I Hope You Find the World

Written for Imaginative Writing (ENG 2215) | Seattle Pacific University

I Hope You Find the World

I wasn’t really sure what happened between us. What happened to make the sense of adventure we had found over the years turn into madness. Maybe it was me trying to keep an odd sense of distance. Even though we’d both gone in opposite directions. So there was already the physical space, but maybe I needed the emotional space as well. Or maybe it was the insistent phone calls at midnight. At three in the morning. At six in the morning. Maybe it was the fact that I knew I couldn’t fix anything for you. I knew that I couldn’t help you how you needed to be helped. There were so many things that you needed that I couldn’t give to you and perhaps you knew that. Perhaps I knew that, too. But no one ever spoke of these things.

So instead, I’d answer the phone and listen. I’d listen so that you knew that there was someone out there who loved you. Because I did. I really, really did. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I loved you. But maybe there were a few doubts in yours. Perhaps you felt that I didn’t. Instead of our hearts growing fonder in the distance, they faded.

The letters that were passed back and forth from one coast to the other eventually stopped. They stopped when I realized that there was nothing else I could do. There was nothing else I could say. I knew that you had to figure this all out on your own – whatever this meant. And so I sent you one final letter. One that I knew that you would hate. One that I knew would be the end of whatever it was between us that we somehow seemed to call love. And that was when we broke. I cut you out of my life with tears in my eyes and pain in my heart. I always expected that I’d send that last letter, telling you that I was done. I never imagined that you’d get the last word, months later. Shaking and scared, I found a reply in my mailbox on an out-of-the-ordinary hot afternoon.

Even before I read what you had sent, I thought I knew what it would say. I thought that the letter would start out as “Dear Person I Hate” and would go on from there.

It would say that no one has ever had so much power over you than I do. You don’t know how I dug myself into your core and rooted myself so deeply. You’re the type of person who can get over someone in the matter of seconds. You hate having to talk to someone and having to keep in communication with them. You hate updating people on how you’re doing and letting them know that you’re fine even though you’re not. You hate letting people see into your mind.

You hate being honest, which is why the majority of the time, you never were. Though I knew there were truths behind your lies. You hate that all of the things you hate telling people, you always had the urge to tell me. You’re disgusted by the fact that you’re so dependent on me even though we’re not even friends anymore. I taught you more about yourself than anyone ever could or will in the future and that absolutely terrifies you. You greatly dislike the fact that I’m honest with you and straightforward because then you can’t get away with being in your own little daydream. I have this control over all of your emotions even though you have the power to change them. One thought of me or word from me can either make you happy for a week or depressed for a month. You hate that. You hate me. You can’t stand me. But you can’t live without me. Your letter should have been filled with all of these things. All of these confessions that I have already known.

But instead, I was left with something much, much worse. Instead, in your letter, you told me everything else. I sat on my couch for god knows how long. Hours, just reading it all over and over again. I remember the daylight, the stars, and the pink skies. You told me everything that had happened between our freshman year of college when we moved away and until now. You would ask me questions about what had been going on in my life but I’d just shake my head. I knew I could never respond to the letter. It was too much. So I continued to read every little detail that you could remember. Even when it came down to the color of the curtains in your grandmother’s home when you went to see her before she died. They were green. The jungle shade. With lighter green tassels at the bottom.

You told me what it was that you ate and what it tasted like the first day that you visited Queen Anne to see me. You had pizza at a little restaurant across the street from Safeway. The tomato sauce was sweet, like they had added sugar to it. Their pepperoni was spicier than most, which you enjoyed since most pepperoni from other fast food places didn’t satisfy you. What color your shoes were when you had gone back to New York for a college interview. They were black leather and roughly polished. You had forgotten to shine them before you went in so you had to quickly rub them down in the car in the parking lot before going inside. You told me everything, just like you used to. And this time, perhaps for the first time, everything you told me was the truth.

You say that having a mind like yours doesn’t seem beautiful. There’s nothing about it worth glorifying. It’s a mess. But people, when they come into contact with individuals like you, try to save you. They do everything that they can to stick around, take the beating, and be by your side. There’s nothing in the world like the feeling to have someone stick through the thick and thin. It’s sickening to you. Because if someone makes it that long, even if they’ve left and come back, you just hurt them. When you’re not well, that’s what happens. Then years later, or even months, there’s a sort of churning feeling in your stomach when you realize what you’ve done. How badly you’ve hurt that person. You didn’t want me to run at first glance, but you didn’t want me to stay if I had been greatly hurt. Both are bad. I just needed to know your limits. As well as mine.

There’s nothing beautiful about a messed up mind. Until it gets better. Until there’s been duct tape placed carefully across the cracks. It may not hold forever, but it will be alright until then there’s a sense of normality that can be reached. Then you’re ordinary. Or as close to it as you can get. You can hold a conversation, you can have relationships with people, you can function. But there’s nothing you said that you regret more than holding people hostage to a friendship you felt that you didn’t deserve. To a pain you say they didn’t deserve. And for that, with this, is your deepest, most remorseful apology. With this, you plead, you hope that I can move on and be happy. Know that not everyone will hurt me the way you did. And know that you never will again.

And so I leave you with this. You think you are such a terrible person but you aren’t. You’re just sick. I’ve finally been able to see you through your own eyes and I can’t help but ache for you to see yourself in a different light. You are a beautiful person, it’s your illness that that is destructive. You have many talents, many strengths, many things that you have done and will continue to do that I know will bring people great happiness and joy. Because that’s who you really are. You want to please people. You live to see smiles on their faces. I know this because whenever I was around you, when you were doing well, I was happy. I know that’s who you truly are. So please stop blaming yourself. You’re doing the best you can.

I’ve seen you through your own eyes. I’ve listened to the stories and have held onto them the best I can. I love you. I always will. Even if we’re no longer in each other’s lives. And I pray that someday you’ll find someone who sees you like I do. Who loves you with every fault that you have. On your good days and your bad ones. I think about you everyday and who you can become. You are doing just fine, and I hope you find the world.