12/3/2025

T, Mi Amor,

I write to you today to open myself up a bit more and let you know who I am and what I am made of. Because I think this will lead to understanding, and understanding will lead to a stronger bond. By the way, I love Rumi, because there is just so much depth in his poetry, you can excavate them over and over and over again and still be surprised at how much deeper it goes.

One of the things that I realised today is that when I am around you there are some things that are coming to light. These are decades old wounds which I have carried without even knowing it. And since the time I have been with you on occasion these come to light. And I’m so glad that they do because it is finally helping me to get past and overcome these so i can become a more wholesome rounded man (emotionally, i don’t meant it physically, that I’m still hoping to get that chiseled look I’m after 😎 )

What happened today is a prime example of what I am talking about. I lay there face down on the bed. I felt the strap of the dry needle clasp onto my skin and a second later I felt it plunge directly into the very soul of the pain that I have carried for the better part of a decade. When it hit that point, I saw things which I had repressed.

I saw the first time that I saw Nemo. He was in the doctor’s arms. He opened his eyes and he looked directly at me. But he didn’t make a sound. When I saw him and his eyes I remembered my grandad. Somehow I see a bit of Grandpa in Nemo. But that first time he looked at me it felt like he looked right into the deeper ravines in my mind and saw the tiniest flowers that were blooming there. I remember how that time my heart had stopped and everything slowed down because I didn’t know whether he was alive or not. And the moment I came back to earth I saw everything move forward at 2x the speed. Where the doctors rushed to initiate him to cry. I saw him hooked up to the CPAP machine barely able to breathe.

I saw how Nemo cried every time in the physiotherapy when he was barely 3 or 4 years old. I saw him cry his eyes out with the pain of unable to hold his body weight up. I saw him reach out and fold his hands and beg me to take him. I remembered how it was to just be stoic because if I wasn’t he might have never walked.

I saw how I sent Puppy into the hospital to get spayed. I remembered thinking how much of a karmic debt was coming onto my head because I prioritised convenience over what was natural. And I remember standing rooted to the spot in the veterinarians office as they took her in for the procedure. I had to blink back the tears so no one else saw me break.

I saw the times that I drove back home in my car. A little too intoxicated. A little too sad. And the dam would burst open and I would cry alone and no one in the world saw that.

When I sat up and the doctor left the room, a shiver ran down my spine. It was from the cold in the room. It was from being alone. It was from being in pain. It was from the fear. It was all of it that just came rushing back to me.

The only difference was, this time, I knew who I wanted to call in that very moment. I knew the message tone I wanted to hear right then. I knew who’s very unique “haiiiiiiiii” I wanted to hear. I knew the very specific scent of vanilla I wanted to smell. I dug my hands into my pocket and pulled out the scrunchie and took the deepest breath. I felt you coming into me at a molecular level as the last remnant bits of your perfume coursed down my nose and calmed my amygdala. (How did I instinctively know it was the amygdala? Somehow my brain unpacked that very obscure piece of information from my 10th standard biology book right now). I pulled myself home the best way I could. And I lay there on my bed and closed my eyes and felt the tears rolling down my cheeks and beyond my ears.

I wanted to call you, but i was too scared to. It was another wound that I had stitched onto my skin. It said – if I ask for what I need then I am not worthy. I am the provider, never the receiver. I am not allowed to ask. I’m never allowed to ask for what I want. It made me think of this one time, I asked my dad for a hot wheels car, it cost all of 45 rupees. His response to me was – how can you even ask for that? No reason, no explanation. Just a question back which said – you aren’t allowed to ask for what you want. And I remember I immediately followed up with – no no i was just checking because i wanted to see something for my collection but i don’t really need it.

I almost repeated the same pattern today. I was afraid I couldn’t ask for what i wanted and maybe if I did you would be disgusted by it. But it took an immense amount of courage from me to reach out from that place of pain and fear. And when I did, oh baby, what you gave me, was like a cup of hot cocoa on a cold winter evening. You gave me the love I was looking for. You gave me the moooooooooooore that I wanted. You gave me the mudddduuuu that made me feel safe again.

I tell you this not to lay the weight of my wounds on you. Not for you to ease their pain. Not even for you to heal me. But to let you know that you shine this light on them. And in seeing them, I face them in ways that I haven’t before. I had mourned them and grieved them and buried them but never moved past them. I felt like I was this guy who refused to leave the grave after I buried the body deep in the ground.

But you gave me hope. Hope that not all love ends badly. Not all of humanity is inhuman. Hope that it’s ok for me to ask for that I want and get exactly that in return.

Love Forever & Always,

XOXO,

A