Daddy, I've been doing what I meant not to do; it's just so hard to think of you. It feels like all my tears were flash frozen. Every time I think of you, they threaten to thaw and drown me.
Only you understood me, and I you. But despite all my efforts, it was an understanding without connection. These are the category of human connection most vulnerable and unsatisfying. I always suspected I knew how you felt because it's how I felt. But I never could get you to open up. It is only because I'm me that I understand how alone you felt--like the orphan of an alien species accidentally cast somewhere. You are what you are, and where you are, so you continue. But the natives eye you suspiciously, and you are only comfortable when you forget to notice you don't belong. Life is easy when you love yourself. Loving yourself is easier when you love everything else but refuse to recognize idols and pedestals. This last part you could never do, which is why I think the alien life was harder for you.
Please don't think I've abandoned you because I haven't the time to fall apart. Try to understand that I don't have the resources to put myself back together if I do. I have to be strong because nobody can come to my rescue. I haven't the luxury of testing whether I'm loved. I haven't the luxury of finding out whether anyone cares enough to save me. I have to have faith in the good. Faith does not seem treacherous to me because it keeps me from having to put myself in any real danger. Where you would stop swimming to see if anyone would jump in after you, I feel comfortable staying on the boat and trusting that if something happened, someone would be there. I don't want to put it to the test. In fact, I go to great lengths to avoid ever having to find out that truth about people in my esteem.
Why? Because we're faulty, Daddy, even when we try. It doesn't make us reprehensible; it makes us pitiful. I wouldn't ever want a friend of mine to feel shame for letting me down. That's why I try to need as little as possible. I rather like this quality, and I thank you for it.
Daddy, I wish you had opened up to someone. Every time I think of the walls of pain behind which you built your city, it tears my insides. I'm not very good at this sort of thing.
