Dear You

Someone asked me why it's always about me, why I always say 'I' this, and 'I' that.

One of the reasons is because my world revolves around me.

Everything we experience is perceived from our own individual point of view. Everything we do is out of self-interest. Anyone who gives another reason is lying. Of course many people don't realize it.

I'd like to think that this will be what makes you different: I won't say mine, or I, anymore.

Our world will revolve around us.

Love,

Me.

Dear wombmates

I've come to realize how much I love you both. In you I've found two of my closest friends, if only there was a fourth, we would have a complete Left4Dead team.

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Me=Hunter, Abel=Smoker (You're so gangly), Jean=Witch, Fook=Tank, and that leaves Dixon=Boomer.

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Maybe it's because I've been getting older.
Research consistently finds that older adults' life satisfaction is strongly correlated with the number and quality of their friendships. Siblings often form the strongest relationships, acting as confidants, caregivers, and cherished friends. Yeah, we're old souls, sister.


Love,

The sexiest one.

Dear Dad

I've been becoming more like you. People always said I was like you, but this is the first time I am saying it myself. I'm becoming more like you.

But I don't even know you, all I know is what others tell me.

I'm not the same as the person they tell me you were, not exactly. But what if I am the same as the person you really were?

"There is no good father, that's the rule. Don't lay the blame on men but on the bond of paternity, which is rotten. To beget children, nothing better; to have them, what iniquity! Had my father lived, he would have lain on me at full length and would have crushed me. As luck had it, he died young. Amidst Aeneas and his fellows who carry their Anchises on their backs, I move from shore to shore, alone and hating those invisible begetters who bestraddle their sons all their life long. I left behind me a young man who did not have time to be my father. Was it a good thing or bad? I don't know. But I readily subscribe to the verdict of an eminent psychoanalyst: I have no Superego."
- Jean-Paul Sartre.


Love,

Your Son.

Dear Nina

Because you linked me, and said "Make my hard work worth it." (Or something like that)

I was just thinking. If I hadn't sprained my ankle that night, I would have gone hiking the next day with Denise and Aaron Sim. I would have been training with Candice, maybe we would have joined a marathon together. I would have been in the basketball and handball team. The biggest competition of the year is coming in a month's time. I won't be able to play.

There's so many other could-haves and maybes. How different would it be? That alternate reality where I didn't wear shoes to play. I'm blaming my shoes. I never would have landed awkwardly barefoot. I would have felt Aaron Woon's foot under mine much earlier and shifted my weight appropriately. How much better would that life be?

But I was just thinking, in that life, I would never have talked to you.


Yours,

Jared.


P.S. I said the exact same thing to Marielle. You two are the people I know from Facebook chat!

Dear Kristy

I can't write to you now. People make jokes about the wheelchair, about me hopping around. I laugh. I really am... happy. I wouldn't let a sprain stop me from being happy. But it's the reason I can't write.

You're one of the only people I'm completely honest with, you always have been. I didn't want you to see my despair. The frustration.
It's not just the ankle. It's more than that. It's about being weak. It's about what I am.
The injury just gave me too much time to think.

I'm holding back on you now. I can't tell you everything. I'm sorry. I'll talk about something else.

...

Why do we seek help in times of weakness? Why do we seek God? I say "we", but I mean other people. They say it is God's way of showing us that we need him. I'm not arrogant. Not in this matter, at least. I just don't feel the need to depend on someone else.
In fact, I feel furthest from God when I'm weak.

Do you know that story about magic? I read it in some old fantasy anthology. The book didn't even have a cover.


It was about two boys who wanted to learn magic. They went into the desert where a magician lived in a tower, and asked him to teach them. The magician gave them chores, and only taught them the most basic methods of meditation.

One day, he took the boys out into the desert, for a stroll. When they reached the top of a dune, they saw a large monster. Unfortunately, the monster saw them too. The magician could have fought it, but he closed his eyes, called upon his magic, and flew into the sky.

The monster was getting closer. One of the boys remembered a small cave, too small for the monster, that they had passed a while back, and turned around, ran to it quickly. The other boy closed his eyes. Desperately.

In the sky, the magician told his pupil, "Magic comes to those who need it."


Yours,

Jared.