Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 15:27:03 EDT To: clburke@passport.ca Subject: Yesterday's letter to a friend entry From: louise@mv.mv.com
Sometimes I read your words and you seem such a different person than I am.
Other times, as with this letter, I feel my fingertips moving sympathetically, as though I could have typed those words.
Of course there are still differences. What I read your diary for is just that - what of you is me-like and how it is different. How you express it differently.
How you choose differently.
It leads me to see other ways of choosing that I don't see because I am in my path, not yours. Things of value to consider, whether or not I choose them. Sometimes it focuses me on the parts of how-I-am that I might not want to focus on, uncovers those things that are reasons for why I act certain ways, as opposed to the reasons I would like to think are true.
The self-chosen family - I have several people who have become that for me. I moved 500 miles from my family in my early 20's and never went back, preferring to be alone rather than controlled. It's taken years to find, one at a time, people whose presence will always be in mine, even when I disagree with them. That is love, by my measure. I know them, see how beautiful they are, see how they have crazy sideways bits of themselves that I either don't understand or don't agree with, but they are in my thoughts and family no matter what. It's not romantic love, with frills covering the table "underparts" (can't say legs and be romantic, now can we?). It's not soft, although it might be tender. And it's stable, dependable, without being agreeable or polite.
So, thank you for putting all of this in your on-line diary. Your thoughts help me in my search for what is true for me; your diary is unique in being both clear/precise and chaotic, at the same time (if that's not too zen a concept to express in words *wry smile*).
--Louise Aitel (the Louise who wrote to you in May? about why/how people)
reply to: louise@mv.mv.com (this is unix mail and I don't know how to set replyto in it, ick)