One More Letter

To Kaci

Kaci is/was a childhood friend of mine that I reunited with recently. She and I, though our conversation was brief, have very different memories from Elementary, to say the least.

Dear Kaci,

Did you know that when you're remembering things, you're actually just remembering them again? Because when the thing happens, you're only seeing it from your point of view, so it's doomed to be biased and inaccurate in some way. Especially when you're a kid. 

For the past years since leaving that school behind, I've seen you as nothing but a bully and a metaphorical villain. I used my bad memories of you and your friends to justify why I felt like a failure, and why I had such bad anxiety. 

But hear me out, please, it was just so much easier to blame someone for it. It's so, so, so hard to cope when you can't blame anyone, when you're forced to realize that it is not anyone's fault, it is your brain's fault. The way it is wired, the way it works, and sure, my past might have had something to do to change that wiring, but it was no fault of anyone.

Can you see how hard this would be? I'm not going to  say that I had to blame someone (I really didn't), but I was alone and broken and it was the closest thing I could come to having some relief of this horrible thing that will never leave me. 

In elementary, I remember not having friends. I remember having one really good friend after the other as each of them moved away or abandoned me in other ways. There was always your group that I could go to (and I did). It was you and Whitney, (I have to wonder, are you two still friends? Did you keep contact with each other?) and a few other girls. 

You guys were the girly girls, the dramatic ones, the ones that wore all the cute clothes and the ones that all the boys drooled over. And you knew it, too. Whereas I was the girl who wore a tie on the first day of third grade and smuggled books in her jacket onto the playground, so I'm not sure how you managed to adopt me. 

Anyways, we remember that a lot differently. You saw us as elementary school friends, and you asked me if I'd been to some of your birthday parties. (Now that I think about it, yes, I was at one of your birthday parties. The only memories I have of that night are: my mom forcing me to go because it was the first birthday party I'd ever been invited to; losing a loose tooth from biting too hard into a s'more, making a fool of myself; and going home early because I was scared of sleeping surrounded by girls that I was afraid of. Yeah, I was there. Sorry, again.)

I saw us as elementary fr-enemies, with an emphasis on the enemies part. I saw you and Whitney as the mean girls I read about, too wrapped up in your own lives to see what you were doing to those around you. I saw us as every time you would walk away from me with your nose in the air. I saw us as every insult and argument that I can remember. 

I saw myself as the protagonist of my story, and I saw you guys as my villains. 

I'm so sorry.

I don't know what to do now, though. I hate myself even more for every time I remember blaming you. I hate myself, I hate my mind, and I hate the way I've wired it to think that this is not my fault. 

Sincerely, our childhood mistakes.