This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

What should have come as a surprise to no one, least of all me (a diarist who has taken introspection to industrial strength levels) still managed to caught me off guard;
I have lost Lauren, the lived identity of who I truly am and have been since 2007.

But for now we’d have to refer to Lauren (Lauren Harteveld) as a  simple pseudonym. A means to an end, of being able to keep a personal blog, without having it tied to my real name.
Lauren is now a hallow writer’s name, that no longer belongs to my real self.
After initially having survived a series unerotic, uninteresting, reality based years (serious mental health issues, my lover breaking up, the Covid pandemic, lover coming back, more Covid pandemic, more mental health issues, six years of insomnia, being diagnosed autistic,  and since March this year the kicker: menopause)
She has finally made the decision to run for the hills.

There is literally nothing in my life anymore, that is even remotely interesting to her.
This is my first login to WordPress, for her account, since my last letter to you three weeks ago.
Technically I do not even need her name as a pseudonym anymore because I don’t actually write as her anymore.
Aside from my letters to you.
Nor do I have time to publish her books, or curate old material. Which is an activity that would be ideal, for these times when “she” does not have anything new to write.

So in all fairness, it was not just that my life has become totally dull (although that definitely was part of her departure).
It was also because the past weeks have been extremely busy, and then the events as described in my last letter to you unfolded.
Leaving me to investigate the territory of Hormone Replacement Therapy, consulting specialists, and so on and so forth.

I really jumped at this opportunity to finally get to the root cause of all misery of these final years, and although my serious study and involvement with Hormone Replacement Therapy was of course done to save Lauren, to get her life back;
It ultimately became the thing that broke it.

She really is nowhere to be found.

My physical ailments keep expanding, the number of medical visits and specialists multiplying, yet the part of me for whom I do it all, no longer has a part in it.
She’s done waiting for what by now seems like a time that never comes.

I know I need the basics in place if I want to have a physical, sexual second half of my life; The only part Lauren is interested in, and then she writes about it.

But here I am, struggling to keep my life afloat while also needing increasing amounts of time taking care of my neurological problems,  post-menopausal health, dental maintenance for my aging teeth, physical exercise and other self-care routines.
And my mental health has stabilized since I started seeing a psychologist, but it has not improved.

Although I’ve always been able to keep some spark of being her alive (which, considering I see Her as my real self, is not a luxury!), the past three weeks, with the menopause/hormonal breakthrough and all the research and cognitive work it took to get that ball rolling, seemed to have been the tipping point.

There is a saying in medical world;
“Operation successful, (but) patient deceased.”
To illustrate that you can treat disease, but if you kill the patient in the process, it’s not effective.

I feel I am heading for that outcome myself now.
The operation of saving my life, physically, will be successful. But the essence of me, Lauren Harteveld, will no longer be there to enjoy it.

In December 2023 my lover broke up, or left, it was messy.
And although I could feel it coming from as early as February 2023-
he was still in my head, throughout the year.

When I thought of him, I felt like Lauren. I was in that energy. It (the affair)/ he, was what kept Lauren alive.

And although logically, I can see Lauren Harteveld was there before I even knew him, so there is no reason her life is tied to him, in reality the affair, which lasted from December 2014 to December 2023-
was the final thing keeping her alive.

She no longer wants to live, it’s that simple.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living