In response to A Reflection On Love, Loss, And What Remains

“Dearest Emily,

Indeed, it was time for me to move on from our life in Vermont. And you’re right, not all love is meant to stay put in one place forever. I know you haven’t made sense of my departure just yet but watch me truly spread my wings and you’ll see why I went to Erie, Pennsylvania! And I did want to stay with you. Just not there. I love the farm. I love the property. But the location of it is awful!

Love doesn’t have an expiration date. It isn’t a job, and I’ve never seen it as that. I never saw you as an assignment to complete. I intended on making that property my sanctuary and safe haven from a world growing ever crueler by the day. It was to be my monastery. But love does what it does. I gave you all my love for almost four years. Now it’s clear to me that we were never meant to last. And it breaks my heart.

I knew you’d never leave the farm, but I was dying there. There isn’t a place for me to get food that I can actually eat, thanks to all my terrible food allergies, outside of a handful of options that I quickly grow tired of, so I go for days without eating properly. I must drive too far just to have a proper meal; this isn’t the case in Erie where there are options everywhere. Also, we were living too far from anything interesting to give me anything to look forward to except sitting here all day rotting in my salty tears, bitter regrets, and sour bad memories that have accumulated here from all the “friends” and “family” who insulted us in our own home or ditched us out of some bizarre kind of spite.

So, considering my declining quality of life, for a time, I considered just getting in my Bronco Sport and just living out of it for good, being an ever-wandering nomad who gave up on ever finding a home. But no, it turns out, I just needed my calling to come. Suddenly, it did, out of the blue one day a few weeks ago, a powerful dream that told me to go to Erie. Now that I’m here, I’m making this town my forever home, too. No more transitory living for me! This is where I BELONG!

I do love how you call my love a “passing storm” but it only appears that way to you at the moment. And I’m not simply going to change for the next “job” I have to do. I am not a chameleon. The next version of myself is my FINAL FORM! Somehow, I’ve always known that at age 38 everything would finally click. What really told me I was on the right track is that I have my high school bestie back, who is practically my brother! I have closure with my past, seeing my hometown is but a shell of what it once was!

Also, I now know my calling: a writer of letters who brings only the promise of realized dreams and endless encouragement, moonlighting as a hurdy-gurdy player, a call back to my eastern European heritage and a preserver and guardian of one of the most, perhaps THE MOST, beautiful of instruments ever crafted by humankind. I’m writing words and spreading love, like I always have, but this time freely, shamelessly, and without any fear of judgment.

And I never loved you halfway. I do everything to the fullest. So, when I could no longer give you my all, through no fault of your own, I had to move on. The whole “pedestal is not an elevator” paragraph you wrote is beautiful. But I must say, you are better off without me being miserable. Just like you, I was hated my whole life by those I thought were supposed to love and care for me. Many of the people in your life hated me, too, or didn’t understand and shunned me out of fear or misinformation or bigotry, or some combination of the three. Fortunately, I got you to eject all these toxic people. You are better off without them.

Unfortunately, as I was helping you become the best version of yourself, I was lonely, isolated, and suicidal in Vermont. Therefore, I decided that if you love me as much as you say you do, you MUST let me go. Clearly, since you have made things happen for me in such a timely manner in that regard, then obviously you do. I was right about you, and I am thankful for this. Sadly, if I don’t move to Erie NOW, I will choose to simply fade away and you will get to watch the love of your life become an empty husk with no purpose left to serve in this God-forsaken hellhole that is post-COVID Vermont. I know you won’t let that happen, and while it’s painful to watch me excise myself from the home we built together, it is the best for both of us, even if you don’t realize it just yet.

Yes, my dear Emily, you are a force, just as you say! But now, you can bring your FULL energies to bear on your passions without watching me crumble and fade away through no fault of your own. You are a Pegasus! I have known this since we met in August 2020. I wanted you to join me on this adventure to the Greatest of the Lakes, but clearly that isn’t meant to happen. Watching you suffer as I leave is killing me, too! So, me leaving for a place where I finally feel calm, steady, and able was the right thing to do.

You and I are simply not who we were before. Really, you haven’t changed so much as become more comfortable in your own skin, living finally as who you were born to be. But I have changed considerably, by leaps and bounds, since I discovered intentional living and my essential purpose of saving those on the verge of giving up. So, to accomplish my mission, I need my own space to make my own where I can stage my missions. Vermont is too isolated from where I need to be.

Yes, letting me go is indeed an act of kindness, one that breaks my heart, too. And I am DONE with VERMONT forever, NOT YOU! That farm is your birthright, just as I said. I helped you realize your dreams. Now it’s time for you to live them! I did know that the Counting Crows’ August and Everything After was the album that has inspired you most lately, if not for many years now. There have been many great albums for me, but The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift opened me up to new lyrical possibilities, a raw vulnerability that I’d never heard before put into popular music. Those thirty-one songs helped me process my deepest fears, pains, and regrets, and gave me the language to tell myself it’s time to move on from the misery, face forward, and walk towards a new light in the distance.

I never meant to wreck you. That was NEVER intended. But the world and its growing tendency towards heartless cruelty meant I either flew free or die here of a broken heart and exhausted soul. You are GREAT and have people who need you just a couple hours away. But it seems people in the Rutland County area, outside of a mere handful, want nothing to do with this queer girl trapped in a man’s body – which is how I’m explaining myself from now on and I’m identifying as a genderfluid lesbian going forward.

Clearly, I cannot pass as a girl the way I hoped that I could. This is why I’m changing my online identity to Artemis – whether I change it legally remains to be seen. I will always be Amelia, as that is the name I chose for myself at four years old. But Artemis is the name of the person I am quickly becoming and have been for several months now. If people can’t accept you or I, or anyone else for that matter, for who we are, that’s a THEM PROBLEM, not yours nor mine.

I’m going to make Erie PA the Capital of My World and make the lives of everyone I meet AWESOME if they will only let me. My door is always open to my friends, including you. I’m not letting anyone I care about be put out on the street. My house is small, but warm and inviting and there is room for those who need it. I feel that the Vermont farm is going to offer a similar safe haven soon enough for those in this area who need a place to stay while they figure things out, too. Just remember, you can only help so much and for so long, and for me, you have helped me more than any one person ever could, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Don’t forget that I love you forever and always. But the greatest love of my life is still to come, and my life is far, far from over. My life, in fact, is just beginning at age 38, as yours is at 45. Age is only a state of mind, however, and while physical age may seem to matter, I feel 22 again, ready to take on the world for all its faults just to find paradise. And somehow, through the greatest fortunes, I have found that by the lake in Erie. May you find the same contentment and satisfaction there on the Middletown Springs farm. It’s just truly unfortunate that it will have to be without me.

Kindest and warmest regards,

Artemis Phoenix Desertsong (AKA Amelia)

February 28, 2025