Just Letters

I know, I know, how cliché is it to write letters that you don’t plan to send to some unrequited love? Well, I guess it is partly a cliché in my case. From June of last year I’ve written 220-odd letters, I realize I’m behind considering it’s almost February and I gave myself a time limit, more specifically: our Graduation, impossible? Of course not. 365 letters shouldn’t eat up so much of my time. I still have…5 months give or take.

I guess I should explain myself more clearly. I’m not in love with my best friend. They are not love letters. It’s not supposed to be the catalyst of some sort of scene out of a cheesy movie. I just happened to find the idea of writing letters, particularly writing 365 letters, intriguing.

I know what you’re thinking. The Notebook. You got that from The Notebook. You’re totally in love with this guy and you’re in denial or something like it. But I’m not. Really. My letters are addressed to one of my best friends, who happens to be a male. They’re not letters confessing my undying love for him. Sure, I love him and I have voiced it but not in that way.

Now you’re probably thinking, oh please, males and females can’t be friends without some sort of incident happening. And I fully agree with that opinion. I met him in my freshman year of high school and yes, I did harbor feelings for him, romantic type of feelings but I wasn’t exactly mentally stable during that time. I was hopeless and depressed and landed myself in the psychiatric ward a few times afterward. So, I fully blame my hormonal imbalance (no, really, I do have a legitimate hormone imbalance!) and my demented view on the world for those ‘feelings’ I had for him.

Now, back to my letters, I figured letters had to be addressed to a person because then it wouldn’t be much of a letter. Then, I thought who I should address them to, I immediately crossed out my female friends since that’s kind of weird. They would appreciate the sentiment but all in all still strange.

Not that I think he’ll appreciate the girlish sentimentality or whatever he thinks it is, that’s definitely his Italian blood, but I’m hoping it will make him think. Not think of me as something more than a friend or some ridiculous nonsense like that but maybe make him ruminate on our friendship over the years…not that he would tell me if he did since he’s such a stubborn male and refuses to acknowledge such femininity.

Anyway, I decided to use him for the letter's recipient since he was someone I greatly appreciate and he is of the opposite sex. I do love him but more as a brotherly type of figure than a I want to marry him etc etc. Not that I would marry, I think all that marriage hogwash is a waste of time. He always says I’ll find someone. I say he’s such a bloody hypocrite considering when I met him I was the one saying that to him. Frequently too, he had some crazy idea that he was going to end up alone and successful but still a loser. I whacked that out of his head soon enough. He even doubted he would get in to Columbia. What a load of idiocy on his part. Of course I cheered him on, repeatedly, and of course I was right. He got in. I gloated of course, I told him, I told him he would get in. He’s always had a problem with believing in himself. That silly idiot, he’s a certifiable genius yet he acts like he’s never won a day in his life.

But once again back to my letters, they’re sort of like my diary except addressed to him. I literally sit down or lay down and think about the day’s events to write down what I would actually tell him. Sometimes it was painful, so much so, I’m pretty sure there’s tear stains on some of them. Sometimes it was annoying because I was mad at him for some stupid thing and didn’t feel like writing to him. Sometimes it was depressing because I couldn’t actually tell him everything I wanted to. Sometimes it was silly because I was hyped up about something or on caffeine. Sometimes it was just blunt, flat, and to the point because I can’t lie to him.

We’ve been through so much in these four years that I don’t want to lie to him. It would be like a crime, a stupid move on my part. To tell the truth, I started these letters to thank him. Thank him for being there through my crazy moments, my anxiety attacks, my utter stupidity, my low times and my high times.

So I guess it wasn’t just the Notebook that influenced me. I almost forgot that day. Well, more like pushed it to the back of my mind, it was the day I had to do my graduation project. I never felt so lost and miserable and god, I hated myself at that moment but there he was in the connecting hallway waiting on the fate of his project. I had failed my project and I felt spite and devastation and a whole slew of emotions when my judges said I didn’t pass and had to do it again. I walked without a direction to find somewhere to just get all the tears out of my system.

I know I sound like a big baby but I felt that failing that project was like an indication of my future. How was I supposed to survive college without the skills to present a simple high school project, never mind the fact that I had to pass it to graduate. I first went to my English teacher who had helped me with the paper I had to write along with the presentation. She was surprised I hadn’t passed. I had the second highest grade on the paper and I had the highest average in all of her classes. I just had problems with speaking. I have extreme Public Speaking Anxiety, I get nervous just talking on the phone with people I don’t know, and it didn’t help to know how important the project was.

I have problems with self-sabotage. I’m a perfectionist with low self-esteem, of course I’m going to have problems. But never mind that, to get to the point, I was comforted by him. I know that sounds strange considering it’s such a simple thing, but for most of my life I’ve been told to suck it up and stop being a crybaby, for most of my life I’ve bottled up everything and stopped trying to care, for most of my life I’ve kept a certain distance with people, and that exact moment was like opening my eyes to see the bright light of the sun dispel the shadows of my life. I know that sounds so corny but I didn’t fully realize how much he meant to me and how much he had done to help me until then.

Pretty stupid of me, huh? It took me three years to appreciate him to the fullest. It took him, or so he’s said, only two years, yet he still thanks me for stupid little things. It’s not like I didn’t appreciate him before then but at that moment, I was overwhelmed by it, I suppose.

Anyway, I started up the letters because I didn’t get a chance to thank him for it, the comforting, the tolerating, the waterworks that probably got on his shirt, everything basically. I put all the letters in a wooden box I made in 8th grade, and that works out with my plan quite nicely. You see, when I’m done or my time limit has arrived, I plan to write one last letter the day of our graduation whether it be in the early hours of the morning or right before our ceremony and put it on top of all of the others with an actual envelope.

I plan to explain my little project and let him choose what to do with them. I can’t make him read them and they’re probably not interesting to the male psyche but if he wants to dispose of them, I would want him to do it in a certain way. I want him to burn them maybe even the box if he finds no use for it.

I plan to wrap it up as a present for graduation and persuade him (more like threaten to maim him if he doesn’t follow my directions ha!) to open it when he gets home. I think those are two simple rules. I’m not sure if he would read them (I know, I’ve known the kid for four years and he’s still unpredictable when it comes to ‘sentimental’ things) but if he reads them, I can’t say for certain if my reaction would be good or bad.

I can say that I’m going to miss him when he goes to New York and leaves me in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, wherever I get accepted. I can say that I will always be grateful for finding such a great friend during the most difficult period of my life. I can say that I’m going to remember him ‘til I knock on Death’s door and that I’ll love him for who he is no matter what because he’s taught me to never give up, to like myself a little bit more, and to give humanity a chance.

I don’t know if he’ll ever know how much of an impact he’s had on me, or how many times I’ve just wanted to strangle him for all the confusion he’s caused me.

I doubt that all of that can be conveyed with just ink and paper, because in the end, they’re just letters with not enough space and too many empty words.

30.01.09

A/N: Semi-Autobiographical, Song Inspiration: Bright Lights by Matchbox Twenty, Dedicated to A.A.P. Best friend and Muse. ha ha