Viewing entries tagged with "letters"   //
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There's someone I want you to meet.

1

He’s a great guy who looks par­tic­u­larly nice in a skinny tie. His deep, smokey eyes seem to slay every woman he meets, and even the ones he hasn’t yet. There’s a strap­ping mas­culin­ity that you like, car­ried in the angles of his face, but a gen­tle smile reveals his true personality.

He’s intel­li­gent enough to chal­lenge that mind of yours, but so down-to-earth that you’d never feel inad­e­quate. He’s con­stantly cre­ative and a musi­cal genius, and I know you’d appre­ci­ate his work as much as he’d appre­ci­ate yours, even if they’re in dif­fer­ent medi­ums. He can let loose and have a great time, but he’s respon­si­ble enough to know when to stop. He’s con­fi­dent, but mod­est. Funny with­out being crude or clown­ish. Thoughtful and kind. Generous with his time, his thoughts, his pos­ses­sions, and his life. He’s the total pack­age, but most impor­tant of all, I know he’d make you happy.

And while I’ve always been unbear­ably jeal­ous when I think of you with any­one else (and maybe I chose him cause I like to think he reminds me of myself), he’s the only guy I wouldn’t mind you being with if it can’t be me, cause it would be such a waste otherwise.

Date  April 13, 2012
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You're my big bear

1

and that means you’d get a big bear hug the next time I see you, but they say you’ve shat­tered your rib cage, lost a pile of teeth, and bro­ken every bone on the right side of your body, save the arm.

I’ve been there man. You know that. That’s why you know I’ll never judge you for what hap­pened. You told me we could always talk cause you were once on the edge of the same blade, so you should have known the same, but you didn’t pick up when he said maybe there was a bet­ter chance you’d lis­ten to me. All I could do was sit there, try­ing to keep calm, but expect­ing the next call to be about a body.

I should be angry. Not cause you didn’t call me to say good­bye before you took off, but because you hurt your­self and you’re my brother, and that means you hurt my family.

I can’t stay mad cause you’re con­scious now, your vitals are sta­ble, there’s no brain dam­age, and relief has sur­passed anger. They say it’s mainly injuries to the bones and that bones heal, long as it may take.

Will I rec­og­nize you the next time I see you? Will I cry? Will you ever under­stand how scared I was? I can’t call cause the nurse needs to be by your side, and I can’t visit yet cause only imme­di­ate fam­ily are allowed for now. Otherwise, I’d be in a car, dri­ving down there with a case of Blue ready for you when you’re out.

I don’t want to worry any­more. I want to see with my own eyes that you’re okay. I want you drunk at my wed­ding with your cap on back­wards, scream­ing your ass off when I walk down the aisle. I want you at every New Year’s party, cause you’re one of the only rea­sons I go any­more. I want you to teach my kids how put some­one in a proper choke-hold cause they should know how to take care of them­selves, and you’re smart in all the ways I’m not.

We all need you as much as I do. That’s why you’re still alive, and that’s what I’m going to make you under­stand one day.

Date  August 29, 2011
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I've decided that first dates will begin with the trading of mixtapes

15

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I know it wasn’t a date, but I still swooned when I found your playlist in inide lo-fi type­writ­ten let­ters, wrapped with chem­istry notes. It only makes sense that a col­lec­tion of songs be my new stan­dard for a first impres­sion on any roman­tic endeavours.

This became my bat­tle cry. The BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM of the toms that com­pel my body to heave when I’m pre­tend­ing to sing those har­monies to an empty sky.

mixtape playlist front

 

I can trace moments of my past through your music; sum­mer days spent with a Girlfriend’s Dog, a hope­less infat­u­a­tion with auf der Maur’s Celebrity Skin, tinny speak­ers blast­ing Porno Mouth in the room where I lost my vir­gin­ity on a soft sin­gle bed that seemed a huge can­vas to our naked bod­ies. Maybe that’s why you already under­stood so much of me. It’s like we’re dif­fer­ent land­scapes rep­re­sented using the same cartography.

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Date  July 18, 2011
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Categories  Snaps

France, Day 6: Paris

1

You’d like it here.

Maybe that’s why it feels like you’re miss­ing from every meal, every seat I’ve taken at a bistro with the sun on my face, every cor­ner I’ve rounded with a new expe­ri­ence just beyond.

gazing at the Eiffel Tower

Wish you were here.

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Date  June 8, 2011
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Categories  Photos Random

Sometimes I wonder if you're bored like me.

3

Sitting at home on a ran­dom night, caught between the com­fort of your room and the stim­u­la­tion of peo­ple. You once told me I could always call when I said I didn’t want to be a hyp­ocrite, but I don’t know if that’s true any­more. It’s been a while. I won­der if you ever think about me, and if you do, whether it’s with fond­ness, dis­taste, or indifference.

By now you’ve prob­a­bly fig­ured out that I can never be the one to pick up the phone first, which is why it’s hard for me to believe we’ll ever see each other again. I wish there was a way we could just talk, and not have things get com­pli­cated, and not have to worry about you or me or any­thing between us.

Sometimes I think I’m strong enough, but I think of that call and that voice and the burn­ing across my skin, and even­tu­ally I real­ize I’m only fool­ing myself. Just mak­ing excuses to see you again cause I miss you so much. I’m not yet used to the fact that I can’t share these songs, these expe­ri­ences, this hap­pi­ness with you, and it’s left me feel­ing incomplete.

Even now it feels like there was so much left unsaid. Like my words were always inad­e­quate to the bur­den of my heart cause I was never able to con­vince you of how spe­cial you were and how much I loved you. But time is teach­ing me that you knew, and that noth­ing would ever have been enough.

Not long ago, I real­ized it’s not just you I can’t stop think­ing about, it’s all of my past, from insignif­i­cant instances to major events. If only you weren’t one of the only things worth remem­ber­ing, and I wasn’t try­ing so des­per­ately to forget.

Date  April 9, 2011
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I hit a buck fifty on the way home before I realized it.

0

I was just try­ing to get away, to remove myself from the vul­ner­a­ble way I felt — the way you made me feel — among the din and the chill. That night I learned that beauty comes in many forms. I started believ­ing I could love again, and my wounds began to heal for the first time since she told me it all had to stop.

There was such a won­der­ful moment of vul­ner­a­bil­ity flick­er­ing across your eyes when you said we hooked up1, quickly as if to hide the fact, while plung­ing your fork into our slice of cake with a smirk on the side of your face. It’s moments like those that direc­tors dream off.

John wanted to know how it went. I told him not to ask, and we never spoke about it again. He thinks it’s because it went badly, but really it’s because every­thing went so well when I knew it was the last time I was going to see you.

Those were dif­fi­cult days. I always believed you could have saved me, until I real­ized that I needed to save myself. Not that it mat­ters. Things are dif­fer­ent now any­way. I have a ten­dency to say too much; all too often I mis­take open­ness for inti­macy, and it gets me in trouble.

I always imag­ine that you’ve fig­ured things out, and have been caught up in your own hap­pi­ness ever since. People like you were never meant to speak of heartbreak.

  1. Instead of the vul­gar we fucked or the pedes­trian we slept together. [↑]
Date  March 27, 2011
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You were supposed to be the rest of my life.

2

My hap­pily ever after. My crunchy peanut but­ter soul mate.

I think of you every day, but it’s never a con­scious act. More of a reflex in a con­tin­u­ous stream of thoughts: the cover of the album that’s play­ing, this tea is get­ting cold, maybe I’ll go out tomor­row, the way you looked the first time I saw you with your glasses on, I need to buy floss, the humid­i­fier needs refilling…

It’s never some­thing I can help. There are reminders of you in the colours of every sun­rise, in the cho­ruses of my songs, in the back of my mind when I’m left to my own devices. You became a habit I never wanted to break.

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I for­got to give you this one too. It was sup­posed to be us. We were sup­posed to own the sky, to be it’s chil­dren, danc­ing under clouds you’d later paint. Sharing head­phones on a bus, me in blue cardi­gan, you with fab­u­lous hair. Walking to the gro­cery store on sum­mer nights; you’d cook, I’d do the dishes. Catching up on each oth­ers days before drift­ing off to sleep. All the every­day stuff that would never feel ordi­nary again if your hand was in mine.

It wasn’t sup­posed to hap­pen like this.

Date  January 27, 2011
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I still think of you.

0

And how bright your hair was when you were recall­ing the ter­ri­ble date you had last night. The guy wouldn’t stop putting him­self down. “Someone’s inse­cure”, I said. You agreed. I only knew because I used to do the same thing (but I didn’t tell you that).

You wouldn’t stop bit­ing your lower lip — how I wanted to stop that fid­get with a kiss — and flip­ping that golden wave back over your head with clumsy lit­tle fingers.

As wrong as we were for each other, I still wanted to give it a try. To see what it would be like to sing with you in your car, even if you thought lis­ten­ing to rock gave you an edge cause you were such a girly-girl. To find out if you could ever love me as much as you love yourself.

I never asked you out cause I was too proud to make the first move. In this phase where I was tired of being the one to make the effort. Probably for the best. You’d never believe that I avoid you as much as you me. Did you ever tell him why you don’t come around anymore?

I still think of you. Then again, I think about pretty much every­one who’s been in my life from time to time, in some capacity.

You’re the only one I hate think­ing of.

Date  January 14, 2011
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Heard you got pregnant.

3

Maybe you faked it, cause you had a con­ve­nient mis­car­riage when you got thrown out. Now you’re really preg­nant, and the new guy is let­ting you stay.

It could have been me, they said. That was my first thought too. But I’m not weak and you’re not here.

Until last week, I still had your num­ber in my phone, but to be hon­est, it was just so I could know not to pick up. Sorry I never called. I thought about it once or twice, when I wanted a per­son to play with cause so many songs sound bet­ter with a har­mony. But I’m too good at com­ing up with rea­sons to be alone. If I saw you again, I’d ask how you remem­bered the chords of your friend’s song cause I can’t even remem­ber the words to some of my favourite tracks. And if you ever recorded your­self singing a song for your old grandpa to see.

I still have that out-of-focus photo of us on the couch, look­ing into the cam­era, you on top. I’m prob­a­bly never going to do any­thing with it.

Date  January 7, 2011
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To the person who broke into my car last night

7

You stole:

  • My Apple ear­buds, which I didn’t care much about, cause they’re shitty and feel like stale muffins in your ears. The only rea­son I had these in the car was to talk hands­free while dri­ving. Which was prob­a­bly only three times a year, but very use­ful when needed.
  • About $20 in change, which is more than I need for park­ing, but this was also the spon­ta­neous junk food fund.
  • My GPS charger, which was in case the bat­tery dies on the road (cause I hate dri­ving with it plugged in). I don’t keep my GPS in the car when it’s cold to pre­serve the bat­tery, and I haven’t needed it since the win­ter. I’m pretty sure you would have stolen my GPS if it was in there.
  • My iPhone charger, which was brand-spanking new, and used for long road trips.
  • My aux­il­liary audio cable, which I use to play my iPhone tracks over my car stereo. I was think­ing of replac­ing it any­way cause it was way too long and the bunched cable looked like clut­ter, but I was still annoyed by the fact that I had to drive 10 min­utes to the near­est Circuit City to buy another with­out being able to lis­ten to the music I wanted.

You didn’t steal:

  • My wheel locks, which would have been no use to you with­out the key, and annoy­ing for me to replace. So…thanks?
  • My assorted music CDs, which I needed an excuse to clean up any­way, so you not tak­ing them didn’t do my any favours. They were also really good songs, and not steal­ing them prob­a­bly means your taste in music sucks.
  • My model cat, which I keep in the back seat and has been get­ting mixed reviews lately. About 50% of peo­ple are fine with it, and 50% are really creeped out because they think it’s real and refuse to sit in the back unless I put it in the trunk. But it was a present from my uncle in Hong Kong, so I’m really glad you didn’t take it.
  • My emer­gency blan­ket and can­dles, which I felt like you should have taken, because I can’t imag­ine you being very warm if you’re a petty crook.

I have to won­der if you were so upset about not find­ing any­thing valu­able that you decided to steal things that aren’t even worth sell­ing or fenc­ing, out of spite. It wasn’t enough to make a claim on my insur­ance, so I have to buy this stuff again. But I don’t really need any of it, except for the aux­il­iary cable, which I replaced with a fancy new retract­ing set and with which I’m much happier.

Just this week I was read­ing about that colonel being charged with a string of break-ins to steal under­wear, and how the peo­ple in that neigh­bour­hood felt shaken at the news. I empathized with them, and felt lucky that it didn’t hap­pen near me.

But when I came out of my house and found the con­tents of my glove com­part­ment spilled onto the pas­sen­ger seat, I was reminded that this is a fact of life every­one is forced to accept, because no one is immune. It’s a nec­es­sary evil, to remind peo­ple that putting too much value in our pos­ses­sions means we only have more to lose.

The only thing that both­ers me is that I feel vio­lated. I’m pretty sure I locked my car, but there’s no sign of forced entry, so I won­der how you got in and whether you now have free access. I can’t change my park­ing spot. My car will always be there, so now I need to keep any­thing valu­able out of it. Not that big a deal really, but it’s less con­ve­nient to have to remem­ber to bring change any time I want to park down­town. Also, in the spring I like to keep all the win­dows of my house open, and now I won’t feel safe doing that when I’m sleep­ing on a dif­fer­ent floor.

But I still con­sider myself lucky. Lucky you didn’t make out with more than $100 worth of stuff. Lucky my first expe­ri­ence with theft was rel­a­tively minor, and an inex­pen­sive les­son learned. Lucky I’ve been feel­ing good lately and that this inci­dent is only a small blip on my radar.

I can only hope that you used the change to feed your­self, because if you’re steal­ing ran­dom shit from cars, you prob­a­bly need the money more than I do.

But, please, don’t do it again, cause to be hon­est, I’d rather it was me eat­ing those McDonald’s french fries on Friday night.

Date  May 2, 2010
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Categories  Daily Life

Letters to Girls Mothers

10

I’ve been try­ing to write a let­ter to her mother. Something like this:

I was going to stop by on my last trip to Toronto, but part of me real­ized it may have made things com­pli­cated, since it’d be the first time since we stopped talk­ing to each other. Not that I was scared you would take a side, but because I didn’t want you to think I was forc­ing that deci­sion on you.

All I want to say is that I miss all of you ter­ri­bly, she was spe­cial, and it’s a pity things didn’t work out. But it was much beyond our con­trol. I don’t know if either of us will ever grow out of these dif­fer­ences that hold us back.

The last time I came to visit, it was almost 2pm on a Tuesday and you were both at work. I scratched a note on the back of a notepad to let you know I stopped by, and she told me you liked me so much, you stuck it on your fridge. That always meant a lot.

Thanks for everything.

But all of it comes out sound­ing defen­sive. I wish I could explain how I’m not angry but sad, which is a tes­ta­ment to how great they were. I can’t fig­ure out how to put the ball in their court, to let them know that if they’re okay with it, and she’s okay with it, we can still be friends. I really don’t know how appro­pri­ate that would be anyway.

Sometimes, the hard­est part of giv­ing up the girls is giv­ing up their par­ents too.

Date  February 10, 2010
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Categories  Random

Protected: The Penultimate Letter

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Date  September 22, 2009
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A Letter To The Officer Who Made Me Drive Into A Ditch

2

(If you haven’t seen the pic­ture.)

Maybe we have a few things in com­mon. We were both dri­ving back to the office at the end of the day (me to drop off the cases I had picked up, you to do more paper­work). Both five years at our jobs. Both with­out prior acci­dents. But I’m actu­ally in mar­ket­ing, not deliv­ery, and if it wasn’t for the fact that our so many of our dri­vers had called in sick, I wouldn’t have been on the road at this par­tic­u­lar time on this par­tic­u­lar day.

It was actu­ally a few fac­tors that led to my dri­ving into the dirt shoul­der, and even­tu­ally, set­tling in a ditch fac­ing the wrong way in the grassy median. You drove from the onramp directly into the pass­ing lane — where I was — with­out check­ing your blind spot. Or sig­nal­ing. I didn’t real­ize you were com­ing into my lane and about to hit me until it was too late. I didn’t have time to brake, so I had to drive half onto the shoul­der. As I steered back onto the cement road, it caused a dif­fer­ence in trac­tion between my left and right tires. It made me veer left, and I tried to cor­rect it by steer­ing right. Then the same thing hap­pened in the oppo­site direction.

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Date  July 30, 2009
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Categories  Daily Life

Making A Difference

3

Over the last while, I’ve been receiv­ing some very nice let­ters and com­ments.

Two, in par­tic­u­lar, touched me. This one:

I stum­bled upon your blog a few days ago. I’m read­ing all your archives right now.

One of your entries moved me so much I had to pass it to my best, most initi­mate, most sensitive/sensual girl­friends. It wasn’t a big group, but a group I felt could hear what you were say­ing in your entry. It was about find­ing the spot on a woman that should be kissed.

I read your blog every day because I can’t believe there is a man out in the uni­verse who is this intu­itive, in tune, so aware of him­self emo­tion­ally and phys­i­cally. I wish you had gone to my col­lege — you would have been so loved and admired.

So this entry dis­tresses me, and I don’t even know you. I under­stand lon­li­ness — I’ve never had inti­macy, or rather, I’m very afraid of it. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this because you don’t know me either and you won’t care, but this entry hurts. You must know by now that some­one thinks of you every­day. Maybe it is your mom, maybe an ex-lover or girl­friend or male friend or co worker.

I think I’m more in shock that you can write so hon­estly and openly. I’m jeal­ous of that.

well, I just wanted to let you know that. And that I have a crush on your blog. Can a per­son crush on a blog?

Please take care,
Zaira

And this from a few months ago:

Hi Jeff,

you don’t know me and we will prob­a­bly never meet. It’s sort of inter­est­ing the way the inter­net has changed the way we can know someone.

Allow me to intro­duce myself, since you have already bore your soul in a very real way that has moved me to write to a com­plete stranger-something i have never done.

I am a 30 yr old inte­rior designer, a born and bred new yorker cur­rently liv­ing in brook­lyn. It’s been slow at work lately, so to pass the time I have taken to read­ing blogs mostly design related, but some­how i read a com­ment that you had made on a ran­dom blog, look­ing back i can’t remem­ber which one unfor­tu­nately, and it led me back to your per­sonal blog somehow.

you see I am not like you at all. I feel sim­i­lar feel­ings, and even have sim­i­lar beliefs, but I don’t have the guts to put myself out there in that way. I dont even have a blog, and i can barely talk to my friends about the way im feel­ing. so for me your blog is very ther­a­peu­tic and refreshing.

like most peo­ple who blog, im sure, you won­der if any­one out there is read­ing. Well just wanted to let you know that I really like your blog and will con­tinue to read it.

I have added you as a flickr con­tact and i see that you have reciprocated-*armadilliz* I am not a stalker / crazy per­son, or any­thing like that, just a fan, so rest easy.

Take care,

–Liz

And while peo­ple tell me how much they appre­ci­ate me being open and shar­ing myself, it’s noth­ing com­pared to what they share of them­selves in these let­ters. I don’t know what com­pels some­one to write to a total stranger, but it’s a warm­ing ges­ture, some­thing that inspires me when I’m feel­ing closed and self-conscious.

So I want to say thank you.

Thank you to the peo­ple who’ve writ­ten me. Thank you to the peo­ple who share their own prob­lems and issues and lives. Thank you to the peo­ple who let me know that I’ve inspired them to start their own jour­nals. Thank you for sup­port­ing me when we’ve never even spoken.

It’s your words that make me feel like I’m not so alone when I’m sit­ting in my house, won­der­ing what to do with myself. It’s your kind­ness that gives me strength when the world is falling down around me. It’s know­ing that I’ve been able to make a dif­fer­ence that keeps me going.

Thank you.

Date  April 29, 2008
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Categories  Random

Letter From An Ex-Girlfriend

0

Jeff

Where do I start? I can’t even begin to recount the last six weeks of my life, and really if I were able…Im [sic] not sure you’d want to hear it. I won’t say the “let’s be friends” email was a sur­prize [sic]…I sup­pose I just needed to hear it.

I find a let­ter in my mail­box, wrapped in a gold foil enve­lope, teal let­ters on a white page.

The let­ters are blocky, square, with no regard for case. She used to write me notes with her Es as three par­al­lel lines, count­ing on the eye to draw an illu­sion of a ver­ti­cal bar, and her Os dot­ted in the cen­tre. It was one of her things, one of the details she used to be unique.

Now she’s aban­doned all that.

I’m already skep­ti­cal, on my guard.

It’s hard though…I had my chance…I sup­pose you had yours through our relationship…you couldn’t be what I needed then and now look at you — the sub­ject of my fantasies…watching from afar…wishing I’d have saw [sic] these things then — won­der­ing if maybe I had looked through less skep­ti­cal eyes, I could have saw [sic] who you are today.

I’m reminded of why it ended. Of how hard I tried to make it work, of all the things she did to hurt me.

Now she points out her faults. The mis­takes she made. She flat­ters me. She lets her guard down. I’ve never felt her so vul­ner­a­ble, and this is how I know she’s changed.

You lead the struc­tured life I always wanted, I don’t know if you have a coun­ter­part in your life…I don’t know if you’re con­tent now to struc­ture your own world and not yet some­one else’s…there are few things I do know about you…but what I do see…Im [sic] sorry I didn’t before.

Truth be told…Ive [sic] dri­ven all the way to the east end on a few occa­sions and turned back. My inten­tion was to fall at your feet…to kiss them as I had in the past but with a renewed respect for you and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of myself. But I was affraid [sic].

I’m reminded now of what drove me to achieve what I have now. To cast off that part of my life, to buy a house, to live on my own, to move on. I may never have had any of this if it wasn’t for her.

I’m sure you’re shak­ing your head now…maybe laughing…maybe not even read­ing this any­more. You’re done with me it seems. i’m [sic] okay with that…afterall [sic] it’s my own fault. I had that chance and I couldn’t take it.

i’ll [sic] get to the point: on the next page is a short fan­tasy I had pass through my mind yes­ter­day and so I wrote it down in my jour­nal because lately some­thing has changed in me — I never assign a name or face or…person to my fantisies…lately you’ve been front and centre.

I’m reminded of how intensely sex­ual she was. The nights we stayed up, alive in flame, con­sumed by our con­cu­pis­cence, push­ing the lim­its of our bod­ies. There were times when I never felt so alive.

Before you read this next page…know that if you had wanted me at your feet—Id [sic] be there in a heartbeat—even still—what an hon­nor [sic] it would be to curl up at your feet while you read this—

Okay now Im [sic] stalling—because Im ner­vous at the thought of you open­ing your eyes to my want…for you.

Her words aren’t enough. Not enough to change my mind or what’s past.

Too lit­tle, too late.

Note: The sec­ond page, the fan­tasy, wasn’t included, for fear that it would give away the iden­tity of writer. It reads like some­thing from l’Histoire d’O; noth­ing vul­gar, but flat, dry, and devoid of lit­er­ary devices.

Date  April 27, 2007
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Categories  Random
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