Dear C,

You would have thought I was still head over heels in love with you. You would have thought that I still cannot let a single day go by without crying for what could have been. You might think that I still hate you. You might think that I’d still do whatever it takes to get you back. That whenever I see you waiting for your crush in the hallways of our school building, I’d go curse that girl and feel so bad about myself.

But no. Not anymore.

I’ve always thought that timing was the one single reason why we didn’t work out. I keep on telling everyone that I’ve moved on, or that I’m in the process of moving on. It’s true. I can’t totally get rid of you because of the circumstances involving our block section. I can’t get rid of you, and you can’t get rid of me. So, we better just suck it up.

But the truth is, I miss you. I miss talking to you, I miss having to be the one who makes you laugh, I miss you making me laugh, I just simply miss your presence. What good does it make, having to see you everyday, just meters away from me, but not being able to talk to you like what we used to?

It’s been almost a year since all that. And lately, everything seems going back to normal. We’re hanging out again, talking like normal people without all that awkward stuff exes go through. So here’s the thing. I want this. I want this so bad. But I know in myself that it can never be enough. Every single day we get closer to each other once again just makes me want you more. No matter how many times I tell myself that you’re never gonna get me back, it just fades away the moment we talk. So, I’m just gonna wait here. I’m not assuming anything. Waiting doesn’t mean I’m hurting. 2 years left on our college life and desperate it may seem, I’ll always be here waiting. Waiting for the time when you will go talk to me and tell me that you wanted it all to go back to what it used to be. What you and I used to be before you left. And this time, you’re going to tell me that finally, our timing’s perfect.

Your Hi-C buddy, age 18

Amy,

What I should have said was that I’m a neurotic child who lashes out at others to compensate for the faults I find in myself. If I had told you this up front, then maybe things would have been different. What I should have said was that I’m quicker to point out flaws than bestow praise. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to guard your words for fear of engaging a grammar nazi. What I should have said is that meeting new people sometimes terrifies me. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to spend so much time defending my anti-social behavior to your parents.

What I should have said was nothing. Maybe you wouldn’t have felt guilty just for trying to help. What I should have said was “I’m sorry.” Maybe you would have stressed less. What I should have been was sorry. Maybe I wouldn’t be so now.

Respectfully,
MD, age 27

Dearest Halbes,

It’s New Year’s Day. Last night, my thoughts were going around and around in my head always coming back to you. I kept wondering if I should send you a message or if that would offend you. I don’t even know if you want to hear from me or if you’re glad to be rid of my drama. So I am sending this out into the universe hoping you can sense how much you mean to me, how much I hope that life holds only happiness in store for you and how much I miss our friendship.

I can’t listen easily to our favourite songs. It weighs down my heart so much. I often talk about the things you used to say and do and suddenly realize that I’m stuck in the past. Stuck, stuck, stuck. Walking across the Christmas markets this year I kept looking for a sun and moon feng shui light catcher like the one I broke years ago that your mom had given you. I so wanted to find one hoping I could send it to you and you’d realize all those things I can’t say. That I love you. That I never could forget the things that matter to you. That I’m helplessly stuck in my own maze of disconnectedness and that nothing of what I feel is your fault.

Soon it will be Marie’s first birthday and I hate not being in her life and yours, but it hurts so much. Knowing I will probably never have children of my own throws me. Everytime I see n pregnant woman, everytime my niece wants to play pretend that I’m her mom, pretty much all the time. I don’t know when I went from being ordinarily overwhelmed by the shit life throws at us to fighting for my life for the sake of the people I love and care about so much that they are the sole reason I’m holding on. You are one of those and I hope that I’ll win this fight and that I’ll have the chance to show you that I never left you behind and always held you close to my heart. I really hope that some part of you - despite time and distance - reserves a spot for me in your life until I am ready again to join the ‘living’.

Because I do love you.

Your clinically depressed ex-roomy and best friend,
Halbes, age 32

Dear Mom,

I thought a letter like this would start with fuck you. But I can’t be angry anymore. I spent twenty long years being angry and when I sealed my letter and sent it off to the judge, it wasn’t because I didn’t know if I could take the podium and look you in the eye in court. It was because I have always known how to write what I cannot say. And that letter didn’t start with fuck you, either. It told a story of a girl who wasn’t safe, a girl who has grown to seek her own safety whether or not it is given. I thought you owed me a childhood and happiness, but now I realize that only I owe myself happiness. I have sealed that letter and I have sealed away our relationship, but also I have forgiven. I pity you, Mom.

The last time we ever spoke, I asked you why, after kicking me out at fourteen for no particular reason, you didn’t contact me for four months. “I was your daughter,” I cried, and again you made excuses for the love you wouldn’t give. My happiest memory of childhood was one of the many times I ran away, huddled in the back seat of the car with my sister at night, wasting gas to stay warm. That was family to me. But now I have many happy memories. I have the love of my life and a safe home and an education and most of all, I have a future. I don’t know if I’ll ever speak to you again; I doubt it. But I am happy, Mom. And I hope to God you find some happiness in your world, I really do.

Sincerely,
C, age 22

Paul,

I’m tired. I’m tired of letting you down. Tired of never being enough. Tired of being stonewalled. Tired of being left. Tired of your wandering eyes.

I am tired of writing. Explaining. Crying. Fighting. WONDERING. Wondering, what it is, exactly, that you’re looking for and why any man would give a year and a half of his life to someone he found so unattractive and so unlovable?

All this time I rationalized for you. You were hurt. I thought years of pain were bringing you down and you were love-starved. I thought if we went slow, we’d be okay in the long run. 

But okay doesn’t cut it anymore. If okay means holidays without each other, I don’t want okay. If okay means overreacting to normal human emotions with a breakup (“for real this time”) only to come back two days later, I need not have it.

I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep waiting for you to wake up and love me the way I deserve to be loved.

You will be 41 in two weeks. If you haven’t learned how to keep good thing when you have it, there’s a small chance you ever will.

I want someone who is ready for marriage. Not the theory. Not the idea. Not the hope that when you finally do “it,” you won’t end up miserable like the people that got married because it was the thing to do.

You don’t have to worry about ending up miserable – you’re already there. Half your life is over and you have nothing to show for it except another failed relationship. 

Why would you ever subject yourself to this year long headache with me? In NYC? You live in the heart of the meatpacking district. The MECCA of sexy, skinny girls looking for traders. That is what you want, isn’t it? Someone “easy?” 

Because that’s what I want too. Easy. He will be sexy and skinny and our relationship will be superficial and I will never have to write him love letters like this. He will not make pasta from scratch or read poems or know that wearing socks with slippers is the appropriate dress code for kicking it back in a Russian household. He will never debate the Oxford comma with me or teach me the appropriate way to eat an oyster. When he goes to China on a business trip, I will never have to worry about him reaching out to me because he will not be going to China. He will never challenge me or force me to grow and he will never overlap with the hold you have on my heart.

I look back on how much I loved you and it makes me sick to my stomach. I loved you, all the time, without condition, and that is the only reason we lasted so long. I loved you when you were painfully under-slept and in those rare moments you showered me with beautiful, unadulterated affection. The truth is, I know we both can be happier.

And here I am now, releasing you. I couldn’t give you happiness, so now I’m giving you the only thing I can: my blessing to go find it.

Natalie, age 22

Dear Emily, 

When we first me you were only 16 and I was 19. I would flirt with you all the time, although I’m not sure if you noticed or not. I knew that it wasn’t ok for us to be together as I was in college and you were still in high school, but I still had feelings for you and would think about you all the time. Then when you came to the same college as me I was incredibly happy, but at the same time, I didn’t want to start a relationship when I was graduating only three months later. So instead of hanging out with you, I allowed you to go your own way during the brief time that we were reunited. Now that you are 20 and I am 23, I wish I would have said something to you sooner, or even that I could have the courage to say something to you now.

I know that we want different things out of life, but I would give all of those things up in order to be with you. You are the most beautiful, intelligent, funny, sexy, and wonderful woman I have ever met, and instead of taking a chance and risking it all, I’ve been to afraid of being rejected. All I have had the last four years are hopes and dreams that somehow we would be brought together, but instead of making that connection happen, I’ve been clinging to those feelings out of a fear of losing that hope forever.

My desire to be with you is now being pitted against my dreams about us being together, and I don’t know if I have the courage to risk my hope for the real thing. I wish that I would have told you everything the moment that you turned 18. Every year for your birthday I planned on confessing and giving you a bouquet of your favorite flowers: white daisies. Instead, with each passing birthday I get less and less likely to express my love towards you, silently telling myself that you aren’t interested and will be better off without me; that it could have been beautiful, but we just weren’t meant to be together.

You are the piece missing in my life,
John, age 23

Dear M,

Whenever we speak, we go around in circles. In the end it all ends up the same way it always has and we both just feel pain. I always say I have said everything I have needed to, but it’s never the case; I always hold back because the truth is, I worry I will hurt you too much by being brutally honest.

I wish I could tell you to stop being a victim.

I wish I could shake you and tell you to be responsible for yourself and your behavior and your actions and stop blaming the world for what has gone wrong in your life and what will continue to until you take control of it and yourself and admit to your part in all of it.

I wish I could stop blaming everyone else for what has gone wrong in your life and hold you responsible for your actions and behavior and accept what has happened between us.

Some days I really hate you, I hate your depression and your addiction and the fact that you chose them over us.

And I hate that I don’t really know how you are feeling and what you are going through and how to help you. I feel selfish that I feel better when I don’t think about you.

I feel bad when I enjoy myself and forget about you. I don’t know how to be your friend. There are too many things unsaid and unresolved to just move on as friends and it never seems to work when we try because of it.

I wish I could cut you out of my life until I feel better.

I hate that I’m still defending you to people I love and love me and you never defended me in the first place.

Not when I was the only one helping you or looking after you, nor before. 

I just want to accept the past for what it is and let go.

I want to stop making excuses for you and for me too and I want to hold you responsible forwhat went wrong even as much as I do myself, despite of your struggles.

I hope you can make peace with your past and focus on the present, I hope you find your happy
place and I’m sorry I couldn’t take you there.

“If you tell a truth it becomes a part of your past, if you tell a lie it becomes a part of your future.” 

This is what you never understood.

And that is ultimately why things fell apart, and it’s not to say you weren’t suffering or still aren’t, but there comes a point in everyone’s life when you need to decide when enough is enough, when you can no longer try for someone else when they don’t try for themselves.

But I’ll never say all this to you, because even with the distance between us now I would never desert you and all you would have to do was ask and I would be there to get you through anything you needed, even when you don’t deserve it, because that’s how love is.

Hopefully one day that love will be a healthy love of a dear old friend and the past will just be the past and the future is bright for both of us in our chosen lives.

I wish you nothing but good things, and for me too,

J x, age 29

Dear Jackson,

I don’t know if you knew this, but I was in love with you for so long, maybe five years or so. And recently, I have died watching you being enamored in her. I guess it fits; you are the painter.

You showed me the world in ways I hadn’t seen before. I had been a creature of the dark for so long and you showed me that the daylight was as beautiful as anything in the dark. You taught me a lot, even though you won’t believe that.

I had started to hope that you had felt the same for me after all the nights we spent talking, but I guess not. And maybe I was keeping you from something or someone you wanted that would make you happy. 

The rumour mill is dreadful, but I’ve heard about you and her. And I know you feel what I felt for her, so go get her. You deserve each other, because I want you to be happy, and I want her to be happy.

Maybe it’s true, if you love something let it go. And I’m letting you go now, and besides you did keep your promise too. You did let me go, you set me free, now I’m returning the favour.

I love you, but you’re not mine.
Amber, age 16

Dear Mormor,

When I was about 13 or 14 I was visiting you over summer break in Sweden and you asked me to come to the grocery store…I remember looking at my summer friends and I said I didn’t want to go. At that moment I remember feeling horribly bad, but I was being selfish and wanted to have fun instead. You gave me all of your heart during all of my visits and showed me only the best. When I was twenty, you passed away. I think about that day often and feel horrible every time, like it just happened. I have told my oldest son this story in hopes that he doesn’t repeat the same thing that I have done. Not only cherish your memories, but cherish the time being.

Love,
Your granddaughter, age 39

Dear Ry,

Not a day goes by that I don’t replay the last night I had with you here on this earth. I am haunted by the events that went on before you left us, what if we hadn’t done all the things we did that life changing night, would you still here today? What if I had stayed on the phone and comforted you more? What if I had known that while you cried on the phone to me that that would be the last time I would ever hear your voice? What if I thought twice of how many sleeping pills you took? Could I of stopped your fate? What if I had stayed over and slept next to you, like I always did, would I of known that something was deeply wrong? All of these questions are ones I can never answer now…but I’m haunted by the fact that you were by my side for 2 years and I was so blind to your pain. I can’t help but blame myself for your mother, brother and friends losing you so abruptly…and yet I am still here…we both did the same amount of drugs, but God took you and not me. I hate that you got to leave this cruel world and escape while I am kept here to pick up the pieces…I ask myself everyday why it was you and not me, but again, that is a question I will never be able to answer.

As much as I blame myself for the events leading up to your death, I also blame your boyfriend. He emotionally beat you to the ground until you no longer had the strength to get back up with no hope to keep on living. That’s not what love is and I wish desperately that you had saw that. Not even a month after we buried you he had moved on with someone else…if only you could of seen what little part he would of played in your extraordinary life you lead. You are so much better than him, even in death. It’s not fair that someone who encouraged you to die gets to stay here and live on happily while the rest of us are so damaged by your passing.

You always promised me that you would never leave me alone in this world, sadly that didn’t happen. So here I am, left with the shattered pieces of our life together, left to explain the events leading up to your death to your mother, your little brother and your father…words I never thought I’d ever have to say. They say that to die would be an awfully big adventure and I cannot wait until I can join you on that adventure. Till then my beautiful blue eyed boy.

K, age 20