Dear Person I Wish I Could Be,

Why do we spend ninety percent of our time wishing to be someone else? Or something more? Or just different? I’m guilty of it too, and I know this.

I wish I could be skinnier. I wish the thighs would shrink and the belly roll would disappear. Even though I don’t like bikinis, I wish I had the option to wear one and not feel like an idiot. I wish losing weight was as easy for me as it seems to be for everyone else.

I wish I could finally get published. I wish to finally see my name on a book spine in a bookstore. I wish that I could know that people I’ve never met or seen or been introduced to or am connected to in any way were reading a story I’d written.

I wish I was braver. I wish I had the courage to do crazy things like go to NYC on a moment’s notice and blow and entire paycheck and sit in the rain outside a ticket office all night to try to score tickets to a favorite musical. I wish I’d had enough confidence to apply for more than one out-of-state job. I wish I wish more comfortable breaking out of my bubble.

I wish I was more organized. My room is a mess. I should really do something about that.

Dear Victoria,

You were my first real best friend. I’d had good friends before–ones that I spent a lot of time with, or went to their birthday parties, or had sleepovers with–but you were the first friend that I think I counted as my BEST. We were attached at the hip. For the most part, people didn’t see one of us without the other. I remember us only fighting once, and it was a doozy, but that was the only time. We hung out at each others’ houses. Our sisters became best friends too.

My world fell apart when you moved away. That may sound melodramatic, and maybe it is, but that’s how it felt. Third grade ended, you moved away, and my world ended. You see, everyone else in our grade had formed their little social cliques that year. I’d missed that completely (and didn’t even realize I had until a few months later), because it had always been the two of us. So after you moved away and summer ended and fourth grade started, that was when my life started sucking. A lot. Those three years–fourth, fifth, and sixth grades–were the worst of my life, because I had no friends and I despised the only clique that would tolerate me. Sometimes I wonder how everything would have been different if you hadn’t left.

I don’t blame you. It’s not like you had a choice. It’s just something I’ve thought about. And I love the friends I’ve had since middle school, and the friends I have now. I wouldn’t give them up for anything. I may not have had them if you’d stayed. I guess that’s how things need to happen. You need to lose one loved thing to gain another.

Dear A,

Here’s the thing. I know you hate where you live. I know you find it boring and dull and too far away from anything (which isn’t true, by the way, because you’re probably about eight hours closer to NYC than I am). Seriously, everyone gets that. You never shut up about it. And you know I feel this way, because I’ve told you all this, but you just don’t seem to get it.

Nearly everyone hates something about where they live and/or grew up. It’s natural. It’s what almost always happens. For example, I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life (and Columbus all the time I wasn’t in college). I hate that the weather is so indecisive–one minute it can be 90 degrees and sunny without a cloud in the sky, the next it can be a torrential rainstorm. I hate that the only big event I ever seem to be near is OSU football games (this isn’t really true either, since we do get some decent shows that come through here). It’s boring here in Ohio too most of the time, you know. It’s not just your state. We always have construction. The traffic sucks (partly because of the construction, partly because no one can drive).

Here’s the thing–you can’t just always whine. One, because the whining doesn’t change anything. Two, because you annoy the crap out of everyone around you. You have two choices, really. You can stop complaining and just get away as soon as you can. Or you can stop complaining and come to terms with it. Either way, you have to stop complaining. I came to terms with Ohio, and found out I actually love it. You can do whatever you want–I really don’t care either way. But, please, at the very least, stop making every word that comes out of your mouth a complaint about your home state.

I know you’re not going to heed this advice. You never actually listen to any of us. But, still, I had to try.

This is my very first fail. I actually didn’t write this letter yesterday. I kind of forgot. In my defense, however, yesterday was my birthday, so I was a little preoccupied. To make up for this, I wrote two letters today. So now I’m back on track.

————

Dear Kathleen,

It’s so weird not seeing or talking to you every day. And, yeah, I gte that it’s been over a year since we were last roomies, but it’s still strange. For four years, I saw you almost everyday. We had fun as roomies. Our adventures were many. Remember the box wall at 3am during finals? Remember the Founders Hall murder game and the all-night finals week fire drill of Brookhart fame? Our numerous roadtrips to Cleveland for various theatrical events? Or how about when we filled the entire apartment with smoke when we failed epically at making sweet potato fries? Good times.

We’ve always joked that we have a very Elphaba-Galinda friendship and we were very much like them as roommates. And I’ve always realized how incredibly nerdy that sounds, but it’s true. I guess at this point, then, we’re at the post-Defying-Gravity bit of the story. We’ll see each other again, but we’re no longer seeing each other 24/7. We’ve said our goodbyes for now. (I’d say we were after the For Good bit, but neither one of us is about to, you know, melt. But whatever.)

I really miss you and we need to talk more. Our conversations have been so few and far between lately. We need to work on that.

Dear Katie,

We may not have known each other terribly long, but I felt like it was a longer friendship than it was. I miss talking to you all the time, through texting and online and Skype. I always enjoyed our conversations. I liked trying to work on that musical with you and B. I wish that hadn’t stopped. That was fun.

What happened? After the Louisville trip, it was like you retreated as fast as you could. I don’t really know what happened in the fall-out between you and B after I left. All I know is that you seemed pressured to choose between groups of friends. You started pulling away after that weekend. And then you started school and I never heard from you after that. We haven’t talked in a year and I don’t know what happened. I hope everything’s okay and I’m sorry if I did something to upset you. It hurts that we’ve lost touch. It hurts more that you didn’t choose me.

Dear Person I Wish Could Forgive Me,

I don’t know who you are. I can’t place who you are. I can’t see your face. I wish I could, because then I could address this directly to you.

For whatever I did to hurt you, I’m sorry. I’m pretty sure that whatever I did, I did it unintentionally. I don’t like hurting people and I hate the feeling that I may have hurt someone accidentally and can’t remember. This isn’t an insult. This isn’t saying that you’re not worth remembering. This is saying that I’m human and make mistakes and I have a bad memory sometimes. I don’t know who is holding resentment against me for something I did, but that doesn’t make the transgression any less painful. Whatever I did.

I’m sorry for what I did and I’m sorry I can’t remember. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.

Dear Anne,

Don’t think I’ve forgotten. I may not have seen you since fifth grade, but don’t think I’ve forgotten the two years of being your “friend.” I haven’t forgotten the torment, the expectations, the fact that you were only truly kind when absolutely no one else was around or it benefited you the most. I haven’t forgotten how you deliberately left me out of things. This may all sound petty, but to a kid with no friends to speak of, it hurt. I still remember that pain. I probably always will.

But, somehow, I should also thank you. If it wasn’t for the way you treated me, I may not have come to love writing in the deep way I do today. Your leaving me out meant I spent my days alone writing. The pain you caused me fueled pain I could use to understand my characters. I can still call on that pain.

I don’t know why you acted like that toward me. I can’t imagine what thrill you got out of tormenting me. So thanks for my writing, but I don’t understand. I’m not sorry you moved away. I’m not sorry I’ve never seen you since.

Don’t think I forget.

Dear Jennifer,

This may seem strange since you passed so long ago when I was so young. Fifteen years is a long time and seven-years-old was too young for me to understand. Ten-years-old was too young for you to go. That’s about all I understood–you were gone and you were too young to do so. I couldn’t really cry because you were the first person I knew who died so suddenly. And you were so close to my own age. I couldn’t wrap my head around all that.

I’m sorry I didn’t go to your funeral. I really wish I had, because that whole bit just feels like this giant open ending to me now. I can’t really explain it. I just know that I regret not really getting to say goodbye.

You were one of the nicest people I ever knew. You would have made a great mother one day. You were always taking care of Amy, Laura, and me when the family was all together. You tried to teach me to boogie board once in Nags Head. That was the difficult since I didn’t really know how to swim very well. So you tried to help teach me to swim. That didn’t work so well either, but I appreciated to effort. It’s so unfair that you never had the chance to grow up, that the world never got to fully experience you.

I’d always felt a little connected to you (more than the whole cousin thing, I mean) because we shared a middle name. That seemed special to me and I liked it. I still like it. My middle name is even more special to me now, because it still connects us. That might sound weird, but it’s true. Speaking of connections, did you know that on the day you died I got in a playground accident? My mouth hit another kid’s head. My gum started bleeding and I had to be rushed to the dentist. It was the only time I ever had to leave school because of an emergency like that. Weird, right?

I miss you. I love you.

Dear Amanda,

I can’t believe how much we don’t talk anymore. We used to be attached at the hip. We were close as could be from the time we were in seventh grade. I wish we could be close like that again. I wish we could go back to before we grew apart. I wish I could know why we grew apart.

It’s like as soon as we hit senior year of college, we were traveling on two different halves of the same group of friends. I don’t know how that happened, since we were all one group. We all got along. It wasn’t like there was a fight or anything. I wish that weird divide had never happened. I miss our stupid adventures and laughs and conversations. I miss our time spent in marching band and just hanging out.

I wish you would join in with the group here more. I wish you were easier to get in touch with and a little less (probably only seemingly) antisocial. You only live about two seconds away, it shouldn’t be this hard for us to stay in touch. I wish we could go back to the way things were before. I miss talking to you all the time.

Why did we have to not only grow up but also somehow grow apart?

Please don’t judge my nerdiness.

————–

Dear JKR,

This is going to sound unbelievably nerdy, but here it goes. I’ve very much admired you since I was about 13 years old and fell in love with your book and your own story. I don’t mean to sound like yet another obnoxious fan, but it’s true. Your story inspires me (and inspired me back when I first heard it at thirteen and was still trying to find my writing confidence) and Harry Potter moves me.

I have a confession–I never truly wanted to read your Harry Potter books. Sad, but true. I was annoyed into picking up the first one by my friends who just wouldn’t shut up about the series. I started reading the first book expecting to hate it. I fully planned on getting halfway through it and giving up, proving my friends wrong. I had never liked fantasy and I told myself I never would. It just wasn’t for me. Imaginary locations and unearthly magic and creatures that you’d never see in the “real world?” No, thanks. The only problem was…well…I couldn’t quite put Sorcerer’s Stone down. I breezed through the halfway mark and kept going. Next thing I knew, I was reading Chamber of Secrets. Within a month or so, I was finishing Goblet of Fire (at that time, only the first four books had come out). I was addicted. I was now joining my friends in book discussions and theorizing. I went to the midnight releases of the final three books. I saw all the movies within their first day (it would have been the midnight releases of all of those too, but pesky high school got in the way). I read Deathly Hallows in 24 hours. I’ve read the entire series, beginning to end, straight through, twice in one year. I get lost in the magic. I become emotionally invested and laugh out loud and cry.

I didn’t want to read the books because my friends wouldn’t shut up about them, but now I can’t shut up about them either. Go figure.

So thanks. Thanks for creating this amazing world and then sharing it with all of us. Thanks for introducing me to the fantasy genre (I’m hooked now, by the way, and I probably wouldn’t have ever tried it otherwise). Thanks for making me believe anything is possible, in the real world and the writing world. It’s amazing what all you’ve done.