Dear Constance, Dear Reader:

I make a distinction between you Constance, who found your way here, drawn by my writings…poems, posts, pics…perhaps bloviating, who knows…but you found your way here to me, Charissa.  And you have known my heart, known me for who I am, what I am…

…and then there is you, Reader.  You are from my past.  You knew me “then”.  You knew the role I was in, the part I played, and played even to myself in the midst of the horror and sorrow dysphoria is.  You watched me from afar.  You assessed always, judged by what you saw on the outside.

More often than not you threw me into your scale of judgment with me on one side and yourself on the other and I was found wanting in the balance.

And then there is “Brother of Reader, Sister of Reader”…and you also are from my past.  You come around like people from a small midwestern town go to the travelling freak show:  you slink in under cover of darkness and read.  You gossip to one another in hushed tones, and wag your head in wonder over this person you knew “who finally lost it”.

Well Reader, I did indeed finally lose it, and found me.

But here is the deal:  you broke trust with me…the person.  You broke faith.

I extended kindness over and over again.  I extended love and sacrifice.  I placed your needs above my own, and sought to serve you, give to you freely and without expectation and in hope that you would learn and be transformed by the renewing of your minds and hearts in the washings of the eternal word I sought to live.

I cannot allow you to be around.  Broken trust is too deep a gulf, too broad a breach.  And there are also factors that literally prohibit me from taking any chances with anyone from my past…from that specific past that involved your access to my life, and even deeper, to my heart.

So now I am gone…and the reality of my absence is sinking in…and you miss that steady striving earnest heart.  You miss that gentle person you could yell at or off load on who kept cool under fire and didn’t repay evil with evil, but evil with good.  You think to yourself that maybe there was a different narrative than the one you conspired with in the moment because if felt good and was safer to you than the risk of allying with someone who was going down, and going down for good…

…so you come here, reading, finding the same heart and soul, and more…realizing there were depths and chambers hidden from which treasure came, from which pearls came.  You hope to find expiation.  You imagine that perhaps the traces can be picked up once again and we can pick up where we left off…except that “we” didn’t leave off…

You did.  Leave.  Off.

Let the word be spread:  I cannot risk you in my life.  I will block you as I find out your presence in the various social media I utilize.  Oh don’t get me wrong…I forgive you, and have forgiven from the beginning…I just cannot control what happened to the land when that nuclear bomb went off and radiation blighted that territory.  Half-lives simply must pass and in the meantime nothing will grow.

So spread the word.  I am not responding.  I am not waving.  I am not answering.  I am not hating.  I am not loving.  I am not acknowledging. I have shaken the dust off my feet and moved on, and will never utter another word in your direction…because I am required to, I have to, I must.

I am dead to you…and alive to me, and to Constance.  I am legally transitioned to me, and fully so…the me I always was and almost lost.

I am Charissa Grace…I am beloved of God, by Their Word and Their Blood…I am not yours.