Dear Friend,
I have written seven versions of this letter.
Seven!!!
Which feels ridiculous when I say it out loud.
I have rewritten the opening, changed the middle, reworked the ending, chased themes, deleted paragraphs and added them back in again.
I was trying to summarise 53 years of life into a few pages.
Which is impossible **sigh**
The (not so) funny thing is, I think I was also trying to make the letter enough.
Clear enough.
Wise enough.
Meaningful enough.
And if I’m honest, perhaps there was a **small** part of me hoping that if I got the letter right, it might say something about me too.
That I am enough for you.
The trouble is that when I look back over my life, I don’t know which story to tell you to achieve this.
Do I tell you about the girl whose bedroom walls were covered in National Geographic photos? The girl who cared about whales and forests and people she would never meet. The girl who thought the world was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.
Or do I tell you about the woman who works hard?
The woman who believes that being responsible matters.
That contribution matters.
That if you show up, do the right thing and give your best, you can leave things a little better than you found them.
Or do I tell you about getting divorced?
About becoming a single mother of three?
About the years that felt harder than I expected after things that didn’t go according to plan?
All of those stories, and more, are mine.
Then I realised something.
I was trying to find my worth in the things I had done, built, achieved, survived and carried when the most important part of my story has always been
Who I am.
I have been an activist, mother, wife, single parent, strategist, leader, friend... the list goes on
Some of these roles have been mine for years.
Some disappeared.
Some arrived unexpectedly.
All of them changed me.
But none of them are actually me.
What I hope has remained underneath all of it is
Someone who cares deeply about people.
Someone who is curious.
Someone who wants to make things more beautiful.
Someone who believes that the way we love each other matters the most.
Someone who is still learning.
Perhaps this all sounds obvious.
But it has taken me a while to not only realise but to accept and live the fact that the most important part of my story is not the names of the roles.
It is who I am becoming in and through them.
I still care about contributing.
I still care about doing good work.
I still care about leaving things better than I found them.
But these days I am less interested in being impressive and more interested in being whole.
Less interested in proving myself and more interested in being present.
Less interested in what people think about my life and more interested in who I am as I live it
So perhaps this is my real letter to you.
Hello.
My name is Sam.
I have lived many roles, carried many stories, and tried for a long time to make them prove I was enough. But I am learning that who I am shapes what I do and what I do was never meant to define my worth.
With enough,
Sam