Dear Pamela,
It’s tough to articulate how I feel about your memoir, Love, Pamela. This journey began when my library app recommended your book. Curious, and – if I’m being honest – skeptical, I tapped play.
I listened as you explained yourself. Not out of obligation, but out of respect, for your readers, for your fans, for who you have grown into and for the person that you’ve always KNOWN you are. I’m not often left toungue-tied, congratulations! I am humbled by your ability to convey so much vulnerability in one, relatively short book. You left me both satisfied and wanting more.
I am embarrassed to say that, before your Comedy Central roast in 2005 [during which you gracefully, patiently and bravely sat through hurt – and some humor – in support of PETA] you were NOT on my radar.
I’d caught Baywatch, of course, but no more than any other American of my generation. I remember hearing about your role in the musical Chicago and wondering why you hadn’t been cast as Roxie long ago. Although I don’t know the musical well, I did see it on Broadway back in 2003 when I was living in New York. I have seen many Broadway shows, but Chicago did not stand out. Yet I am confident I’d feel differently had I seen your performance!
In 2022, Broadway was waaay outside of my orbit. My precious family was warping and cracking under the pressure of trauma, grief, pain, fear and denial, oh so much denial!
I listened to your kind, raw, sweet voice as you told your own tumultuous story of grief, trauma and denial. I was puttering around my small studio apartment during the two weeks this month that I spent away from my home, away from my soon-to-be ex-husband and away from the children I’ve dedicated much of my life to raising.
I’ve spent the last year this way, living with my children half of the time, living on my own the other half. In many ways it’s been restorative, in other ways it has been excruciating.
I relate divorce, the rupture of a family, to the amputation of a limb. Do you think a lobotomy is too extreme of a reference? At times it feels as though my heart and my brain have been put through a blender. I know that you can relate to this metaphor on some level.
I especially appreciated the end of your book where you describe yourself and your life of late, I could ALMOST see the dust settled around you. You, and other strong, beautiful women who’ve come through life’s traumas wiser and even more beautiful, give me incredible hope for my own future. Audiobooks have kept me company. Your voice, in particular, has been a balm to my exhausted and broken soul.
Thank you for sharing yourself with me and with the world. Because you’ve had the courage to share yourself, I have new enthusiasm to share my own story. I too am an author; perhaps one day you’ll listen to my voice as you sit on your patio or while traveling with you loyal pup. I imagine that you and I could be fast friends. The thought makes me smile. It sounds preposterous, I know, but you and I both know how very strange life is. Thank you, dear friend<3
Love,
envd
*carpe diem*
Collecting Pieces of Me 