The Sincerely Letters

Dearest Reader,

You know when parents say the days are long but the years are short when you’re raising kids? Well, I don’t have kids of my own. But when I look back over the last three years since I’ve written to you, I can say I agree with that parental cliché. In so many ways, I can’t believe it’s been three years since I’ve written anything for myself and for you. I feel like just yesterday I was moving out of my first home as an adult, writing to you about what I was leaving behind and what good was to come.

But then I reminisce on the individual days, weeks, and months that built these last three years. Days of tiresome professional work, new writing adventures, new grade levels, new schools. Months of spiritual work, battling with God on next steps and why things were unfolding the way they were. Hours of mental work in front of a therapist, digging up old habits and working through memories I wish I could erase. True, the years were short, but the days seemed anything but that. 

Life After Loss

Like time does best, it moves on. And as it moves, it brings changes in all of us. I’m different now. In the course of the last three years, I’ve lost a decade-long relationship. I’ve lost a life partner. I’ve lost best friends. I’ve lost hope in what I thought was true. I’ve lost pets. I’ve lost comfort. I’ve lost security. I’ve lost faith. I’ve lost a name that I have been called for eight school years by hundreds of children who love me. And Lord knows I’ve lost my purse a few dozen times. 

See, loss takes the ground with which you once stood firmly and creates a gaping fault in the foundation. The things that once gave you security get ripped away, and with it all of the confidence and comfort that made you, you. 

Suddenly, you’re spinning around, desperately looking for a place in the ground that isn’t fractured. A place that isn’t dangerously shaking, ready to crumble. Is the solid ground safe in other people? Is it safe in meaningless hook-ups? Is it safe in work? In alcohol? In money?

The more you look for that solid ground, the quicker the fault severs and spreads and eventually destroys the foundation altogether, leaving you with nothing but the pieces that once made it strong. 

After all that loss, the one thing that I realize I’m stuck with forever is, well, me. More particularly, to quote the great Ashlee Simpson, The Pieces of Me. 

I have me. 

And that makes me wonder, if I will always have me during my precious time on Earth, am I doing everything I can to make sure I am strong enough to endure another fault in my foundation? 

I don’t know. And truthfully, I don’t think I have the energy to answer that question for certain right now. But what I am grateful to know is that after all that loss and fracturing and change, I’ve been surrounded by a force way stronger than myself. One I don’t deserve and certainly didn’t earn. 

Love. 

In every instance of sorrow or joy or change over the last three years, I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. 

Love from God. Love from friends. Love from family. Even from strangers. It’s held me and it’s sustained me. 

Author Sarah Bessey writes, 

“Love can and does and will transform us in every way – our ideology, our opinions, our habits, our values, our priorities, our very names. But it’s not a prerequisite or a requirement, it’s not a behavior modification, it never is, not for Love...

You’re a star-breath-of-dust, and you are beloved, intimately, faithfully, wholly. It’s your lifelong rock.”

My lifelong rock. 

It’s Nice to Meet You

So, since it’s been years, I figured I would reintroduce myself to you. 

My name is Rebecca Lindsey. I’ve been a writer since I was a kid. In second grade, the teacher I thought hated me wrote in my yearbook, “Rebecca, keep on writing!” I didn’t know what she meant, but I heeded the advice. Amongst other hobbies throughout my K-12 education like ballet, I made sure I made time to write every single day. By the time I went to college, I knew I still loved writing but couldn’t understand how to make it a job. So I pursued the other passion I had – education.

After college, I got a job in Lawrenceville teaching third grade. In those first five years of being a new teacher, I fell into a deep burnout, overwhelmed by every single aspect of both my career and personal life. I was a brand-new wife and a brand-new adult navigating a world I had never given myself a chance to explore. Strange words like 401k and federal taxes and HMO kept being thrown at my face. Each day felt more confusing than the last, like when you make the adult choice to get your oil changed and leave with ten other foreign things wrong with your car (Just me?).

I remember going to sleep on Saturday nights with butterflies in my stomach, anticipating Sunday and all the planning for school I’d have to do for the following day. It’s hard to forget the feelings of deep regret and anxiety those nights, wondering if I’d ever feel like I’d have time to be myself again. 

After my third year of teaching and adulting, I started my blog, The Sincerely Letters. This was the first time I had ever shared my writing publicly, and my hope was that it would be an outlet to connect with others and relieve the burnout I was feeling. I would write about my life. About marriage, family, lessons I was learning, dreams I had. Sometimes they would be playful, other times heart-breaking, but I made sure they were always sincere. 

The Highs and Lows

Over the following five years after starting my blog, I would be named Teacher of the Year in 2022, followed by the honor of being a Top 25 Semifinalist in Gwinnett County, GA. I would become a blog contributor for a brand that helps empower parents and even start managing a large Kids Ministry blog to grow my craft in writing and learn project management. As I connected with others, more opportunities arose, and I even got the opportunity to ghostwrite a 60,000-word nonfiction book. 

But like you know, highs never come without their lows, and it was at the same time of all this joy in my career that I slowly watched the fault in the foundation of my marriage grow longer and deeper. What hills I thought we overcame ended up being mountains neither of us had the tools to conquer together. The slow downfall of this relationship I vowed to cherish through adversity and prosperity came to an end, and with it, a part of my identity. 

I lost apart of who I was when I left our home for the very last time.

But that’s the thing about us humans – we have so many beautiful and diverse pieces of ourselves that make up who we are. We’re rarely ever just one thing. But when we lose one thing, the other parts of us transform into something new, something stronger. 

It doesn’t mean that the particular piece of you goes away forever or the memories of who you once were vanish. It just means they take new form. Maybe this is what it means to grieve. Or maybe it’s what it means to grow. Perhaps both.

I’m still learning. And these letters to you have helped me do that for almost the entirety of my twenties. I can’t thank you enough for the kindness and Love you show me as you read them. I hope they offer a fresh perspective, a little encouragement, and perhaps a fleeting reminder that you are never alone in this crazy, beautiful life. 

Talk soon.

Sincerely,