open letter – Valerie Dimino

Dear D, L, C, and E,

Sometimes I feel sad or angry that these past 19 months (and counting) of your childhood have been so heavily shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. I do very often feel both sad and angry about all the time I’m missing out on with you and restless to get to the end of this difficult stretch so that I can be with you much, much more.

I recently found myself thinking of this strange time we’re in as “the lost years”: we’re missing out on so much, with plans continually cancelled, postponed, or dialed back. Again and again, we say “hopefully soon” or “maybe next year,” even though we’ve been taught to live in the present and not take a day for granted. So many things are on hold and uncertain, and it’s easy to feel frustrated, tired, and scared.

But then I get to see you or talk to you and am reminded that these years, these days, are not lost. You are continuing to grow, learn, laugh, and find joy throughout it all. You continue to give and inspire love so powerful, so unconditional, that I’m humbled to be a part of it. And you remind me that that’s what we should all be aiming for, always.

There is so much changing around you all the time, and yet you continue to roll with it and accept it. You understood when birthday parties had to be held by Zoom and dance classes had to be (still have to be) held with 6-foot squares taped out on the floor. You adapted to remote learning, and now you’re navigating being in school in person with so many added safety precautions and restrictions. You wear your masks without question and try hard to remember to keep safe social distances. You are much better about these things than many adults. You understand the big differences that little actions can make.

You run around playfully with your masks on. You give masked hugs or air hugs and say “I love you” on video calls. You ask me what kind of hand sanitizer we just used because “it’s a good one.” You make a game of changing your facial expressions, with exaggerated eyes, and seeing if I can guess whether you’re smiling behind your mask.

You tell me about the video game you’re playing, or the clubs and activities you’re starting, or the friends you’re making, or the boy in your class you think is cute, and the world feels normal again. You remind me of all the good there is in every day, and you remind me that I don’t want to lose sight of any of it.

You have more wisdom and clarity in your 9, 7, and 4 years than many of us have managed to acquire in decades. Given all that you’ve accomplished during these restrictive times, I can only begin to imagine all that you’ll achieve and inspire in others as the world continues to open its boundless self back up to you. Thank you for helping me to remember what matters and what’s good.

I love you more than words can ever say.

Love,
Vovo

I’m calling this “semi-open” because I won’t use your name. A lot of people who know me know who you are anyway, and I suspect that many who read this can easily fill some other name in those brackets — someone who wronged them, who rattled them, who forced them to start over and discover a new version of themselves. I hope that for them, like for me, that new version proved to be far better off.

Two years ago, after many exhausting months of our work styles and priorities failing to coexist in harmony, you terminated my job contract. In an instant, with the sight of a single checkmark on a PDF, my life changed. After six years, I was no longer going to be the person who worked that job in that office, made that commute and parked in that spot, collaborated with that team of amazing friends.

There was no way around it: you and I did not see the world through the same sort of lens, and you were in a position to make that issue go away. In addition to being stung by your decision, I felt powerless to counter it, which hurt even more.

There were many broken pieces of our attempted partnership that, in hindsight, I wish I had addressed differently — many things I’ve realized only since leaving that would have helped me tremendously to know while I was there:

My voice deserves to be heard. It has as much potential as any other at the table, regardless of its volume or its speaker’s title or gender. And when I’m feeling overlooked or disrespected, that’s not a reason to retreat into silence but an urgent reason to speak up louder than ever.

I am the most important advocate of my work. I wish I hadn’t let you shake my confidence in my work or my approaches to it. I should have promoted my own successes instead of hoping you would notice them or looking for the flaws you might see. I shouldn’t have let my passion for my work occur mostly behind a closed door.

I can prevent frustrations from festering. I wish I had pushed more for us to address the frustrations I felt about my job — the uneven workload, the extra hours, the stress level — as they first became issues, rather than letting them build. I kept hoping you would see them as I did, that they would then be solved as if by magic. Our conversations about them were never active enough and soon became empty words.

A job should not define the entirety of a life. I never could have believed at the time that the concerns of the workday could be left behind when signing off for the day. I was so controlled by deadlines and processes, so afraid of letting other people down, that those anxieties followed me home at night and consumed my attention. I know now that no pursuit of success should ever come above my health or happiness.

While I was first reeling from your decision, all of those things were harder than ever to believe. My brain didn’t have the capacity to process them. I doubted myself, thinking maybe I wasn’t good enough for that job or for any other, that I was doomed to fail.

After a short period of wallowing, though, I was no longer willing to give you that power over me. My anger became a source of motivation more than pain. It propelled me into my next chapter, one so much better than I could have imagined. After initially breaking me down, your decision ultimately set me free.

A friend of mine — seeing the potential for that motivation before I could — told me I should dedicate the book I’m writing to you, because none of it would have been possible without you. At the time, I laughed at the irony and felt slightly nauseated at the thought. But, in a way, she’s right. I did need to be released from that suffocating situation in order to feel inspired again (how fitting that one definition of inspire is to inhale), to have the energy to work toward this enormous goal and the confidence to make it happen.

There’s a great analogy in Buddhist teachings that compares anger to a burning ember: I may pick it up with the intention of throwing it at someone, but I’m the one who gets burned by it.

Holding onto my anger toward you did burn me for a long time, and I grew tired of it. I’ve let go of that ember now and am walking farther and farther away from it. But I still remember the heat of it. And I need you to know how utterly fantastic it feels to be free from its weight.