A strong woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely.
Her tears flow just as abundantly as her laughter.
A strong woman is both soft and powerful…
This is who you used to be. You used to feel deeply, love fiercely and weren’t afraid to laugh or cry with all your heart. You were sweet, soft, and caring, yet strong, powerful and stubborn. You were a gift—to me—to your family—to your friends—to the world.
I have said that I don’t know or love the drug-addicted alcoholic that you have been for the past seventeen months. I can’t love her—she is weak, cowardly, stupid, selfish, and greedy—all the things you, the woman I love, are not.
It is not a contradiction to say I love you, Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, the beautiful, strong, smart, stubborn woman but despise the drug-addicted alcoholic you have been for seventeen months because she is not you.
The woman I love is strong—the drug-addicted alcoholic is not. The woman that loves me is smart and beautiful—the drug-addicted alcoholic is not. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley cares about her friends and family—the drug-addicted alcoholic only cares about her next drink or high.
That is simply the truth of the matter. The choice of who you want to be for the rest of your life is yours and yours alone.
So, decide what you really want from life.
You can continue on the road you’re currently on and likely end up in jail, the hospital, living on the streets, or dead. That is what happens to most drug addicts and alcoholics. Please remember that this is what will happen if you choose to do nothing.
Or, you can choose to fight your addictions and return to being the person God meant for you to be. You can return to being the amazing woman I love. You can start on the future with Asians with freckles that we had talked about last June. You can have me beside you on your long road to recovery as I have promised you I would be.
Those are your choices. Decide for yourself. No one else can do it.
Everything that has a beginning has an end. Not everything you have stays forever, but there are things you would be glad to fight for so you can have them longer. Anything worth having is worth fighting for. The only things that life denies you are the things that you’re willing to let pass by. So fight for the things you love and love the things worth fighting for.
Don’t let that lovely dude or girl slip out of your hands. Do all what it takes to get him/her stick with you forever.
I hope you’re not so stupid that you’re going to let your addictions destroy the love we have between us.
The worst loneliness is to be not comfortable with yourself.
~Mark Twain
You must really be lonely to be needing the alcohol and drugs as badly as you do. Why do you hate yourself so much that you would destroy your health, your body, your mind and your future the way you have been for the past seventeen months.
Honestly, if you don’t think you’ve been destroying yourself…ask yourself why the drop in grades between your freshman year when you were taking five classes a semester and made Dean’s List and last year, where you only took four but failed to make Dean’s List and I doubt you even broke a 3.0 average.
I am fairly certain that if you have another semester like your last two, you will likely lose your scholarship and have to drop out of Emmanuel College. Is that what you really want? When you were accepted to the school you tweeted that you were so excited and that it was so important to you to go to Emmanuel because it was a Catholic college.
I have to wonder where that excited and enthusiastic woman has gone. Last December, you posted that you wondered where the semester had gone and that you were just getting in to the swing of school. The problem is that was during FINALS WEEK. Could it be that you didn’t remember the semester going by because you were drunk or high five-to-seven days of the week almost every week by your own accounts.
This is what your addictions have done to you. Alcohol and drugs have turned you into something that you would loathe if you were healthy. You have gone from being strong, happy, smart, beautiful, ambitious and proud to weak, lonely, stupid, ugly, apathetic and ashamed. I pity the drug-addicted alcoholic you have been for seventeen weeks.
I do not know the drug-addicted alcoholic, and I really don’t ever care to. She isn’t the beautiful, feisty, stubborner than a mule, intelligent and strong woman I love—the fiery redhead that loves me and told me “Sarangheyo” so many times and was so proud to have learned how to say I love you in Korean.
I have loved you all of your life. I do not know how to not love you. I still love you and always will. I still want to marry you and share my life with you. I still want to be there to walk beside you on your long road to recovery. That is all. That is who I am. That is what I do.
It really is YOUR CHOICE.
CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE. CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT FROM YOUR LIFE.
What ever you do, don’t blame me. I didn’t walk away from you. I never stopped loving you, being your friend or caring about you. You did all that to us—to yourself. I never betrayed you like Ian did or threw you away like Jarrod did. I never abused you like your father did. All I have ever done is been there for you—a constant presence in your life that you could count on, trust and know loved you.
God Bless you Lauren Elizabeth.
May God watch over you and protect you from all harm—even that you cause yourself.
I hope God gives you the strength to fight your addictions and the wisdom to see the truth about what the alcohol and drugs are doing to you.
I pray that God grants you the serenity and peace you will need to love yourself once again and to forgive yourself for the things your addictions have made you do.
I ask that God helps you find your way back to being the amazing, beautiful, intelligent, feisty, stubborn, strong, and devout woman He wants you to be.
Finally, may He grant you the ability to see yourself as I do and let you remember who we are to each other; let you remember the years of friendship, love and devotion we once shared; and give you the strength to make amends so we can start the future together we talked about last June.
All this in Jesus’s name I pray.
Amen.