You are beauty defined.

I truely believe that it was nothing short of fate that made our paths cross. We were both at a crossroads, both dealing with relationship problems, and trying to figure out if maybe we were sisters somehow because our parents ended up on the same cruise. (I am STILL convinced they were on the same boat.)

We went from talking every day (wait, we still do that), to meeting up for Mexican food and margaritas, to coffee at Barnes and Noble, to you welcoming me into your home, even if I was there to steal all your money. You introduced me to the best cheeburgers I’ve ever had and split more bottles of wine with me than I’d care to admit to. Your parents treat me and my son like we are family and I love them as much as I love my own parents. Your daughter is one of my favorite kids in the world and her smile can cheer me up in a heartbeat.

I love you for so many reasons. You’ve always been there for me. I’ve never once, not for a second, doubted our friendship or how long it would last. You’ve talked me thru so many problems and you’ve been my biggest cheerleader because you always want to see me be my best. You recognized the best parts of me that I didn’t even realize existed. You’ve taught me so much about how to be a better person and I can only hope to one day show as much grace and humility as you are able to. You are beauty, inside and out and those of us lucky enough to know you, know just how lucky we are.

I love that we met with similar problems, hurting because of the men boys in our lives. I love even more so that we are both in SUCH better places, that we both are on the path to getting that “happily ever after”. You’ve shown me that I deserve that and you know how much you deserve it too. Thank you for swooning when I first used “we”. Thank you for always asking after him, and making sure that we are doing well. Thank you for being excited about my upcoming trip and for helping me get past my fears and insecurities.

I can’t wait until we are neighbors and then I wont have to travel 2 hours to split a bottle of wine with you. Not that I mind, I’d drive 10 times as far to spend time with you, my friend.

Happy Birthday love. I hope that you enjoy this wonderful day and embrace it.

Thank you for loving me so much.

You are amazing.

I was going through all the photos from Chicago, for this post, and of course I started tearing up. I miss you so much. I’m sitting here and I’m thinking that anything I say will never do enough justice to explain to the world not only how much I love you, but how amazing of a person you are. But I don’t think I need to do that.

You shine. From first impression, you can stop a room in its tracks. The second you walked into the lobby of the Sheraton, I knew. I turned towards the door and there you were, and I just took a second and I stared because I had to etch that memory into my brain. After we hugged, we just launched into conversation like we had left it behind only minutes before and we were just picking up right where we left off. The whole weekend was like that.

We have this knack for finding each other when we need each other the most and I can’t ever tell you how grateful I am for you. Yes, you stress me out. Yes, you make me want to shake you sometimes. But damn it Maria, I just can’t quit you. I’d never want to because you’ve always loved me, you’ve always held my hand, and you never let my secrets shock you, when you weren’t busy calling me out on them first. You can read me like a damn book. Thank goodness because you make it easier for me to just let it all out because you don’t need an explanation.

I miss you friend. I want you to start embracing these scary things called birthdays because the more time that passes, the more memories we get a chance to make.

Because who else could make this look as damn good as it does?

That’s straight gangster…ish.

Enjoy your third 23rd birthday beauty. You are timeless.

Dear Rura,

I’m sure that once I publish this, I’ll be virtually slapped by a few people that love me. They will be shaking their heads and wishing they could shake me for even writing this. They will scream in their heads, “You need to let him go! You are far past the point of moving on!!”.

But I can’t.

It’s not that easy.

For some fucked up reason that I am having trouble justifying to myself, I’d like to have you in my life. I can’t be your girlfriend. I don’t think that you fully understand what comes with having a relationship, at least a balanced one. I refuse to put myself in a position to allow you to hurt me again. I’ve got enough in my life that could potentially crush me, I don’t need to add you to that.

I would like to actually be friends. Without benefits if you will.

I’m having an all out internal war here. My brain is begging to know why. My heart is telling my brain to STFU. The only explanation I have for myself is this:

We shared something really great. We were really happy a long time ago. Parts of that happiness lurk in the dark corners of my memory and I am straining to remember them. I remember laughter. I remember smiling. It was there, and it came very easily. We just fucked it all up with the expectations, and the failure to be what we promised ourselves we were always going to be be: HONEST. We stopped being true with one another. You hid your feelings of suffocation with bitterness and blame. I hid my feelings of disappointment. But all of that lying was too much for both of us. We reached a point where there was literally, no return from.

Letting you go was the hardest thing I have ever chosen to do. Facing the fact that things felt unrepairable literally broke a part of me. Apparently that part of me is still broken if I am sitting hear with tears streaming down my face. Not for wanting you back. No. For just the pure sorrow of losing what I thought was such real love. Something that was apparently, bigger than both of us because we didn’t know how to adapt to it.

Every true relationship I’ve ever had, has had a soundtrack. Ours did. And coming across that CD I had made for us, in a stack of CDs I haven’t touched in a year, I threw it in the CD player and scrolled through the tracks. And I smiled. And the memories didn’t hurt. What bothered me was that at one point in time, we did enjoy our soundtrack. And that is gone.

That is why I took a picture of that CD and sent it to you. You didn’t respond. I’m always curious what compells you not to respond. So (like an idiot, as I’m sure some will agree) I sent you another message. I asked if you’d like to try and be friends, or both of us just stay bitter?

You’re initial response was to stay bitter.

Then you changed your mind, but made sure to clerify that we would just be friends. Like you thought I want more? I asked but you’ve still yet to respond.

I don’t know if this is going to work , us being friends. In my head, I imagine that it can. I just don’t know if you will let it. Because sometimes you really make me feel like I am a joke to you.

Sigh.

I’m not resting my hopes on you. I’m not holding my breath with the yearning for you to be my friend. I’m just extending my hand, hopeful that maybe we can find some of that good feeling again, without all the other stuff that complicated it so badly.

Always,
Miss

Dear Bitchy McBitch Pants,

The next time you go to see a movie, a kids movie, on the night that it opens, please try and bring with you a little compassion. I know that it must be hard for you, being that you were dragging with you your two boys and that fat, prissy ass of yours, but come on. When you know the movie is sold out, and you see someone, say oh, ME for instance, standing in the stairway of the very FULL theater, looking for two seats together, be nice to me when I walk up and ask you if the seat next to you and the seat next to your son are taken. When you answer that they are not, you should then offer to scoot over in either direction. What you should not do is point out to me that the seat next to you has something “icky” on it, and that you don’t want to move.

Really? Icky? Ok… When I then explain to you that I am just trying to find seats so that my parents can sit together, do NOT look at me like I am speaking Japanese and explain again why you wont move into the “icky” seat, but will move in the other direction. This will then force me to become very crabby and ask you in a not so polite way that you must believe that the icky seat is good enough for one of my parents to sit in right?

When I proceed to leave the isle you are sitting in and start looking again for seats, what would prompt you to actually say to the theater employee that you DID offer to move for me, and that you don’t know what my problem is? Is it because you are a total bitch? Or maybe just a total idiot who really IS confused over why I am so upset. I’m gonna go with the total bitch theory.

See once you moved yourself and your kids over, I sat in the “icky” seat just to prove to you that you are a moron and that there was nothing wrong with the fucking seat to begin with. Then, when I saw both my parents coming into the theater with my son, I motioned to them to sit where I was. Did you notice that there were 5 of us going to the movie? And that because of people like you, who have this strange fucking phobia of sitting next to strangers, we could not sit together and enjoy Alvin and the fucking Chipmunks, the tickets of which we purchased 2 fucking hours before the movie??? You didn’t notice those things?

Maybe you were busy telling your brats to put their shoes on to slide over a seat. Where they then removed their shoes AGAIN. Shoes that I had to step over and was very tempted to kick across the theater while I walked past them. Not to mention the smell of your kids socks, socks which I am sure they were wearing all day in school and sweating in and hell knows what else. Good parenting. News flash: YOU ARE IN PUBLIC. You aren’t home. The theater is already crowded and stuffy, please spare the rest of us and tell your kids to put their f-ing shoes on.

I may or may not have mentioned to my dad to “accidentally” spill his soda on you. You are very lucky that he had no idea of our little show down just prior to him entering the theater because had he been there, he would have definitely told you to Go To Hell. It’s kinda his thing. You are also lucky that my mom had no idea about our little spat because when you proceeded to tell her that I was “very rude” and that you were “very unhappy” and she just looked at you like the nutcase you obviously are, she didn’t “accidentally” dump her popcorn over your head. Or wish you away. That’s kinda HER thing.

Be thankful Bitchy McBitchpants. Thankful of my boyfriend for not letting me claw your eyes out. Thankful of my mom for mentioning your little comment only after we had left the theater. And thankful for my son who I occasionally try to spare from mommy’s little “incidents”. Otherwise, I would not have just thought about covering you with soda and popcorn, I would have actually done it. Then I would have sat in the seats that you and your kids left open when you left.

Hoping I see you next time,

Miss

Dear High School Freshman Me,

Guess what? Life as you know it is about to change. Every choice you make from here on out in 1996 will inevitably change the world as you know it today in 2007. Pretty crazy huh? I can say this because anything before high school will not impact your life today. So I hope you had fun doing insignificant things because this is the time that it gets ugly. Oh yea it does. You thought that fight with your best friend in 8th grade that lasted 3 months was bad? Pshhh that’s nothing compared to the next 10 years sister.

So guess what? You meet a guy. He’s not a nice guy. He makes jokes at other people’s expense and the sick thing is, that is what attracts you to him. His sense of humor. You just don’t realize what a bastard he is until much much later. In fact, you marry this asshole. But only because you let him knock you up, so that’s ok.

I should tell you now to get away from this guy. I should tell you now that as time goes on, he will slowly start testing your boundaries. He’ll pinch your legs under the table and squeeze your hands to get you to shut up. He’ll start asking for money even though he has a job. He’ll eventually start hitting you, but never hard enough to leave a bruise. He’ll master this subtle head shake when he wants you to speak for him in response to someone else. You’ll end up scared to death of him. You actually think death is a better option than him. But just wait it out. Make those same choices. Because guess what?

He will give you one thing. One thing that is the most important thing he has ever given you in your entire relationship. He’ll give you a beautiful son. And lord, is that child beautiful. You will cry just looking at him because he takes your breath away. Because you will choose to stay with him, you will meet some of your best friends. In fact, you’ll meet a lot of really cool people along the way. Because you choose to stay with him, it is then, at your lowest point, when you have become numb and shut yourself completely off, that you will meet the love of your life. This is where it gets better.

So you see, all the bullshit turns into something great. I promise. Right now, its great. 10 years from now? Well I guess we’ll just cross that bridge when we get to it.

A few things that I do want to tell you that will make you feel better now? Don’t let the asshole take you from your family. He’s selfish like that and you will hate yourself for it now. Oh and spend a LOT more time with your grandma before she passes. You WILL regret that lost time more than you know. In general, stay close to your family. You don’t understand how badly you will need them later. But lucky for you, they will always love you and are always there for you. Just don’t ignore them so you wont have to realize that now.

Other than that, keep doin what you’re doing. You have great hair throughout high school and your body is smokin. Show it off and don’t wait until your senior year to realize that. Once that baby comes, it will never be the same. One more thing! Do a better job moving out of your parents because you suck at it the first time and now I cant find anything important from that time in our life! Dumb ass. *muah!*

Love,

2007, in love, healthy, and happy You

Thank you Amy for this great challenge! You rock! You know I got some linky love so check out these other fine bloggers writing letters to their younger selves!

Tomorrow I am participating in this. PLEASE, if you only click on one link in this post, pick that one. Bloggers Against Abuse. The beauty and power of this is that you can choose to blog against any form of abuse. I’ll be blogging, will you?