We learn here that the writer of the letter is in unspeakable pain, and that it's old pain that feels useless to her. We also learn that Benjamin was most definitely someone close to her, someone who hurt her in a way that has left a long-festering wound, and the years of relationships and life events have not erased it enough for her to move on, even though at many times it felt that she had moved on. The move abroad has rendered our narrator incapable of escaping the grappling of her past that has finally caught up to her in the stagnation of a recent expatriation that has removed her from all she knows. She is getting therapy, and not for the first time, either, as it seems she has unpacked quite a lot of other elements of her past, particularly her childhood, and she mentions some other relationships that sound perhaps even more important than the one she shared with Benjamin, yet she cannot understand why they don't mean as much to her now. Lyrics at the beginning are from the song "Garden Grove" by Sublime.  Stay tuned for Chapter 3, in which we learn more about her husband Ronin, and the beginnings of their relationship and some of what they've been through together, and why she'd literally follow him to the ends of the earth.