Tough love, part 2

The person I wrote to has received my letter, and this evening he sent me a message on facebook.

I sat at my computer a full 20 minutes, finding all sorts of other stuff to do, while the presence of his message burned a hole in my brain. Finally, I talked myself through the worst case scenario: he was angry and upset and had written me a message full of vitriol.

After a few minutes thinking about it, I realised that no matter what his response was I'm still glad I wrote the letter - I still believe in what I said. And if he reacts badly that's really his problem, not mine.

Anyway, I finally just opened it... and it was FINE. He said he wants to re-read the letter in a couple of days but his initial response was positive. He actually said he could understand why I felt the way I did.

Letters can be so many things: a love letter, a thank-you note, a long missive to an old friend, a piece of art, a poem... and sometimes you can use a letter to say something difficult. It's not my preferred kind of letter, but if it opens the lines of communication again and makes things better then I think it's a very worthy thing.

I'm even thinking now of righting an even tougher letter... but that one can wait a while longer. I need to mull it over a lot more before I put pen to paper. It's so easy, when writing a tough letter, to let emotions take over... but I think it works best if you can simply describe what happened and how you feel about it rather than blaming the other person or hurling insults.

At least... it seems to have worked in this instance. I'm so relieved.

Love from Kaz