warning: This post is quite long and- I think- very interesting (I mean, who doesn't want to read people's old secret letters??) so buckle in.
August 31, 2018
As will be made obvious by the closing of the letter, and by the very conspicuous title, I never sent the correspondence below. It was originally crafted for my friend in the wee hours of the morning, as such unsent letters usually are, within my writing journal. I suppose from that fact alone you could say I knew from the start that I wasn't going to send it to them, but I really set to writing with the belief that I would in fact send it. At the closing of the letter (don't worry, no spoilers) I say that no one's eyes will ever read it, but today I am turning that statement on its head. It has been a couple of years since the original writing, and I figured it would be an interesting addition to my blog; for any number of reasons that I won't bore you with at the current moment. Hope you enjoy.
Names have been changed.
22 Jun 2016
Dear Jay,
There are so many things I want to ask you. So many things to discuss. Like the world and death and loneliness and society and people and the way trees look or the way water smells or even how sometimes after I take a shower and turn the water off I just stand there for a few minutes contemplating the way the water settles on the tiles. Water is so old, Jay. But I don't know if you'd want to discuss these things, or if you even think about these things, or if anyone thinks about these things. Has anyone ever thought about these things? Someone, somewhere, at some point MUST have; for I have a solid belief in the idea that all thoughts have existed before, somewhere, at some time. See, even this I would love to discuss with you. I don't know why I think you'd have an interest in such matters. Sometimes I wonder if I truly am crazy, like the beyond the surface sort of crazy. Not in the conventional mental-hospital sense, but just not normal. Sometimes I feel way too much, and sometimes I don't feel at all. Like, do you ever sit and think about How MANY people have died? How many ways in which those people died? How many people they loved? How many remember them now? How many average-Joe people like us live and have lived and will live? and how much thought has been lost and gained and lost again? I don't know if you're interested in these things, or if you'd just feign fascination if I ever brought it up. So I never bring it up. I told you once that we never really talk, about important things or life... something to that extent, and you said "but we talk all the time" , and when I tried pitifully to elaborate, you said "so let's talk. go." But how do you begin talking about these things, Jay? You must ease into them, like a bath, and it is always more sentiment than expression. For some reason, most of the time we talk I leave feeling sort of empty, like nothing was accomplished or nothing meaningful happened. Of course, I'm not looking for some philosophical revelation every time I have a conversation. But truly I feel that when Geoff and I talk I don't feel as empty afterwards. I know you're totally going to misinterpret this statement, and I don't at all mean to offend you. Honestly, if I didn't think you were interesting or if I didn't like you as a person I wouldn't talk to you and I certainly wouldn't tell you all of this. So don't take any offense to what I just said. I don't even know how to fix that feeling, though. It's probably no fault of yours, though, because my conversations with Geoff are (usually) equally as devoid of the meaning of life. So, I feel like there was a point to telling you my post-messaging sentiment but just imagining you reading this has made me want to take back everything I've said. Which I don't want to do, because it's true. Like when you ask if I'm alright and I spend 5 minutes typing up 'no' and trying to formulate real sentences but then deleting it all and sending 'I'm fine' instead. I feel like you won't get that analogy, but I'm gonna move on. You probably aren't very interested in the whole business of this letter, and I don't even know how close of a friend you consider me. Not that that has to do with the letter, but it probably determines your tolerance level for all of my rambling. I thought that maybe, some day, you could care about all of the crap I mentioned on the first two pages, but now I'm not even sure. I don't know you that well, and you certainly don't know me that well either. At the bonfire, I was watching Dre and she seemed so... absent minded. So content for the sake of being content, not for the crackle of the fire or the way the suffocating heat wrapped us like a blanket or the silver shards of moon that broke thru the tree in the neighbors backyard. And then I thought to myself how much you like Ray, and how he's kind of the same. He gets drunk for the sake of being drunk, and flirts with so many girls he doesn't and may never have feelings for and it's not like I'm against flirting or being happy it's just that it bothers me that that's all there is... and I don't think it bothers you. Well, it doesn't have to bother you, but I bet you've never even noticed before. I'm not saying you have to change your friends or anything, obviously, I hang out with them on occasion too, but I'm just hypothesizing that maybe all you really need to be happy is some hollow laughter, and that's okay. That's probably most people, even. And I'm realizing this kind of sounds like insults but really it's anything but that. I'm just thinkin out loud here. Because I don't think I could bear to talk about things that I hold so dear to me just to have them cast aside, you know? That's why I cried so much at [redacted school poetry club name]. And probably why I cried so much when my brother moved. It was not only that loss but also the fact that no one could really see how deep that loss was to me, no one to take off some of the burden, so I carried it all myself. I don't know why I'm telling you all of this, or even why I'm writing this at all because let's be honest, if you knew me at all you would know that no one else's eyes besides mine will ever read this letter. There is so much more I could say, so much more I want to say, but no more will to describe it to you because the truth of that last sentence hit me hard. Thank you, Jay, for being so understanding.
One year left,
[my name redacted]