Posting things for posterity, I suppose.

[sorcyress]

"I could build a house on all the what-if's I've had in my life. What -f I had done this. What-if I had done that. The only problem is, I never really know how they would turn out. So I'm going to send you this so I'll get rid of at least one what-if.

I love you

It might not be anything more then a crush, but whatever it is, it's been happening on and off since sixth grade and that's enough to convince me to do something crazy like this. I don't know how you feel about me right now, and I don't really care, if that makes any sense. I also know/think you like [Name Removed], and that's okay too. I just don't want to have another what-if. I want to know what will happen.
I also don't particularily care what you do with this e-mail. Reply, delete, talk to me about it, ignore it forever...I just wanted to get this what-if out of my mind.

~Kat"

I wrote that a long time ago. Ninth grade, I think. (Stop lying, Kat, you know damn well it was written and sent late October/early November of your ninth grade year. Little over four years ago now.)

I've been rereading things I wrote back then all evening. This one, I think, matters the most. It very clearly wasn't a love letter, and I never referred to it as such.

It was a rational letter. The first of a handful I wrote. Not a lot, certainly.

The last one I wrote, I didn't save. It was the opposite of this, it was written to a boy who knew I loved him, asking if he loved me back. He...didn't. And told me so. Contempt in his voice that I would be silly enough to ask important questions in notes. It hurt then, hurts now, but I haven't used letters to communicate the important stuff ever since. Or e-mails, or phones, or anything like that.

I was so much cockier back then. Oh sure, I had my doubt and confusion and self-hate, same as always. But I was much more sure of how the world worked, and what was right and what was wrong

I miss myself.

Perhaps I should do as I said I would in my last post, and go outside and let the cold and the movement numb me.

(Perhaps I don't want to be numb.)

~Sor
MOOP!

Comments

[thorog.livejournal.com]

It's true - there is a Pet Shop Boys song for every situation. Would you consid-

Ahem. Letters are a great way to convey important stuff. Some things can be written down that we're to shy to say, after all. And that wasn't even the song my meta-self was thinking about. The ones who'll care about you will understand, sometimes it's better to write to someone, or phone them, because it makes it easier for you or it lets them keep a memory of you to pull out when you're offline, or just because there's no other alternative.

We all grow warier as we get older. I'm supposed to make how the world works my job or something, and I don't know what the answers are. I think the more you learn, the more you realise that there's still a great bunch of stuff we don't know. Hell, at the end of the 19th century we'd though we'd found out everything there was to find out and all that remained was exploring the corners of science.

And I know how you feel, or at least how I think you feel. Sometimes you don't want to do something because you can envision it going terribly. Or you've done it before and you've failed. I look at it this way: we have one chance. Theories of reincarnation aside, you only get one shot at life, and in that life you generally only get one shot at everything. There's two things you can do - you can play it safe, or you can take a risk. Sometimes it makes sense to play it safe. Sometimes you need to go the other way. Consider how you'll feel in a month's time, two months, a year's, a decade's if you take the risk and it works, or fails. Or if you play it safe.

The other bit revolves around the fact that we're greedy creatures when it comes down to it, and you're a lot more likely to remember your own blunders than someone else is. So even if you make a fool of yourself, everyone will forget a lot more quickly than you think.

Um, so yeah. Have some life advice. Whippersnapper.

[mysticturtle.livejournal.com]

In my experience, most people expect you to say "important things" in person. The people I've talked to say that they find it too easy to take things in letters the wrong way. I've always hated saying things out loud for the same reason; writing letters lets me get my thoughts in perfect order and tripple check my word choice before I express myself. So basically, they can just suck it. Or rather, if it's someone who's important to you, you'll work out some way of talking about important stuff that you're both relatively comfortable with. Like writing a letter and then reading it to them in person, or alternating letters and conversations.