Day Twenty-eight: Person That Changed Your Life

Angie Brugh (I know your last name is different now, but this is the one I know),

I can't even begin to tell you how much of a difference you made in my teenage years. I don't think that I'd be the person that I am today if you hadn't been there for me. There were so many confusing things I was going through back then. It meant so much to me to have someone understand me--or at the very least try to.

It would be difficult for me to explain how hard it was back then. I felt like I was being pulled in seven hundred different directions, everyone wanting something from me, but each of them wanting something totally different. It was so impossible to keep up with what everyone wanted from me. I felt alone, misunderstood, and unwanted. I couldn't live up to all the things that I wanted for myself because it was too hard to keep up with just trying to live up to the things that my parents wanted from me. I had so many emotions swimming around in my head, so many thoughts, that it was hard enough to just slow down enough to breathe.

You were the first person that had any kind of faith in my intelligence. You were the first person that really made me feel wanted, welcome, despite my being a teenager. So many other adults wrote me off, but you didn't. You made me feel like I had something to offer, that I had a reason to be valued. You never betrayed my confidence in you, and you never made me feel stupid for what I was feeling. You gave me perspective without being oppressive or talking down to me. I know that seems like the kind of thing that people should automatically do for each other, but most of them don't.

I don't think that I'd be able to imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn't had you as a friend and role model when I was a teenager. Personally, I don't think that I'd even be here today. There were so many times that I just wanted to be done, but you told me something that always stuck with me: no one could ever take away my ability to end myself. If I slept on it, if I still felt that way and it wasn't going away, that would still be an option for me, and no one could do anything about it. Probably only because you told me that, because you helped me to understand that I could think it through, give the sting some time to wear itself away, did I keep from doing something drastic.

I know I've said it like a hundred times before, but you'll never really know what it meant to me to have you in my life. You were the only adult that I ever trusted at all. I hate thinking that we haven't spoken, like really spoken, in so long. I don't even know where to begin to try to fix that, partly because I feel embarrassed about the situation with my mother and partly because I feel guilty for having a relationship with her (if you can call this one) and not with you right now. I suppose it's more complicated than I'm willing to write here, for the world to see. In many ways, I considered you very much a mother to me.

I owe my mental health to you, Angie. I'm not completely together yet, but I'm getting better all the time. I'm still not the woman I hoped to be, but I'm trying to stop the bleeding. The only reason that I even have a hope of doing that is because of the things that you taught me about myself. So thank you. For everything. You have helped to shape me, change me, better me. Hopefully, I'll end up being the kind of person that you can look at and be proud of.

Love,

Jessica