A blog for anyone who understands the joy of writing and receiving handwritten letters.


Monday, August 30, 2010

Tough love

Have you ever had to write a tough letter?

I'm a nice person (my friends will tell you!) and 99 per cent of the time I write nice letters. But sometimes... just sometimes I feel the need to write a difficult letter.

I have been wrestling with this one for weeks and have gone back and forth on whether I should write it or not. I have re-written it in my head dozens of times. But today is the day... he is on my list of people to write to now, so that means I have to write to him... that's the way it works.

A while back a friend (who is one of the most wonderfully evolved, assertive women I know) referred to me as a cream puff. She meant I was too soft, a push-over. I was taken aback but I gradually realised she was right. I was letting my ex get away with things he shouldn't because I wanted to be 'nice'; I was taking crap from certain people because standing up for myself would have seemed rude in my eyes; and I was letting others take advantage because I was too timid to put them in their place.

When you know better you do better... so once I had this pointed out to me I set out to change. I declared 2010 the Year of Kaz! I was not going to be pushed around or allow people to take advantage of my kind nature anymore. It became an interesting challenge to figure out where the line stood between being nice and being a sucker... but I think I have made some progress.

Part of me wants to explain here how this guy let me down and made me feel used, but I don't think it's the right place to do it. I will say that it wasn't anything traumatic... just a case of a person being a fairweather friend, buddying up to me when he needed something then dropping me as soon as it was done.

It's been bothering me for a month or so now, so I think writing to him and telling him that I feel used and disappointed will help me to let it go. I'm not sure it will do much for him, but I hope he might see it as an opportunity for personal growth. But then, his reaction is up to him and that's not my responsibility.

I'll be responsible for the words I write... and I hope I find the right ones.

Love from Kaz

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a tough letter. Contemplate every word - they're hard to take back when they are written down.
    Luck with it hun. :-)

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  2. Tough one. I think the first step is to write it. When you're done, stamp it, lick the back, and think about it. Maybe just the action of writing the letter to him may close the door on that chapter... then again it might not.

    First step is always a step forward.
    xoxox

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  3. After I'd written the letter, I let it sit for a day and I thought about if I would be happy now not to send it, because I had got it out of my system. But I still wanted to send it. It wasn't an angry letter. I chose my words carefully and used a lot of 'I' statements... I think it is worth sending it and seeing what, if anything, happens.

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