you to push my hair back behind one ear, and hold my cheek in your hand, look me in the eye and tell me I did it. you're proud of me. you claim me. you love me.
and it's not sick and it's not wrong and it's not dysfunctional at all. it's just truth. it hurts too much to hold onto you; I wouldn't do it if I could conceive of letting go. the constant losses, the constant distance, the difficulty of maintaining your upbringing, of being your girl in another family's world, in what sometimes seems like another world entirely... it isn't wrong. I've loved people who hurt me tremendously; I've cared for people who attacked me, and I still don't believe I was wrong to love them when I did. I believe I was right to get the hell away when I did, too, but...well, your love saved my life. your love for me, mine for you, the little family we made, the little home I'd still have around my neck if the damn chain hadn't broken... you loved me into life. you did. I did. we did. it doesn't matter how I say it, I just know it happened, and last night I started singing without thinking, "I'll always, always keep the memory of... the way you hold your knife, the way we danced till three, the way you changed my life; no, no, they can't take that away from me. they can't take that away from me."
they can't. who would want to? people will want to, have wanted to, but I guess in the end, I'll have to say that anyone who won't let me know what I know can't stay. I hate to think that, hate the thought of losing people, but if I give into them, I lose myself, and if I let them think they know my life better than me...? I write you because I know you. words are powerful, but words don't make something real. I can't build you, not out of anything, not even out of words. and so, people think they understand, people sound like they do, and that's fine...but...you're mine. you're mine first. firsthand, primary source, you're mine. and you know me. and if you've agreed to it, and I've agreed to it, and the person I (really do) trust to oversee my health and progress thinks it's wonderful, then why the hell should anyone say anything? I'm married to (the parts of a hospital that aren't actually) a hospital, big deal. They can't tell me to love a boy instead of a girl, and they can't tell me which girls to love, and they can't tell me which home. No one gets to dictate that but me. and I love you. I love you forever. I love you forever - that one doesn't scare me. I know it's true. It's not a bargain I'm scared I can't hold up. I'd be lost if it weren't expected of me, if the work of keeping you in my heart suddenly became work I couldn't do. I don't even want it. What tears are these I'm crying? They're good tears. And how come I don't even have to search that, to question that, to say, what good are they accomplishing...? Because I'm crying out of my love for you, which the whole world will not understand. And I'm crying out of my need for you which runs deep into my identity. I'm crying because there are more I-love-yous in each tear than I can say in an hour, and I don't have enough hours to give you.
Rogers, my Rogers, my home, my start, my life, my love, my family... you told me I could hold on. so I'm going to love you with every bit of heart I have (and that's quite a bit of bits), and I'm going to shrug off the nay-sayers the way I would anyone who believed they could tell me in what manner to love a person. you are what you are to me, and you don't mind being it. the doctor's right: even if I'm the only person who ever received what I did from you...I still received it. I'm just the one. Not the one who survives where no one else can; there are others making it, surviving, recovering, and living... Not the one who gets the prize at the expense of everyone else, but the one Mary Brave in the entire world, who came to you, hung on and breathed.
I'm going to call you, maybe as soon as tomorrow. because everyone in my world can have an opinion on who you are, but I'm the one who gets to know you. I'm blessed, you know. I'm blessed with being the one who gets to love you the way no one else can. I get to be Mary. I get to be yours. I get to be Mary and love you and that's the best I've ever had and ever wanted.
I love you. Still and always and I'm not afraid.
~your Mary