Dear A,
Hi, this is Carla, greetings and lots of love to you. It is the 31st of August 1991, and I’m trying to make my stopwatch work, but it won’t so I’m not going to be able to tell you how long this is.
I think, no matter how much the liberation of women is touted, women still are expected to please everybody, much more so than men. Men are not necessarily expected to please anybody. But women are, and it takes some training to know what the appropriate pleasing behavior is. Of course, it’s completely artificial, not in its intent, which I think is kindly; women are very kindly by nature and they want people to feel comfortable, so really it’s not just our sort of being slaves trying to please our masters, it’s not just that, though it can be that, it’s more like we are the peacemakers of the world. We like to have things harmonious and we need to learn how we do that and the way we learn is from our mothers. We don’t learn that from our dads.
I am very concerned when you say, “Deep in my heart I am quite desperate.” I guess you’re just terribly lonely and I don’t know what I can say except that I don’t think that we’re ever really alone. I think we have unseen friends that watch over us and love us as part of the spirit, the holy spirit, and that we’re never away from that wonderful presence that blessing, and angelic aura that envelops us wherever we go if we just allow ourselves to feel that.
There isn’t a true solitude for a person who has a soul. I know that because spiritually speaking there is no distance, there is no time; we are all together in love. And even if you spend your days at work with acquaintances that you’re not close to and you spend your free time in terms of friendship far too alone in far too much solitude to suit you I can honestly say from personal experience that it’s not necessary to feel disparate about being lonely.
Since I’ve been on this hospital bed I’ve discovered that hospital beds and anything else that looks like somebody is sick make people very nervous. Nobody comes to see me any more except CB, who is just grateful to have someplace to take A2 because A2 is having a hard time and C is having a hard time and they come up here or they come up to Avalon and spend time.
So, for the most part, I am quite alone as far as human companionship. I think the cats are a great help to me and Jim is looking into birdfeeders. We’ve got a couple of bird feeders so I can have more little friends come and say hi in my window. That’s nice, and I have company through the mail.
But more than all those blessed things I have this feeling inside me very deeply that says I am linked with all of life and I will never be a part from any of it and it’s a matter of feeling the strength of the earth beneath your feet and the vastness of the sky above you and know that you are as deep as the earth and as vast as the sky and that there’s nowhere to go. You’re here and everyone is here with you in your heart.
That’s the way I feel most of the time and not lonely. I honestly feel that you can let go of some of that if you can open your heart to feeling those angelic presences that are always with us, maybe even talking out loud with nobody is around. Just talking out loud and thanking the angels for being with you and loving you. Thank Jesus, because Jesus is right here. Thank the holy spirit because it moves within and without—all through our being, all through this illusion, guiding us, giving us the next thing to do, or feel, or to be.
So I really hope that you can move back from that terrible break from feeling desperate. Let go of some of that anxiety though it’s totally understandable. I don’t know how you do it, how you’re as calm as you are really because there are deep emotions connected with children.
But you do what you can do. You’ve done the best that you can and you sort of have to put that down at the feet of the Lord and say, “Well, Lord, this is the best that I can do, I would like to be able to do more, be more effective, be able to get my kids and so forth and so on. But I haven’t been able to do all that—there’s a reason for that, I know, you’re working in mysterious ways. You’re teaching me certain lessons about loving and accepting and about patience. I will listen to those lessons and I will try to learn.”
You can have those conversations, whatever it is that you want to say, not necessarily what I’ve said, but I talk to the Creator a lot. I have a running conversation with the deity and maybe it’s all in my mind, maybe it’s not real, I don’t care. It makes me feel that I am not alone. It makes me feel that I am held in the arms of loving and compassionate Creator, it makes me feel that Jesus is walking hand and hand with me through life getting me through every minute and every hour and every day.
So ask for prayer help, as for help from Jesus, ask for help from the Holy Spirit. You will receive it, it will come back to you, and if you will, every time you feel really lonely, think of somebody you know that’s sick or who might be lonely or somebody that maybe nobody likes, and you could perhaps write a little note and say, “Hi, how are you?” That helps too. Because then you’re not just a person who feels like a victim, but you are giving to something, you’re being a giver and that nurtures you, or at least it does me.
I’m glad that you’re working on your art more because you have such a gift, you really do.
I think there’s a great virtue in suffering; that there’s nothing personal about it, it’s as if you partook of a certain kind of food that’s always on the table but as it happens, you are sitting next to it right now. It doesn’t have to solidify within you—it’s not you. That’s just the weather and it’s all in how you respond to it. Do you bundle up or do you drip dry? Are you able to deal with the storms of life?
Don’t be overly concerned about your suffering. You need to have a lot of pity on yourself and a lot of love for yourself and compassion, but at the same time, it’s okay to say, “Well, I’m much more than that. That’s not me. That’s what’s happening in my life and that’s how I’m reacting to them. But these circumstances are not myself.”
When you begin to see that then you can begin to see how you can walk away from this suffering into the sunlight of saying “Hard things are happening to me but I’m a good person, and I can still see the sunshine and I can still see all the beauty and I don’t have to hold this suffering to me, I don’t have to court it, I don’t have to hug it. I can let it be as it is.”
Pain is pain. You’re going to feel pain. It would be inappropriate not to feel pain. You should feel pain—who wouldn’t. But you don’t have to give yourself a feeling of guilt because you’re feeling so much pain. You can just say, “Well, there’s that pain, I wonder how long it’s going to stay this time?” And get along with your life like a sensible person.
It isn’t necessary to sink into a quicksand of suffering. What gives you wings is the realization that you’re much more than your circumstances or your reactions to them. You don’t have to be limited to the sadness in your life. There are always positive things to do. At least I find that true in my life and I’ve always seen you just doing your doggonedest to manifest love in your life—and giving and caring. And maybe you’re not going to be able to give and care as much as you want to your kids right now but they’re getting older fast and believe me, in the long run, they’re going to look back and they will be spending their time with you—you can count on that.
If I could take this from you, I would. I hate to see you suffer too. I know exactly what you meant when you said, “I wish I could suffer for you.” Unfortunately, we have our own suffering to do and our own lessons to learn.
Jim’s coming to church with me so that he can get me there and there’s no reason for him to go back home because the service is only an hour long, so he’s sitting in church with me for the first time and it’s a blessing and he really likes it too. He says he really likes going to church with me. So I really feel that God is at work in my life and everything that he takes away, he gives a whole lot more back. I’ve been feeling relatively unwell but I don’t think any more than usual. These diseases I have are not guaranteed to make you feel wonderful—I kind of expected this. Maybe I’ll have a fortunate outcome and have a miracle happen to me, but if not, I knew this was coming and I’ll deal with it as best as I can.
I guess that’s all the news from here. Write me when you have a chance. I’ll let you know how Jim’s rock garden is coming along. He’s building a four-layer rock garden in the front yard and it looks absolutely gorgeous. The whole garden is gorgeous, he’s put in a brick path all around so that you can walk from one part of the garden to the other and it’s beautiful.
So we’ve had a good summer though marred by problems with my health that’s sort of a constant now. I’m just glad for every day that I get to be here and I sure am glad that I’m in the same world as you because you’re such a beautiful soul and I do wish I could see you more. I wish I could be there. I need a friend too, I really do. Nobody comes to see me. It’s really something.
But we do have each other in our hearts and you are my heart sister and I love you a whole lot. Give me a line whenever you have the chance and just know that I love you.
Lots of kisses and hugs,
Carla