For the new version of SOS, check out Brillig’s blog and her guest host Thalia’s Child.

All of us have roads. Some roads we took, others we passed on. Some took a left when the right looked better. I traveled one road while running parallel to another, just a stone’s throw away. At one point those two paths crossed, and I had a choice between finishing on one road, or continuing on the road I was on. The road I was on was warm and sunny, full of passion and laughter. It smelled of damp fall leaves and the end of the road was nowhere in sight. The road I ran parallel to was dark, unsure, and didn’t offer much, but in my young mind, it’s mystery provided immediate gratification. So when those two paths intersected, I took a long look at the seeming happiness that lay ahead and skipped over to the other path. What I couldn’t know was that the path would lead me to amazing happiness in the form of two beautiful girls, and utter despair and misery in the form of an abusive husband and an awful relationship. As I ran from that path and found another, heaven waited for me and my path was once again sunny, warm, full of life, with only an occasional thunderstorm. It is only every so often, as if looking through an aquarium where the images are distorted and warped, that I remember that first path. It is in these moments, where there is physical evidence in the form of correspondence, of that first path that I read and laugh from somewhere outside of myself. I watch the movie play over in my mind, or in front of my eyes, and laugh with my husband at the beauty of life and the wonder of looking back at the maze of roads that has lead me here. And so, just a touch of that first path–because I don’t care who or where you are, this stuff is good.

“To you, because you make a peasant feel like a prince, a coward into a cavalier, and a poet out of an ineloquent man…(Body of letter)…Chipping away my rough parts to give you a smooth surface to lean on should you become weary on your way, all my love.”

“To She for whom I give my thanks, even without turkey or pumpkin pie, my dearest…(Body of Letter)…Because you make a thankful heart want to be bigger so that it might be even more thankful, All my love.”

“To my new day, shortly dawning: My Dearest…(Body of Letter)…Where X-Files, mexican food, movies, hours of shopping, moonlight, pictures, and stories, and spring, and summer, and fall, and winter, are just some of the things on my Christmas List.”

“To the End of my Rainbow, My Dearest….Enough love to turn even the creepiest creep or the ghouliest ghoul into a soft-hearted sweet spirit.”

“To the ever-constant guiding star, giving courage and hope to a poor, storm-battered seaman on this tempestuous voyage over the sea of life, Dearest…The love of freedom after years of captivity, The love of sunshine after being lost in darkness, The love of water to an arid desert, Do not compare to all my love for you.”

“To She who introduced the smile to heaven, my Dearest…Enough love to make a ripple in the water all the way across this vast ocean and up the great river until it arrives at your shore and causes the morning sun to glint in your eye and remind you that I am thinking of you.”

“Dearest — For whom I would climb the highest precipice simply to pick one wild rose that I might bring it back and present it to you, all for the price of a smile…For taking this grain of sand and smoothing and dressing it into a pearl, with all my heart, and all my love.”