Category: letters

Beginning Again.

An excerpt from a letter that I wrote years ago to my then best-friend who went into the Air Force.

I asked your mom for your address a week ago, and then nothing. Because a part of me doesn’t know what to say to you. I don’t want to say anything. Another part of me wants to tell you everything that has happened since I turned twenty-three. I want to be your friend.

For a really long time now, probably ever since you left, I’ve been angry with you. I think we’ve done a shit job of keeping our friendship alive. I know that I’ve been a shitty friend, holding on by a thread.

I’m a hard person to love. You’re a hard person to love too.

But I also know that you’re currently doing one of the hardest things you’ve ever done in your life.

I know that you’re scared. I know that you are lonely. I know that you are determined, and that you have that mean mug on. That someone forces you to be a morning person every single day. I know that you miss downloading music. I know that you want to watch One Tree Hill. I know these things. I know that you would never admit them. I know that for even five minutes, it probably feels good to hear from an old friend.

I told my cousin that I didn’t feel very close to you, and that I didn’t know the words to say. She said to just talk. About life. To be a friend – because we all need a friend. We all just want to talk and know that someone cares. Even us, those people who have spent a lifetime shutting everyone out. Because no one measures up, right? Wrong.

It turns out that we are not supposed to measure up to anything. We are just supposed to be human.

–S.

Flutter.

Letter from 2014.

Grandma,

I get it now. A crush. Butterflies. Real feelings. I’ve always thought that the feelings I had for boys in the past were real. But that’s it – they were feelings for a boy. Feelings for a man are different. It’s a different ball game. A ball game that I don’t know any of the rules too. Nor have I practiced.

I can’t tell you what is going to happen with us in the future because I don’t know. However, I can tell you that what I feel now, in this moment – and all of the moments that have come before it with this man.

It’s like life is all that it ever was – but everything is heightened. I feel everything deeper. I smile wider. My laugh is louder. The curve of my spine straightens as I stand higher. It’s like I’m in on this secret that only I really know – and it’s the juiciest secret anyone has ever kept.

I get it now. The butterflies. It’s like when he is not around – they flutter softly in remembrance of the times that we have had. When he is near – they flutter wildly. Almost as if they want to burst out because they are excited to see him too. They want to embrace him with me.

When I haven’t heard from him or we have introduced tension into our relationship – it’s as if they are dead. Their wings fall to their sides. Colors fading.

We are not together,

but it feels like I am his.

I am humbled by this experience.

Thankful.

Sometimes I wonder if he is my one.

If this is my forever.

Regardless – I have made a promise to myself that if I have to encounter pain in the future because of our divide then I will greet it with a gratefulness for all of the things he has taught me.

I love you.

I feel like I cry easily now. Not necessarily from sadness. Just life. A good emotional mess. And I imagine that you are living in my tear ducts. Then you make your way onto my eye lashes and slide down my face. This is how you are watching the world now.

Thank you for this treasure.

–S.