Dear Vincent, I made it two days writing my daily goals on fuschia post-its and sticking these on my refrigerator.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Subject: I spent all weekend listening to podcasts about loneliness. 

Dear Vincent,

This photo is called,

“I spent all weekend listening to podcasts about loneliness. 

I’m not sure I will ever stop waiting for someone to come and save me. 

It will be hard to get through the winter without micro dosing on LSD.”

Love, Erica. 

I spent all weekend listening to podcasts about loneliness. 

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Subject: Full Moon + Purple Heart Emoticon

Dear Vincent,

Happy Full Moon!

I am sorry for being so co-dependent. 

I bought a new journal yesterday. It is purple. Though I’d prefer without lines, sometimes what you want does not exactly match your life. For example the sweatshirt I wanted to wear today smells like stir fry and so it’s a no go. 

Love and best wishes,

Erica. 

Tuesday, November 27, 2018
No Subject

Dear Vincent,

This morning I went to see a social worker. 

My kitchen floor was perfect. 

Then I threw the empty bowl of strawberry yogurt. 

This picture is called, "I am quitting professional help in 2019." 

Love, Erica. 

I am quitting professional help in 2019. 

Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Subject: I made it two days writing my daily goals on fuschia post-its and sticking these on my refrigerator.

Dear Vincent,

I made it two days writing my daily goals on fuschia post-its and sticking these on my refrigerator. Today is the six-year disappearance of a girl from my hometown named Emma Fillipoff. She was 26 years old and she vanished barefoot into the night after a 45-minute conversation with police officers in front of a hotel. In 2015, I did an extensive blog series based on my interview with her mother, who used to be my grade six French teacher. Since I wrote the blogs, we learned approximately five to seven new details, but we still don’t know where she went. Knowing what happened to Emma Fillipoff is right up there with knowing what you think when you open these emails, and if you delete them, or put them in some special Erica folder. It’s perhaps very likely you don’t even bother to read them, and this is quite heartbreaking, if understandable.

Where is Emma Fillipoff (One)
The Search for Emma Fillipoff, Video Podcast with Kimberley Bordage (Concise and  Up-to-Date Collection of Facts)
Emma Fillipoff is Missing, Podcast by Jordan Bonaparte (I am interviewed in Episode 7)
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group

Yesterday I needed a sandwich and a nap as early as 11:11 a.m., and I found this discouraging, and I found this unacceptable. My body did not forgive me for having chocolate almonds for lunch the day before, on a day that involved a relatively extensive work-out, three hours of cleaning and walking from just north of your windowless office all the way to the Atwater library. The night was insomnia, with fragmented stress dreams about other people’s dust, and vinegar scarcity, and screaming fights with my sweet and dainty mother who reminds everyone else of Mother Teresa. The day was, pretty much zero access to the rational part of my brain, though I did a rather good job translating an article about leather made out of pineapple leaves. The client said I was trop hot.

The Social Worker made a list of six things you can do for six months, and this is supposed to help you feel better. The six things are: exercise, eat well, sleep well, meditate, take your pills, go to therapy. Pills and therapy seem like a no-go, meditating has mixed reviews, I do not seem able to consistently excel at eating and sleeping, and 27 years later, exercise seems to have lost its potency. The Social Worker used the example of her thyroid, which is no longer inside of her, and she will have to take a pill every day for the rest of her life. I said that there is no official emotional regulation equivalent of a thyroid that they can say I am missing, thereby giving me a pass to take pills every day for the rest of my life. And I feel like anti-depressants are a scandal of our times, and that no one told you how they would impair your nervous system forever, and that they inevitably lose their effectiveness, and before you know it, you are a tiny and shrill and haggard and volatile sixty-four year old, taking handfuls of Zoloft and never able to sleep. When I am sixty-four, it’s unlikely I will get to be tiny.

The Social Worker asked me what my ideal situation would be. Without the looming threat of monumental rages, and perhaps the low-grade chronic mourning of lost potential, three point five out of five days of my life could be acceptable. And I wish I got to have more sex. And I wish someone would accept me and be there for me even when I am wacking myself in the face and launching an empty bowl of strawberry yogurt across my perfect kitchen floor. The shards went everywhere.

You have disappeared and this was always the agreement, and it would be the same with other therapists too, but I am finding it very difficult to accept and I am finding it very devastating. Maybe I should throw the medical records into the Lachine Canal. The invoice came on Monday and it only cost $15.13. There was some sort of discount and also there were only 58 pages. Sounds like you are more succinct than I am. I wonder if your handwriting is terrible.

It feels very difficult to take personal responsibility for your life and your feelings without drowning in shame and regret. Or to give yourself a break without feeling like you’ve fallen short, once again and forever.

After the fact, I can see how my meltdowns are saying, Look at me, I can’t do it. Let me off the hook. After off the hook, I wake up on the couch with alarm bells in my throat, tears behind my eyes, and a mixed hangover of stress and grief.

Three things I’m craving are

-for someone to cradle my heart and/or my skull for several hours a day for several months in a row.

-for someone to tie me up and fuck the shit out of me

-for you to write back, hey Erica, let’s go have a sandwich and/or

Dear Erica, I see you and I’m sorry that you’re struggling. I did everything that I could and I truly wish that had been enough. You are stronger and braver than you think you are. I will think of you kindly every time I clean out my refrigerator which will be at least one to five times per year. Love Vincent.

Now I have to finish a translation about the microplastics that break down every time you put your synthetic jeggings in the washing machine, and the plastic seeps into the ocean and into all the fish and we get a chunk of plastic every time we eat fish, and this is running havoc on everyone’s estrogen levels. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday.

Love, Erica. 

These Synthetic Jeggings
Possibly the Highlight of November, if not all of 2018
Hand-wash only

Friday, November 30, 2018

Subject: Grat List

Dear Vincent, 

One time I wrote you a gratitude list, and it went like this. 

I’m grateful for, by Vincent

-Erica’s sweatshirt that smells like stir fry. 

-the four orgasms she had on Tuesday, November 6, all before 8:30 a.m.

-her excellent crooked do -it-yourself haircut

-her co-dependence.

Best wishes for a life-changing weekend!

Love, Erica.

End of November Vincent Email curation. If you're wondering if I actually send these emails to Vincent's inbox, the true and honest answer is, for the most part, yes.

Vincent and Friends will almost definitely be delighted to know that my list of 19 goals for 2019 include composing my very last letter to Vincent. Three out of five days I feel almost ready.

In the meantime and always, please send your heartfelt emails to me and/or to Vincent at the secret email address ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

May you find solace in fuschia post-its and strawberry yogurt and washing your sweatshirt that smells a little bit like stirfry. May your hearts be light. Love, Erica.

Happy New Year! Love, Erica.

Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook
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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)

Instagram: @deepcleanswitherica

Dear Vincent, There is more love on the wall than there are Vincents, and than there are fucks.

Dear Vincent, Dot dot dot. Sentences trees never feel.

Dear Vincent, The best would be if I heal my knee, and maybe also my personality before irreversible climate change sets in.

Dear Vincent, You are not the only person I write letters to.

Dear Vincent, This is what the Dead Inside Man says about killing yourself.

Dear Vincent,

This is what the Dead Inside Man says about killing yourself. Last fall, along with the Married Man, the Dead Inside Man was one of my texting boyfriends, following five to seven solid fucks and leg humps in Toronto. The Dead Inside Man has been seeing the same therapist one to two times per week for 31 and a half years. One rainy day, I sent him a blubbering text as I blubbered in my red rain coat after a session with you last October or November of 2016. It didn’t like the system I’d come up with for dealing with my organism and with me life could ever be made viable. And whatever it would take to reprogram the system, I certainly did not have. Also I’d awoken that day between three and four o’clock in the morning. For whatever reason.

This is what the Dead Inside Man texted back:

As someone who has stood on a bridge, contemplating suicide more times than I can count, I keep coming to the same conclusion: just keep going a bit longer because why not.

T’es important. Suicide n’est pas une option. That’s what it says on a poster along the hallway that leads to your windowless office. You are important. Suicide is not an option.

“I’m sorry, but it is an option.” That’s what you, Vincent, said on Thursday, January 4, 2015, two years after my ex-ex boyfriend Simon threw himself off his 23-story apartment building and died in a parking lot between Coloniale and de Buillion street, just north of Sherbrooke. “But it leaves a fucking mess for whoever gets left behind.” Blood on the pavement and an excruciating silence. Everyone always says something about this mess, but they forget that the mess is never just one person’s fault.

Dead Inside Man:

You can do whatever you want with your life.

You owe no one anything.

If you want to travel the world you can. If you want to live on the street you can.

If you want to commit suicide, you can.

But not all of it is easy.

The day that you admitted that suicide was an option, I knew that I could trust you. Last Saturday evening, I went to a meditation class and as I sat in the circle, it occurred to me that almost absolutely the teacher to my left had thought about killing themself. Who meditates without thinking about this? The only solution is to pretend that you’re too busy. Build your plastic empire, build your plastic house. Build your plastic house which soon enough will float away to the massive plastic continent somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where maybe some business savvy rich guy will try to build a condo development.

Dead Inside Man:

Getting better is hard.

Really hard sometimes.

And if you want to give up in a year or two years or five you can.

But it's worth trying to get better. The option is always there to quit.

Life is changing because now when I weep somewhat delicately at the stand-up corner of a popular café and I see the woman behind me has a full box of Kleenex and I ask if I can have one, she says yes and she does not bat an eye. In the new world, strangers offer Kleenex for your grief and they do not bat an eye. The people who weep somewhat delicately at cafes for no apparent reason are not quite aliens. Not anymore.

Dead Inside Man: Think of it like this: you're in a crowded theatre. You start to panic that you're trapped. You look to the exit and just knowing it's there fills you with reassurance.

Doesn't mean you're going to use it. Just means you like to know there's an escape.

Don't kill yourself. But don't beat yourself up for having suicidal thoughts."

For Simon just the exit sign wasn’t quite enough. We can be angry at him for leaving us with the image of him crashing down on the pavement. But the mess was not only his fault. Though he could have had one more good day, or even ten more mediocre to alright years, probably it wouldn’t have been enough. I respect his choice.

Stored on my phone, I keep screenshots of the Dead Inside Man’s texts.

Don’t kill yourself. But don’t beat yourself up for having suicidal thoughts.

In the new world, everyone knows all the options. And they bring Kleenex.

“Do you need one more before I leave?” asks the stranger as she put on her coat.

“Oh, I’m okay. Thank you,” I say. After she leaves, I weep delicately one last time, and then I trudge out. I remain in the income bracket of people who use toilet paper for Kleenex. But life is always changing. I know all my options and I love you. Outside the world looks so sunny and fresh. It is unimaginably cold, and, you’d think that the air would be so clean, but really it is not clean at all. No, in fact it is not clean at all.

I know all my options and I love you.

Erica.  

Send your letters to Vincent to ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

Happy Face with Onesie.


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I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)
Montreal Hippie Threads (@mtlhippiethreads)
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Guillaume, Part Two
Dear Vincent, It seems no matter who I'm having sex with, I ugly cry every other time.
Professional, Depressed
The Magical Rock Vagina Cleanse