Author:
Audience Rating:
Contests:
Publication:
Genre:
Character Age:
TG Themes:
Other Keywords:
Permission:
Dear Andy…
I am so scared. I know you’ve seen me scared plenty of times; probably more than you would like to admit and certainly more than you have had to tolerate. I want to trust our love, but I don’t. I’m sorry, but I am so worried about being rejected that I have held my peace…a silken silence….
‘Whatthefuck?’ Silken silence? I’m so different than what I was just months ago. I have lived in fear of discovery by you and your Mom about who I have become…maybe who I was all along. Nothing can change the fact that I love you both more than my own life. So why say anything? And why now, of all times? I know your Mom has a vague idea; maybe even more solid than that. And I’ve been so scared that you know as well.
My name is Andrea… No…I haven’t stopped being Dad or Andrew… But this part of me is so important to who I am that you need to know her as well. If I could turn back time and change everything, I still would have loved your mother and I still would have been your Dad… the same one who watched you play soccer for the first time… the same one who laughed at your first joke… the same one who held you in my arms for the first time so long ago.
But this part of me has been around since I was little… when I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered why I didn’t fit… the part of me that felt there was something wrong with me. The kid who looked at himself and figured out it was ‘herself.’ From the time I was six… knowing inside that I wasn’t the kid everybody kept calling a son…a boy… the inside didn’t fit…I didn’t fit. When I got hurt everything got all mixed up. And I told myself…’that’s why you got hurt’ or ‘that’s why you think that way’…even though I’m only remembering just now how hurt I was. I was Andrea a long time before I was hurt.
You know how you got along so well with Joel and Jason? The neat part about being best friends with twins. And the neat part about being a twin…how they fought all the time and at the same time were the best of friends? That was me and your Aunt Jennie. We were almost the same person at times and other times different as night and day. But it was like we matched up in everything. Even to the point where I should have been wearing a dress all along. Maybe if we hadn’t gotten hurt that would have happened in real life…
She grew up feeling bad and scared and angry about herself and she used the wrong things to get over those feelings…and it killed her. And I did the same thing, but instead of food, it was hiding inside a shell that looked like …like me. Instead of being who she was, Jennie became a recluse inside herself; the shell wore out and finally gave way. My shell never wore out, but the person inside was just as reclusive, and no one…not a single person…got to know Andrea. She’s been looking to come out for a long time; loving everything I love and being everything I am.
I want you to get to know that person… I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t even understand, and I know your mother won’t understand. But this is the person who held everything together; the steady parent who stood alongside your mother and loved you all these years. It’s not funny, but it does remind me of that book they had you read in school, but in this case, Andy has two mommies.
I’m not your mother…but part of me feels so strongly that I wish I had been the one to bear you in me…not to take anything away from your mom. But the moment you were born, even in the midst of the pain she felt… the look on her face when you were born? I was so jealous that my tears flowed; taken for the tears of joy that they mixed with. She had the sweetest smile I have ever seen. I wish I had that look… It’s not about clothes, but you might find that clothes are important. You express yourself everyday with turn of your cap and the sarcastic logo on your tee…it says a bit about who you are. A soft sweater and a skirt would scare the hell out of you if you saw me wearing them, but it’s more about the soft than the sweater.
I don’t expect you to understand, like I said. I hope after all these years that I’ve at least earned your respect enough that you’ll read this letter and swallow hard before saying, ‘okay,’ Not that you approve, but that you don’t hate me like I fear you will. Even up to this point, I don’t even know if I can give this to you to read. I know you’ll read this someday. I can only hope and pray it won’t be over my grave, and that I end up trusting in your and your mother’s love for me.
I love you both. Dad
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
Comments
beautiful hon
moving. I truly wish you could send the real version of this to your family. Hugs.
"Let me succeed. If I cannot succeed let me be brave in the attempt." Pledge of the Special Olympics.
dorothycolleen
Powerful and well written.
This is so sad to read, but at the same time... I hope that, if something like this were to go to your son, he would understand.
Melanie E.
Andy has 2 Mommies
The Andrea in this story has kept all these personal truths inside herself for so long, and now it's all rushing out. She desperately wants Andy Jr. to understand the depth and core-ness (if that's a word) of her feelings, what this is and what it isn't about. But maybe, tactically, the part about feeling jealous of his bride for being able to give birth is a bit much to lay on the boy right now, since it's likely to conjure up vivid and all-too intimate images---his dad groaning and dialated as a wet bloody head pushes its way out of him---that along with everything else might be a bit much for the youngster to handle, at least for right now. Or so it seems to me anyway, little as I know about family and parenting stuff.
But that's what dry-run exercises like this are for, eh? (That and reducing your loyal fans to kleenex-honking tearful ninnies...). I hope and pray that the larger story this story is a part of has a happy outcome...
~~love, Veronica
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
Thank you 'Drea,
ALISON
'we can only hope,dear one,we can only hope!
ALISON
Silken Silence
Beautiful and bittersweet. Makes you want to cry
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
A Special Relationship
Dearest 'Drea,
This is the beginning of the end. It is the beginning of a beginning. There has been a belated epiphany: the realization that keepings one problems pent up inside seldom leads to the best solution. Andrea needs to hold onto the letter for just a little while; until he sits down with his wife (who probably really does know everything) and lets it go. It might help if he gets her to admit that she knows how he feels, how he actually is. Then he says, "I need your help. I wrote this letter to our son. Please read it, and if you would, add a note. That would mean so much to me if we could face this thing together; that he knew you knew, and maybe understood what we might have to face in the future."
I'm sure much more should probably be said. The saddest thing of all would be if the letter sits undelivered. I am probably too idealistic; however, in my idealistic world, that's the way things should work out.
Portia
Portia
Feelin for you
RAMI
Dear Andrea:
I read this story with hardache for you. I know you wish you had the ability to deliver this exact letter to Tracey and your son, but you fear, the consequences. I truly hoper that you find the way to communicate your true self first to Tracey and then to your son, perhaps with her help and blessing.
RAMI
RAMI
Took a few minutes
I had to think about this one. It reminds me in some ways of several letters I wrote and sent years ago. Did that go well?, you might ask. Not so much.
In a few places I wondered at the wording or expression.It seemed perhaps directed to the audience here rather than the proposed reader, but maybe I'm projecting. Still it was lovely and heartfelt and aching in a quiet way, short of desperation but still... painful. We must all make the decision of do we or not. Not easy and all sorts of personal stuff messes and mixes in. Situation and reality beyond a dream often. And even if you think you know how thins will go and who will or not you may be wrong and the balance will not be known for perhaps a long time. Everyone has to make that choice for themselves, it always depends and it aint easy at all. I feel for you and really hope this doesn't sound like it's about me, it's not, just.... perspective maybe. best wishes.
Kristina
There's "Personal" And.....
Then there's
Words from the heart and felt in the heart.
Acceptance? Ah, that really is the question, isn't it? To risk all and have it burn down all around you, or to continue in that silken silence which works for others, but not really for you,
Joanne
To Send or Not to Send
This is a good exercise, but I hope you're able to follow through and send this long before you're in the grave. Even if the worst happens, isn't it better to know?
Living a lie was worse for me than telling everyone the truth. I didn't have a wife and son though. I'm sure that makes your situation a bit more difficult than mine.
Good luck, and remember, I'll always be here for you, as I'm sure a lot of others will be.
Thanks and kudos and hugs.
- Terry