OUR LETTERS 2 SELF

WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE LETTER, MORE OF A WARNING, TO MY YOUNGER SELF. WRITING THIS WAS LIBERATING AND MOTIVATED ME TO CREATE THIS WEBSITE FOR US ALL.  PLEASE ENJOY AND TAKE FROM IT WHAT YOU NEED TO.

Dear Lil Chris,

I write this letter to you in a very unique, yet twisted way. I know what I write can in no way save you, but I write this anyways. I guess I compose this letter wishing I could have received this warning, but it’s too late, what’s done is done and we can’t be saved.

At this moment in time, you are an innocent, pure child who has the world ahead of you, but tomorrow, all that will be a distant memory. As your final day of childhood comes to an end, I share with you this blue print of your future. I wish I could share with you this letter so that it would bring you joy, laughter, and happiness, but that is not how your story will go. So, before you close those tired little eyes, and fade off into your dreamland, listen very closely to the story I’m going to share with you.

I want you to take a moment to take a mental snapshot of what your life has been like. Visualize the serenity and peace that exist in your world and the bright blue skies that light up your life. Picture the smiles on your loved ones faces and how the energy permeates from them. See the calmness in your surroundings.

Next, take a deep breath.  What aromas do you sense? Can you smell the fresh cut grass as you play, or the comforting smell of your mom’s cooking coming from the kitchen?

Remember the touch of your parents as they hold your hands. And the gentle warm breeze on your skin, that feels so calming on a warm, beautiful day. And embrace the feeling of lying your head on a dry pillow and the sensation of awaking from a great night sleep.

Lastly, listen closely to the sounds of your loved ones voices. Hear the love in their speech. Embrace everyone’s laughter, it has been so infectious, especially your own. Listen to the sounds of children playing freely. Listen closely to the peaceful silence of the world, it has also been so calming.

Make sure you lock these away somewhere deep down where no one or nothing can reach them. You will desperately need them, something I never had and wished I did throughout this tumultuous journey. See, life changes, and I unfortunately must be the bearer of bad news. When you awake tomorrow morning, get dressed and walk out that front door to play, your world will be rocked by a far more sadistic, twisted and dark game. Due to the actions of one sick and demented person, your life and the foundation it was built on, will come crashing down.  The results will be catastrophic.  Things will be done to you that no man, woman and especially a child should ever have to endure. You will be sexually abused, raped and molested at the hands of an individual who knows it’s wrong, but is more concerned with his own sick gratification than the wellbeing of a 7 year old child. The abuse will go on for about five years. You will finally move away in the middle of your 6th grade year and you will be ecstatic. You will think it will all be over, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Allow me to paint a horrific picture for what this will do to you.  As for happiness, forget about it.  It doesn’t exist. That snapshot I told you to take, disappears. Everywhere you go and everything you do, there will be a pure black cloud overhead at all times. You will suffer through all of this alone, no one will know for years, and by that point you will feel like it’s too late. You will feel every negative emotion possible and then some. You will feel the most intense feelings of anger, rage, sadness, loneliness, shame and that god awful, gut wrenching pain. You will be forced to bury secrets so deep that it will nearly kill you from the pain that it causes. Then there is the pain of the biggest what if. What if your father found out? What would he do to this person and what pain would be caused to your family from his possible, and completely understandable, actions. But you will bury it all, so you don’t have to find out the answers.

You will fight more battles and wars than you could ever imagine.  The crazy part of it is that most of the battles will be internally. You will be consumed by demons that will come in droves. Every time you think your making progress at fighting them off, another wave of demons will come. I wish I could tell you it will stop, but I’m not sure it ever does. Those demons will come in a multitude of different forms, even from some that you think you can trust. This will most certainly come with life lessons. Learn from those lessons, study each one intensely and make sure you’re never burned by those demons again. And always keep your guard up, because you never know when they will rear their ugly heads.

With all the battles you will fight, none will be more difficult than the relationship with your family.  If there is a silver lining, it’s that you have a great family, but unfortunately, they will not know you for decades to come.  It is not their fault, they don’t know what’s happening, because you will quickly become the master of disguise.  Fear, will keep your secrets from becoming others reality. So almost instantaneously, a divide so great will be formed between you and your family.  They won’t be able to understand you and your behaviors, because they truly don’t know you. You will watch your sister and parents grow close.  There will be moments of utter sadness because you will feel like the black sheep.  But you will always come back to the thought, maybe one day they will know what I’m going through and then that will make everything alright. But that won’t happen for a very, very long time.  Whatever you do though, understand this one critical fact, they don’t know, so don’t blame them. Their heart is in the right place, and that you will see later on. And believe it or not, that will end up meaning the world to you. Always fight for that family, they got your back and that will become a realization when you least expect it throughout the years. When you are stuck in those extreme dark periods and places, they will shine the only light you will be able to see, as if calling to you to follow. Throughout the years, people will come and go, but know that your family will always be there.  I can’t stress enough, that while they do not know of your struggles from the abuse and all the pain that it carries, IT IS NOT THEIR FAULT, there is no way they could have known.

I told you to remember what it is like to have a dry pillow, because from tomorrow til eternity, you will never experience that sensation again.  Your pillow will become a form of a twisted dreamcatcher. Every tear at night you shed, will represent each of your dreams leaving you. You will be left feeling empty and hopeless night after night, while you watch the world pass you by. There will be no escape, and it will slowly contribute to your ultimate demise. You will hide all the warning signs, you will lie with the best of them, and you will make yourself believe that you are doing the right thing. Primarily because you know no other way. And after all the abuse you will have suffered and all the pain you will have sustained, one day you will finally see a small glimmer of hope.

Finally, total ELATION…your parents come to you with the best news a child in your predicament can receive, WE’RE MOVING. The very first thing that goes through your mind is that the abuse will be over for good. You are in the 6th grade, you will have been sexually abused for nearly half your life. Think about it, some of the most formidable years of your childhood will be stunted by the abuse. But you feel like without the act itself, you will finally be able to put the pieces of your life back together. You will believe you can fix your relationship with your family and start living up to your potential.  Become a child again. Fight and embrace the innocence and purity of what’s left of you as a child. But surprise, it’s all just a mirage. There was no light, there was no hope, you just convinced yourself there was. What you don’t realize, and won’t for a couple more years is that the worst is yet to come. The emotional, mental and eventually the physical side effects of the abuse will be far worse than the act itself. While this may make no sense to you now, in time it will. And unfortunately, the wet pillow will never dry. You just hope that one day, those tears can create the motivation needed to persevere.  And that one day those tears will taste like freedom, not hate.

But until you’re able to find that place of peace, those tears will be your battle cry.  Strangely, those tears will also be a representation, as well as a foundation, for who you are and what lies ahead. They represent the pain, sadness and loneliness that you will endure most of your life, but you will try to hold out hope for a better day.

Speaking of hope…be very, very cautious, it will kill you. You are free from the physical act of abuse, but trust me when I say, that’s just the beginning.  As you get older and grow up, you begin to look forward in life, and hope that by certain points in your future, life will be better. It will start almost immediately.  First, you will envision high school. You will be older, have created meaningful relationships and will be doing better in life. Your family and friends will be so proud of how far you have risen, but it never happens. Then it will be college, where you can be independent and be farther away from the brutality and will have a path to find happiness, but it won’t be then. Maybe by the time you’re in your mid 20’s, you’ll be married, have kids, and on your way to a successful career, but it still doesn’t happen. It’s gotta be when you’re in your 30’s, you’ll think. You will be so far removed from the abuse that it no longer has an effect on your life. But as you can guess from history, it continues to get worse. You will look back on the decades that will have passed, and wonder how you have fallen so far. The only thing that will make sense to you is that it’s not getting better, every day is worse than the last. You will have destroyed relationships, you will become withdrawn to the point, that to most you will just be a distant memory. The pattern of loneliness will continue on a downward spiral, until you end up so low that no one will be able to recognize you.

I’m going to change gears on you. I want you to travel to 2006 with me, some of the highest and lowest points of your life. Your daughter is starting school and is blossoming quickly.  You won’t be there for her like your heart yearns for, but you know damn well, that your life is no place for your child.  The life you live and some of the company you keep, would be traumatic for her.  You will be near the height of your criminalistic ways. Hanging with the underworld of society, no different than it was as a child. It’s a world where you have every walk of life from those who chose this way to those of us forced into it. You will roll with the best of the worst, respected by so many, but that will also be a mirage, but you’ll already know this. You will finally feel like you are thriving and happy, even if it is through a corrupt lifestyle, but all the while, that black cloud will be permanently overhead.  And then one day…the storm comes crashing down. The rain will nearly drowned you, the thunder will shake you to your core, but it will be the intensity of the lightning that will almost obliterate you. The storm comes in the form of the government.

You will be stopped on the highway with what you think is a minimal amount of weed, but what ensues will flip your world upside down. A routine traffic stop will turn into an hour and a half ordeal that involves five cops and a detective.  They will be suspicious enough that they tear your car apart, but who’s to blame them. You’re in your mid-20’s, headed towards a college campus, where you stay, with a substantial amount of drugs and cash on top of the fact that you have warrants. Unbelievably, they will eventually let you go with a simple ticket, but you’ve been around this game long enough to know that there is something very suspicious about this situation.  A few hours later it will all make sense. You will look out the window of your apartment and there sits a marked and an unmarked police cars and they won’t be leaving for months to come.

In a few days you will go back to visit your daughter and that’s when you get the dreaded phone call, that you have been raided. You will stare deeply into your daughter’s eyes as tears fill your own, because you have no idea where the future is going to lead you. But what you do know is that it’s time for you to go face your own reality and embark on what will become a three month journey of running and hiding. You will sneak in and out of your place, stay at different spots and lay as low as possible. Yet all the while still taking care of business. It won’t be until they eventually start harassing those around you, before you deal with this. If there is a life lesson to be learned, it’s that only you should take responsibility for your own actions, don’t let others take the fall for you.

There are only a small handful of moments in life that you will vividly remember every detail, and when you’re finally faced with your charges and possible time, this will be one of them.  The first thought you will have is that your daughter could be a grown women when you get out of prison. You can’t even fathom missing that much time with her. Everything else in that moment means nothing, just her, and the war you will wage not to lose her. You will take it all like a man. No matter how much they press you, you will never snitch and never cop out. It’s the life we live, so the consequences are what they are. Luckily for all though, you will eventually beat your case and your freedom will have been won, but will you truly be free? You will drive away from the courthouse one last time and make the three hour trip back to where you live now. You will cry some of the most powerful tears of your life. You feel like this should be such a glorious day, but you inevitably realize that today is still worse than yesterday, because you are still alone. And those demons you have fought so hard to suppress will come racing back to the forefront of your life. You will try to convince yourself that you have been granted a second chance, but quickly you will recognize that it was just another metaphoric mirage. But look on the bright side, you’re not in prison, so you still have a shot. And most importantly, you still have your daughter.

So be aware, that as you navigate throughout this maze we call our life, you will go to hell and back far more than a few times. You will be faced with trials and tribulations that you swear, and sometimes wish, would kill you.  You will be left alone and confused almost from the word go, and that will continually grow deeper and deeper as time passes. And through it all, you will always go back to the same question, “WHY?”  Why did it have to be me, why did I have to go at it alone, why can’t someone see what’s happening, why is no one helping me?  Why are my highs, most people’s absolute lows, and why are my lows so deep, that there is nobody there? Why am I the one that cries these lonely tears? Why am I filled with this excruciating pain? And why does the question why never end?  Surprisingly, the answer is quite simple, IT IS WHAT IT IS.  See, you will never have the real reason to why you were abused, because what’s done is done.  You can’t change the past.  There will be those that try to persuade you to think that the present is a gift, a blessing of sorts because you are still here.  But the reality is, the present is not a blessing.  And what about the future, it may hold the key to your happiness?  But you’re not ignorant, you know that’s just another way of using the word hope.

So before this letter is signed, sealed, and far too late, delivered, let me leave you with this.  This was just a snapshot of what life holds for you.  I am in no way trying to scare or frighten you, this is to empower you.  The message is dark and the journey is daunting, but it is our reality.  I dream that one day we can unite on the other side, and that we may become whole once again.  But until that time, I hope that writing this letter will be a turning point in our lives.  I hope that I can tell you that the future is bright and that we will be alright, but as you will find out, hope is very dangerous.  So for now, I will continue to prepare for the worst and let others hope for the best.  But I promise you this one thing, I will not give up this fight until I take my final breath.  We only get one opportunity at this thing called life and for far too long, we haven’t been living.  So reach deep down in your heart and your soul and you will find the strength and the confidence you will need to persevere.  And do not deviate from what’s inside your heart, it is truly the only part of you that is pure, and no one can take that from you.

Love Always and Forever,

YOU