Dear Friend,

Thank you for being friend enough to step back and let me have the space I needed. Your desire to help, your willingness to be a friend was very much appreciated. It was also very tempting, very dangerous.

Life for me at the moment is a struggle. It seems as if I might break under the burden of one more problem yet with each new trial I fight a little harder and I make it through. The funeral was incredibly difficult, emotional. Being the tactile person that I am I, as always, reached out to touch time and again. My grandmother felt as I feel so often . . . cold, empty, alone yet surrounded by people. I miss her aready. I also regret missed opportunities to visit, rejected offers of a closer relationship. I thought I had more time but life changes happen in a heart beat.

Many times during the weekend I wanted to reach out to you, to let you hold me while I hid away from the world, while I cried out my pain, to have you be my shelter in the storm. Very dangerous. For I understand, have always understood, that friends have lives of their own and I will ultimately be alone, a priority only to myself. What I needed was not to need you.

I have loved you for a while now, have loved you enough not to try to change you or our relationship. So, if it seems, at times, that I hold back, do not share as openly as a friend should, it is not because I don't want to reach out but rather a desire not to be imposing with my needs, not to be overpowering with my emotions. I would not give up, would not do anything to jepordize our unique friendship. I truly treasure our time together.

Friends and lovers. Thank you for caring.

Bn.