Fleeting Memoirs

An Open Letter To My Eight-Year-Old Self

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SELF

"To my eight-year-old self,

Is this what it feels like to be sixteen?
To feel like drowning in the sea of people
Whom you think you know,
But you don't.
To feel as if your very own heart
Has betrayed you and left you grasping for hope.
To see the world in monotone
Because love cannot find its home between the hollows of your bone,
and the arms of your soul.
To learn to stand on your own,
even when you're home with the people you love.

Is this what you have been so desperate for?
Is this what you have been wishing for your entire life
Before you turned nine, ten, eleven, twelve and so on?

You and I should've known better, but we didn't.
Blinded by the desires of our hearts
And selfish ambitions.

We refused to live in the moment.

My little eight-year-old self,
I am sending you this letter to let you know
That my heart is no longer a stranger to pain.
That the people you meet will not always stay in your life.
That the boy who will tell you he loves you when you're fifteen will walk out of the door and never look back.
That love and hate always have a home in the heart,
And one cannot exist without the other.

I am begging you to live.
Just live, before the world crashes down on you
And suddenly you realize you're sixteen,
Lost, confused and hurt
Wishing it was as easy as tossing a coin to a wishing well,
To go back to the time when you were still eight,
And wish you never had to grow up again."