Letter to Yourself

In the great story that is your life, you will hopefully have many moments that feel like happy endings. For my younger readers full of angst, this may feel like a lie but I'm standing here on my "late twenties" pedestal to tell you things aren't as bad as they seem.

Screen shot of some of the video images

While watching Arcade Fire's interactive video from last year's release, "The Wilderness Downtown" (from their Grammy winning album "The Suburbs"), the video asked me to write a postcard to my younger self. The video was only so long so I knew it would have to be brief. That's when inspiration hit and all I needed was one line; "Don't worry, it's going to be ok."

I've often written about finding older versions of myself in my younger friends and getting a chance to vicariously right some wrote and head off similar mistakes. It makes me wonder what my life would be like now if I had someone to do the same for me when I was that age.

As much as I try to look forward and plan ahead, I feel like I'm constantly glancing in my rear view mirror. I'm a clinger and there's no point in trying to hide it. It baffles many of my friends to see me give people chance after chance but I wouldn't know the things I do if I hadn't put myself through the agony of disappointment. I feel that the friends that leave you broken and battered teach you just as much as those that stand by you no matter what.

Sitting in Starbucks after drinking another coffee I didn't need at this hour, I've wandered away from the point I started with. Do you see now why I agreed to write every day? I clearly need the practice! =) To bring us back to the beginning, I hope you all give it a try; write to yourself, to someone you know, someone who's gone, or someone you've never met. If you're anything like me, you'll hopefully feel a bit lighter with one less burden to bear. 

I'm leaving you now with a letter I wrote to someone that would never read it.  It didn't matter that they would never know, what mattered was writing it out to let it go...

June 25, 2006

Letter to Someone

Dear You,

There's something I need to get off my chest.  I really can't stand the way you seem to haunt my every move.  I hear your voice whispering around me in the quiet of the evening, but it's just my imagination.  I see your face when I glance over my shoulder, but it's always someone else.  I feel your fingers dancing across my palm, but it's just the wind whistling through my empty hands.  You're not here but you're always around and I'm sick and tired of this game we seem to be playing.  Like a shadow I cannot lose, our unfinished business roams the darkened corners of my mind, springing forth when I least expect it.  I wish I could cut you out, pretend you never existed, but it is your existence that propelled me into this new world that I love.  It's a bitter pill to swallow and it does nothing to dull the ache.  Alone in a room full of people, all eyes seeing through me; here, but always somewhere else.  Thank you for this blessing and curse.  I will treasure it forever and never forget that "there will always be something to ruin our lives.  It all depends on what or which finds us first.  We are always ripe and ready to be taken" (Charles Bukowski).  Thank you for the ruin you have left behind, but remember that Karma is a right bitch and she always gets you in the end.

Love,

Me