Letters of Becoming
This series is drawn from my personal journaling growing up. Every entry began the same way: “Dear____.” Writing just to write felt wrong. I wanted to tell someone, to share my journey in a way that held the hope someone would hear it and offer some relief. At the time, I had no one to share it with that wanted to listen. So, I wrote to myself, to the universe, or to a person I didn’t yet know but longed to reach. I left it open, letting it drift into the void.
That void has held every word over the years, both written and spoken. These letters of becoming carry that same intention. These reflections are pieces of my journey. I hope they help. I hope they heal. I hope they comfort. I hope they stand as a small candle of love, offering you a moment that feels a little less lonely.
09/02/2025
Dear_____,
Tonight, the ink feels heavier than usual. The candle sputters beside me, as though it too is weary of holding the dark at bay. All day the world pressed itself against me; every sound sharper, every glance tinged with doubt. I told myself it was only the noise of others, yet their lies clung stubbornly, louder than my own quiet truths.
I thought it would be easier by now. I thought I would feel like I had a solid grasp on things. Alas, here I sit, tears blending with the ink on the parchment; hopelessness taking hold yet again. How can one feel both the same and different? It’s as if I have one foot in the past, and one in the future, while the battle happens between them in the present.
There are moments when I cannot tell if I am unraveling or weaving anew. Perhaps it is both. Perhaps the threads must loosen before they can be rewoven into a shape that can breathe. Oh, what a breath that shall be. The battle to stay afloat is a weary one, and I often find myself surrendering to floating. In those moments, life doesn’t feel better, but it doesn’t feel worse, which I suppose is acceptable.
Still, here I am, writing by this small flame. Perhaps you know this feeling too; that ache between what was and what will be, the almostness of becoming. I see a beautiful future off in the distance. What is more is that I also know the truth of it. It is as certain as the quill in my hand. It is the distance between where I am and that beautiful image that makes me ache in melancholy. Perhaps that is the problem, I am all too aware of the distance.
Well, my love, the candle grows short, and I have yet to finish my latest poem. I hope you are finding comfort in anything you are able. My heart yearns to hear good news from you.
Until the next candle is lit,
Bea
09/18/2025
Dear_____,
The candle burns unevenly tonight, throwing long and trembling shadows across the desk. My quill drags as though it resents the weight of my thoughts. I tried to busy myself with other matters, but the silence would not let me go. It kept tugging, and tugging until I surrendered and sat here once more.
The play of my own becoming feels unfinished, like lines scratched out, rewritten, and then abandoned. How does one know if the next act will redeem the last? Is redemption a requirement for the play to go on? Still, I write, because not writing leaves me lonelier than any silence ever could.
I feel that if the silence existed within me, I wouldn’t mind it so much. However, this silence, it echos. Like a gong in my ear, it clangs, and it bangs announcing my fears. If I were simply a poet, I would write a sonnet of broken beauty. Though in truth, poetry is not simple. It demands the truth in a way that stories cannot. Stories can hide the truth under layers of distraction. You must immerse yourself in stories, while poems strip you bare.
No matter, the silence does not seem to care, regardless of my prose. This play mocks me as I sit here in my complaint. Telling me of my inferiorities as if it were my mother. A fog surrounds my stage, and the melancholy that sound often keeps at bay will not be silenced today.
And so, I weep. For the freedom I cannot find. For the echoes of peace just out of my reach. This silence tries to undo me, but I am stronger than I feel. This letter will serve as my bookmark; so I may rest a while, and find myself again.
Until the next candle sparks,
Bea
01/17/2026
Dear_______,
I Keep finding pieces of myself in strange places. A sigh tucked into the folds of an old coat; a spark caught in the curl of a candle wick. Perhaps I am not lost. Perhaps I am only Scattered.
It Makes me wonder... How far have the fragments of myself that I have given away traveled? Are there memories in the lakes and oceans, brought there by the tears I shed in the Shower? Do the footprints I left in the mountains still echo my presence?
My life is so much larger than the isolation I often find myself cursing. Maybe my loneliness is not because I am alone, but because I simply forgot how expansive I truly am.
But what lies in that remembrance? What ache waits for me in the shadows I have avoided? If I were in fact present, then I would not feel lonely because those two things cannot exist in the same space. The loneliness I feel must be the ache of my own separation. This ache must be the weight of yesterday, and this worry must be the fear of tomorrow. For in this moment, I just… am.
Perhaps it is time I stop striving to find more in the shadows, and simply trust them to reveal their beauty when I am ready to see it. After all, the shadows are not monsters, they are sentinels of fear that have spent a lifetime protecting me from my joy. Their existence is no fault of theirs, as I made them out of my pain. It is all they have known and all I have allowed them to be.
This moment that I am, is my gift to them. The gift of peace and safety, knowing yesterday and tomorrow do not exist within it. Showing them that what was is no longer here, what will be has not yet come, and we are safe.
I suppose it has never been a matter of remembering anything from my past at all. It has always been a choosing of remembering myself now. And in tomorrow I will discover more of that remembrance.
In this there is no healing, there is just the knowing that I am, and trusting in that knowing.
Yours in contemplation,
Bea
This one has a content warning: Suicidal ideation
3/28/2026
Dear_____,
The memory of home aches in me tonight. My bones creak like the foundation of houses that once held me. The wind outside roars, as if it is giving me permission to scream. How did I get here? How did I get here, alone? Where is the home that is supposed to fill this house? How can this place be both empty and full?
The halls carry ghosts, while the walls bare their faces. Here silence screams, while noise quiets my mind. This house was supposed to be my home. Life was supposed to feel good here, yet I find myself aching with abandonment and shrinking in fear.
It’s my fault, it has to be, there’s no one left to blame. The broken windows and shattered floors the only evidence that someone else was once here. Crimson footprints leading from one room to another, a sacred path of pain I walk numbly. Perhaps I am the ghost, and this house is the echo of my life.
No, that can’t be true, the dead don’t wish for life. Peace is for the after — after the pain and struggle have taken all I have, then I can rest in peace. Rest, in peace… peace. I want that so badly, to fall into comfort and safety. Where home is not an illusion, but a sanctuary of love. This place is not home; it’s just the shell I live in, and I want to go home.
I could you know, go home… it would be so easy. Just a slip, or a swallow, and a long, cold nap. Peace. I’ve felt it before, I know how sweet it is; but I want to feel it with my skin. I want it to sing in my bones, and thump in my chest. I want to live at home, not rest in it. But how do I get there, when I’m stuck walking the same crimson path day after day?
Is it safe to stop?
Am I allowed?
Who do I turn to,
when there’s no one around?
Maybe I’ll just rest for a moment.
I could take a nap on the floor,
run my fingers over the footprints
that came before.
Why do my words turn to poetry when my ache consumes me? Perhaps my muse just gets tired of my complaining and offers me a moment of beauty as a distraction. Maybe I should sing more, or write more, or do something more than walk this cycle, in this house, dreaming of going home.
I’m tired. So very tired.
This struggle is not only mine, but also one that bleeds through time. Shakespear and I would likely have been friends; spending hours contemplating life through the power of prose.
A friend, one who understands my ache and longing in equal measure, I believe that would help make this house feel a little more like home. It is not that I have no one in my life, it’s just that they want from me things I no longer have to give. I wish I could give more; many have shamed me for not pulling more from my marrow, but a husk cannot bleed, and I am dry.
I suppose my complaints aren’t helping me stop the ache I am trying to escape, so I will abandon my woes, and offer you a vow:
I promise that I will stay awake while I dream, and I will find a way to make this house into a home. One day, but not this day. Today I will sleep, because sleeping allows me to visit you.
Until I wake,
Bea
5/24/2026
Dear_______,
I could feel the pen in my hand before I sat down to write this evening. The anger in my chest, crashing against my ribs in tune with the raging tempest outside my window. I cannot tell if I started this storm, or if it sensed the tumult in my soul and came to offer me comfort. No matter the spark, the fire burns.
I read somewhere recently, that anger, as an emotion, is an improvement over apathy. I suppose at the root of it; to feel anger is to feel something, while to be apathetic is to feel nothing. Were I given a choice in this moment, I think I would choose apathy.
Already I miss the comfort of not caring; of observing life as a ghost of indifference. To care, after months of detachment, is to ache… deeply. If my emotions are to be my guide, then we are both lost.
At present, I could not tell you what has sparked my ire. The day was typical, as days go I suppose. Nothing monumental arose from the shadows to goad me into feeling. No small thing grew into something more. There was nothing, and then, like Atlas lifting the world onto his shoulders, my apathy crumbled beneath the weight, and rage kept me standing.
This anger feels much like an ocean, and I am well below the crashing waves. Darkness presses in on my thoughts, while exhaustion forms an anchor in these depths. I can see the surface high above me; fierce waves fighting with the moon. Hope calls to me from the air above, though from her, it sounds like mocking.
In my reading, it said that emotions live on a scale. I may be mildly proficient on the piano, but these chords seem more difficult to master. The lower notes I know well. They settle into my being with comfort and ease. The upper register, however, teases me with its cheerful lightness.
I don’t quite know how to carry ease the way I carry struggle. This weight, while heavy, is also familiar. Perhaps I should take comfort in my strength, or feel pride in my perseverance. I just can’t muster that in this moment. My shoulders may be strong, but the world is not mine to carry.
It would seem that the pen has wielded its magic once again and my anger is giving way to grief. Which, according to my reading, means I am moving up the scale of emotions. It still feels a bit slippery down here so near to apathy. I’m quite sure that were I to settle into my exhaustion, I would find myself back in a passive existence. As easy as that might be, hopes till calls; and though apathy offers safety from pain, it also shields me from feeling good. I might not have the energy to fight the waves just yet, but I can kick my feet awhile and wait for the sun to rise, and the waters to still.
Until the next storm,
Bea
