Wow , not sure if this letter should be to Cary or the LW. Cary- I missed you over the holidays. I kept peeking at Salon's front page to see if you were back. seems lke you might have had a rough holiday .And you're right, we do seem to be bundles of metamorphesis- half one thing at the same time we're changing into somethng else entirely and yet never really being whole anythings.

Its okay though as long as we willing to let that gone part drop away and recognize that our new self is just another jacket that is appropriate for the occasion we are becoming. And that "maturity" is when we will never again be able to fool ourselves that there is that certainty we imagined as children- that if we just learn how to do things the right way we can stay upright, not only upright but actually traveling in some kind of linear progression.Instead aren't we all drunkards falling and getting up to try again to go who knows where, until finally one time we don't.

And that because we are all doing it at different speeds its very rare that we're actual able to communicate with the other drunkards who might happen to be upright not only at the same time, but in our vicinity and they just happen to speak the same language we do.

Dear LW -its the only choice we have - to keep trying to communicate - no matter how matter how many times it takes - we need to somehow pierce the drunkeness we are all afflicted with -the drunkenness of imagining we are seperate selves so we can tell tell each other -

I SEE YOU and IT IS GOOD

But if you're sober for ten years, then you know that "I think you need to quit drinking" is not the way to approach an alcoholic. C'mon, it's right there in the book... a whole chapter on how to go about this. I'm not even going to say anymore, because you could look it up yourself. You took the wrong approach, the I-know-what's-best approach, which doesn't work for someone in his situation. Why not think it through, spend a little time finding out the optimal way to go about it instead of relying on your own reactions? The information is available.

... his money, or the sudden lack thereof, has zero to do with it really.

Nice answer, although I'm not sure it's the answer to the question that was asked.

I'm fond of Cary's theory of looking at patterns. I had one of those sudden revelations New Year's day while of all things reading a book on interior decorating. I had been reflecting on what a shitty person I've been in various ways throughout my life, and in particular on what a shitty writer of thank you letters I am. I own some things for which I'm very grateful, in fact they include some of my favorite things - like the truckload of books sent to me over the years by my godmother - for which I have never written thank you notes. I got started as a child not writing thank you notes and since then it has become a habit. It's a habit I'm ashamed of and it's not as if I weren't taught better; in fact my mother used to get so angry at me for not having written thank you notes that she would lose her temper and scream and even beat me. So I was mulling over what sort of person doesn't even thank people when she's grateful, and making a resolution to swallow my pride and write years overdue notes in the coming year. And I started reading a decorating book which was a Christmas present, and the book was talking about decorating kids' rooms, and it mentioned the need for a desk to do homework and write thank you notes.

And it struck me - hey, I never had a desk. In fact, I was never allowed to use any desk in the house. There was an antique secretary in the living room, which I was forbidden to enter, and there was my mother's desk which I wasn't allowed to touch, and there was my father's desk which I wasn't allowed to touch. And that was it. No desk, no kitchen table, nothing. I tried to think back to where I did homework, and well, I never did any homework, I just managed to sail through despite zeros on homework by getting massive amounts of extra credit on tests. Where did I write notes? I didn't. Where did I write stories? Upside down, lying on my bed, on a notebook - not the ideal way to write a formal note. Jeez Louise, no wonder my handwriting is so shitty.

Now, I'm sure that my mother didn't intentionally set me up to fail. But doesn't it seem like, before beating the crap out of a child for not writing a note, you would get some stationery and a pen and sit the kid down and say, You there, write that note before you get up from this desk? And then I realize, wow, I didn't even own stationery, my mother explained to me exactly how formal notes had to be written on formal paper, and I didn't have any. What exactly was she thinking would happen next? It's not like a seven year old can drive to the store and buy stationery. It's a puzzlement. I've got to figure out how to ask my mother about it without seeming too aggressive. But I'm pretty confident, given what I know about our history, that I won't be getting any sense out of her anyway. The only lesson to take away is that my mother was a wonderful mother in many ways - but she was also in many ways completely batshit insane, for her own private reasons, which she doesn't understand any more than I understood until the other day how I got started not writing thank you notes. There's nothing to be gained by getting angry about it now.

It is freeing, though. I can look at the situation and say to myself, hey, you rightly felt resentment when you were yelled at for not writing notes as a seven year old with no stationery and no place to sit and write. Guess what? You're not seven anymore. You have everything you need and you don't get to use resentment as an excuse now. Seeing the pattern means I'm not a slave to it anymore, and it only took me about thirty years!

Anyway, I'm way off topic here. It seems to me you should call your friend just exactly as if he weren't mad at you. He can have a huff and refuse to talk; you keep on being good to him until he's ready to let you. Maybe the letter wasn't the right approach, and then again, maybe it will be what he remembers when he finally decides it's time to make some changes. Either way it was written in love, and that's what you do - you keep loving, despite your own flaws and from within them, as best you know how.