The Ache That Becomes Your Guide

Tarek, Tarek, Tarek!

I wasn’t expecting the letter you wrote.

I liked your idea of writing letters to one another. It felt old-school. Intimate. I imagined pen and paper. Though here I am typing.

Your honesty is one of your many strong suits. So, it wasn’t the surprise.

The part of your letter that made me pause and breathe was realizing how fresh your pain was at the time we met.

Losing your identity causes a deep ache. I know. It is hard to catch our balance when we don’t know who we are. I, too, was in my 20s when life had me on my knees, trying to figure things out.

I didn’t lose my identity. I was desperately looking for it.

I yearned to be an actress, living life on 40-foot theatre movie screens. How do I forge such a future? How do people realize dreams? How do you manage the ache of wanting to be somebody? Where do I find answers to questions no one in my life was asking?

Wanting so much and feeling so small caused a deep ache. Oddly, the ache became my guide. It helped me focus. It made me resilient. It taught me that living our dreams must be earned by boxing with fear, doubt, disillusionment, and even despair.

I am happy we met after I had learned to sit with my own pain and let that process guide me. Sitting with you was an honor. Over the past 20 years, being a trusted witness to another’s hurt, pain, or disorientation has become one of my strong suits.

Trusting in divine timing makes navigating difficulty easier.

From the start — meeting you on the mountain, talking for hours, and laughing over bad Mexican food you loved — felt like being with an old friend or family member.

Your exhaustion made room for us to simply be with one another. To sit with disquiet without judgment. Those moments were the best; I always left them knowing, deep down, that you would be fine.

I had been there. I had learned that identity crises deliver great hard-earned gifts. Ultimately, they make space for who we truly are.

I am so pleased we met. Blessed to have been there and to see you now. You do the work that a life committed to freedom requires. Me too.

I am happy to partner with you on the journey ahead with Bridging the Gap. We will have an extraordinary opportunity to love life and one another out loud, and to use everything that comes with this to deepen our friendship and shrink the gap

I’m loving you,

Tina