**found mixed in with some dead dad bureaucracy and a bookmark from the Copacabana Hotel and a photo from that Montenegro trip that was too long ago.**

**found mixed in with some dead dad bureaucracy and a bookmark from the Copacabana Hotel and a photo from that Montenegro trip that was too long ago.**

Dear you

You've decided to move on . That lovely Victorian studio you find in Cincinnati on Ohio Street? Keep it. For as long as you possibly can. If there is ever an option to buy it, do so.

The Poet you meet at the bookshop? Don't take him so seriously. Be smart, have fun, and when its done, just nod and accept the lessons learned. We have a tendency to brood too much and it will ruin so much of our time and life if we let it. That boy on the Boston - Albany Express? He'll break your heart but it will make you stronger when you let it.  The sweet former spouse? He's a good guy. Stop busting his chops. He isn't your dad, he isn't his dad, he's your kids' dad. There will be more assholes and idiots, but you'll learn something from each and every one. And you'll learn the difference between pride and ego. It is an important differentiation.

Keep traveling. Travel for the sake of it, not to run away from life. Travel near and far and go back to places as you move on to new ones. Give the people you love some distance and space so that you can grow into your skin and they can grow into theirs. Change is hard, inevitable, and exquisite. 

We are good at keeping in touch with people; cultivate this skill, these relationships. They will get you through life when you think it might break you. You will have tragedy and disaster, courted and otherwise, but you are a tough cookie with a sense of humour that will pull you through but you can't do it alone. And ultimately, the best kind of people are like you: they genuinely want to help.

If there are 3 things I could give you as gifts, they would go a little something like this: 

1) the knowledge that that horrific black dog that stalks you is not who you are. You are not worthless and useless and you need to realize this or it just may take you down. Hard. Depression is a fact of your genetic make up and you need to learn to deal with it. Preferably sooner than later and without a martini super-glued to your hand. There are lessons to be learned from the black dog. He isn't hunting you. He's protecting you.  That dog, combined with the Corvid of ADHD make you the eccentrically gorgeous entity you are and you are only just beginning. 

2) We're financially risk adverse but also magpie spendthrifts. Learn to walk away from the red linen trousers when the debate over 'rent v trousers' arrives. You know better than to buy retail.  

3)You can't keep everything but you don't need to get rid of EVERYTHING. Balance and being middle of the road for some things, these are good things. They won't detract from the things we do well or otherwise. That beautiful black dress that is so 1958? You need to keep that bad boy. And one more thing: Go on and dye your hair. Cut it off, have fun. Its just hair: it will grow back. But when you go platinum, go to the salon.

Seriously.

Love you madly, as ever,
Me