Dear ——,
I rehearsed this conversation so many times in the shower that I’ve memorized a version of you that doesn’t exist. The version that listens. The version that says “I understand” and means it. The version that doesn’t make me feel like I’m speaking underwater.
I wanted to tell you that the distance wasn’t something that happened to us. It was something I chose, slowly, like turning down a thermostat one degree at a time until neither of us noticed the cold.
I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, but not in the way you’d expect. Not sorry for leaving. Sorry for staying so long out of inertia, mistaking comfort for love, routine for commitment, proximity for presence.
Dear ——,
You were right about the city. It does change you. Not all at once, but in increments so small you don’t notice until you go home and realize home doesn’t fit anymore. The ceilings are too low. The conversations are too familiar. Everyone’s asking the same questions they asked two years ago and your answers have outgrown the space allotted for them.
I don’t mean that as a judgment. I mean it as grief.
Dear me, at seventeen,
You’re going to waste a lot of time trying to be interesting instead of interested. Stop it. Or don’t. You won’t listen anyway. You never do. That’s maybe the one thing that doesn’t change.
T