I did not send the resignation letter. I did not send the letter to Paul, not in the form it came, at least not immediately. What I did was take two weeks of leave — the first time in four years I had taken leave that was not structured around something else — and I spent some of it at Marc’s and some of it alone and some of it on the phone with the friend I had let thin out, who answered on the second ring and said I wondered when you’d call.
I made an appointment with Dr. Osei on a regular basis, which she said was a good idea and which I agreed with.
I did not find any more letters. I think this is because I have stopped needing to write them to myself without knowing I am doing it. I think the part of me that had run out of patience found a more direct channel.
I did resign, eventually. Not from that letter — that letter stayed in the drawer until I shredded it eight months later — but in my own time, in my own words, after I had found something I wanted to go toward instead of just away from. My editor said she wasn’t surprised. I said I wasn’t either.
I still keep the third letter. Not in a drawer — in a folder I look at occasionally, when I need reminding.
I have thought many times about what it means that the most honest account of my own life was written by me, in my own hand, without my conscious knowledge. That the version of myself with the most clarity was the one I wasn’t present for.
Dr. Osei said something in our third session that I have not stopped thinking about. She said: the self is not a single voice. It is several voices at different volumes. What you call not-knowing is often one voice being louder than you’re ready to let yourself hear.
The letters were a louder voice. I had been managing the volume for three years.
I am still learning to turn it up.
But I am learning.
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