I have some exciting news to share with you today, so I logged on to my newsletter site and looked up where I left off.
Ahhh.... I left off with quite the bang, didn't I? "MJ or Coke?," then "Playing Monopoly," then "By Request" and finally the topper... "Where Things Stand Now."
So I re-read "Where Things Stand Now." Wow. What a piece. It made happy, then made me squirm a bit uncomfortably. Because you all fall into two groups. (For the purposes of this letter, I will call them Group A and Group B.)
And it is Group A I was thinking of when I began to squirm in my seat. I felt like I should apologize...?
While I was researching the photo to this article, I came across a spam-card quote that said, "Never apologize for what you feel. It's like saying you're sorry for being real." And I sighed. Did that apply to me?
I was real in "Where Things Stand Now." I was being brutally honest with you. I really felt all those things, and I felt them very, very strongly.
I was just coming home from a long, dirty and brutal war. And many of my readers fought for the other side. Many, many of my readers broke the law and broke WCS while they were at it. And at the end there, nearly everyone who had worn sheep's clothing on my side of the war - had their disguises ripped off.
And that was enough.
And so, as I came home, I wrote with great honesty that which I both felt and witnessed. Is that something I should apologize for...?
It is now six months later. Maybe that seems like a short time ago. But to me it feels like years. Why? Well... In the last six months I have:
- Moved
- Bought a new home
- Wrote a new book ("Dear Mr. Cosby,")
- Started a new job
- Traveled 10,000+ miles
"Healing is a choice," as my favorite Steve Arterburn book title declares and I've mindfully chosen to do all the of the things above. Nothing was by accident. All of these things I sought out and made plans to do. And it's paid off. I am healing and I am (ridiculously!) happy.
And so it is a healed, healthy and strong woman that is before you now, writing this letter, and she is able to look back at "Where Things Stand Now" and say...
To those of you who love me for who I am...
To those of you who have always cheered me on...
To those of you who are happy that I'm leaving swing because it's the right thing to do for me and my family...
To those of you who have always loved my writing, no matter if it was for swing or the world...
To all of my real fans & the truly brave souls who really do love swing...
To you and only you, my lovely Group A, let me just say - "I am sorry."
You're not the only Group on my list, and for a brief time, my eyes didn't see you, the victorious ones, but the other ones, Group B. The ugly and derisive ones who started the war in the first place.
No, wait. My eyes weren't just on the derisive ones, were they? No - when I wrote you those Notes, I was also seeing all of those "sheep" revealed. Those who had called me "friend," who told me they loved me, who told me they cheered for me, who told me they supported me and wanted me to write, write, write - but really just wanted to see me fight...
Because they enjoyed the blood.
