Conceived and enacted on the Solstice evening of 21st-22nd June 2010.
I recently went through a therapeutic process using several different treatment modalities to deal with some unresolved issues such as ‘status change’ after a past relationship breakup. As part of this, it is usual for people to write letters to those people who they need to make amends to. These letters are not always sent, and, in most cases I have done so. They probably come across as slightly self-indulgent to others.
Below is one for a specific person I am no longer in contact with (with identifiable details in contrast to research ethics guidelines to have ‘de-identifiable data’ – I will explain to the person why if they ever contact me directly for clarification – for starters, I hope the person is safe and well). That said, the person may be unlikely to ever see or read this message. And, if they do read it, they will likely have a different view of the events described and their (non-) significance.
As Douglas Hofstadter observed in his book I Am A Strange Loop (Basic Books, New York, 2007), we can often end up with only self-referential ‘simulations’ or fleeting memories of the people in our deep past who were once close to us. These self-referential ‘simulations’ are often nothing like what a person is, now. Even if you have not seen a person in a long time — in say 12 years — such self-referential ‘simulations’ may be reactivated during periods of anxiety, stress and anniversarial issues.
This is meant as an ‘appreciative’ note before the memories fade. We may not be able to change our past yet we can change the significance and meaning-making that we imbue it, thus freeing our lives for the present and the unfolding future.
At least some of this did actually happen. The rest is a ‘Just So’ story — a subjective ‘narrative’ that is constructed as a ‘healing fiction’ and meant to be discarded when the therapeutic intervention ends.
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