The first time I tried to write this letter I was on a plane, and I started crying before I even made it through a sentence. I don’t actually remember if I managed to get the pen to the paper.
In a time when it feels like hardly anything matters anymore, it’s amazing to realize how important the things are that still do matter.
Love. Friendship.
Your love. Your friendship.
When it feels as though all the love I could ever experience in my life has been taken from me, I cannot begin to tell you how thankful I am for the love that you bring into my life; for the love that you give to me.
After the most unimaginable tragedy-so horrible that it still-and perhaps always will-feel impossible, I cannot imagine how much more impossible it would be to get through everyday without knowing that you are here for me, and have been here, in whatever capacity I need. You have been unbelievably important and incomparably reliable in helping me try to stay afloat. Thank you for all of your love. You are my first phone call.
Thank you for being there for me without question. As a friend, as more than a friend could be, as whatever and whoever I have needed.
Thank you for squeezing me all through the night-through my screaming, through my crying, through my desolate silences. For squeezing me so hard that there was less room left inside of me for all the sadness I have ever felt; so that it made it harder to feel it all; so that it numbed the pain a bit; or perhaps so that I was actually able to feel something-your affection-rather than only having numbness and desolation inside of me; helping me fight the feelings I am too afraid to feel.
Since the accident, it has been so helpful for you to tell me that you love me; to remind me that my life isn’t permanently empty; the desolation might not last forever. Yet it has also been incredible how much I have been able to feel your love without hearing it. I want to hear it, I love to hear it, perhaps I need to-but the way you hold me-I already know. You tell me in the best way. When I wake up next to you-the way you hold me-makes it feel as though every hour we were sleeping must have actually been a month across the world from each other.
It is one of the greatest feelings.
It’s hard for me to imagine someone loving me as much-and especially not in the way-that you do. And that could be completely naive-I obviously don’t have much to compare to all my incredible experiences with you. I’m also not looking for that. The point is that I think this time can give us perspective-I know it has already given me some-as to how little some things matter, especially compared to others; how stupid it would be to let a breakup ruin or even define a friendship. But not only how little but also how much some things matter, especially when compared to others.
How much you matter to me.
But I think that perspective is what helps to make that realization, and the appreciation, possible.
I still know that we have so much more we can and should learn on our own; so many places to go, experiences to have, goals to be made. Not to mention trying to figure out who the people are that we want to grow into; who we want to become. In figuring out ourselves we can be better for other people.
I could fill an entire notebook with the things I remember from the last five years-the experiences, the moments, the hugs. The jokes, the looks, the feels, the campsites. Details you probably don’t remember ;)
But my letter to you is not meant to chronicle what I remember; it is meant to tell you what you make me feel: love. No matter how many times I write that I default to loved. At first I wrote that, because that would be the word that more specifically describes you loving me, but I don’t like that it’s in the past tense.
Even if the love were in the past, the effect, the feelings, would still be here-would still be remembered and would still have power. They are lasting; they are enduring. That is also how they can still hurt us. I don’t want to us the past tense and feel as though I am representing a love that is gone. I want to live love in the present, always.
That is what these letters are for.
To share all the love in our lives so that it not only spreads and becomes stronger in the present, but so that it also lives on into the future, even if it does eventually become something of the past. To appreciate the past and the present with the future.
To shamelessly tell the people I love most in this world how much I care about them, how much the mean to me, and exactly why I think they are so amazing.
Your letter was perhaps the hardest to write (except the one that I don’t know if I ever will be able to write), because I don’t actually know how to give words to the love that you give me.
I feel many types of love- of different kinds, on different levels, and in different ways-with everyone. My mom gives me a love so unique and indescribable that I can’t even bear the thought of trying to write a letter. I don’t know if I will ever be able to.
Although the love I feel is different with every person-many aspects are often comparable between people.
Yours is not quite that.
It is unique in so many ways.
And I am so unbelievably grateful that you have given it to me. I have it now and I will have at least some part of it forever. I am so lucky to experience your love and to have you in my life.
I appreciate you.
I love.
Always.