When I was hospitalized, a very good friend from high school, a writer friend, wrote me a letter nearly every day for six months. She was the only person in high school with whom I shared my love of poetry. Under cover of darkness, we exchanged journals. The letters were deep and intense, addressing much of what I was struggling with including my tenuous hold on life and battle with depression. She had strong opinions on these matters and her letters annoyed me as much as they helped me. She could not understand how a person could give in to depression. She didn’t believe in psychotherapy. She hated drugs with a passion. But still, those letters were amazing, just the fact of them, counting on their arrival, the familiarity of her penmanship, the pale green pages she tore out of a notebook. When mail arrived each day, I’d put her letter away until I could savor it in the day room on a worn out couch with a cigarette or two.
We fell out or apart soon after I got out. We exchanged one or two letters over the next few years. She told me that she quit writing and had become a doctor. I found the letters over the weekend. They were all tied up with a string, a fat package. I couldn’t bring myself to read them.
Was there anyone in your young life with whom you shared a writing bond? Anybody now?
She could not understand how a person could give in to depression. She didn’t believe in psychotherapy. She hated drugs with a passion... She told me that she quit writing and had become a doctor.
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