One More Letter

To Lolita

Dear Lolita,

It's me, hi. You had to have known this letter was coming. 

I told you a few months ago that I never really tried to get friends. And it's true. I told you I sometimes wish I didn't have any. I'm not going to lie, that's also true.

This is one of those times. 

It would have been so much easier to have ignored you last year. To deny your friendship and remain solitary. It would have been so much easier than this. I wish I had remained alone from the start, because I'm on my own again. 

I know I'm making no sense, this is dumb. I'm sorry. I'll still have the others. I won't be alone. But god, I feel so isolated. That's not a strong enough word to describe how it feels. Solitary, deserted, alone... abandoned. 

It's not enough that one of us leaves but now another. It's just a repeat. This is a broken record of a different song with the same exact tune. First it was Amelia, then it was Maddie. First it was Katie, then it was Carmen. What's happening? Why's it happening again?

I never wanted this, Lolita. Having stayed at the same level of abandonment I was at before I had friends would be better than all of these unpredictable twists and turns. Is this what friendship is supposed to feel like? A maze? One that I can't ever get out of, where I keep getting stuck in the same traps and I'm going in circles around and around. 

What's at the end? Will everyone be gone by then? Will I be an adult? Will every single one of you be waiting at the finish line for me, happy and together and safe? Or will I be alone and cold, still writing these letters to friends who are no longer there.

But this is focusing far too much on me. I'm getting theoretical and pitying myself, and it's useless to cry over my emotions when they aren't even valid. 

You're leaving us. Going to a new school, with new people, for reasons I don't truly understand. You are going to be so much more alone than me. 

It took you six months to make only two solid friends at our school, and now, with your illnesses being at an all time high, how long will it take? A school year? Twelve months? Maybe more, maybe never. You seem so unwilling. 

I'm not good at pep talks. We all know this, I'm far too much of a realist to be optimistic in the slightest sense, but I have a feeling I'm not giving you the credit you deserve, being pessimistic, not realistic.

If we're being realistic, yeah, it'll take awhile to make friends, and it'll be tough, and there'll be people telling you to shut up or to stop, and I want to say 'you be yourself' or something that you hear in movies, but I don't know. Yes, be yourself, but be the best version of 'you' that you can be. Not the one who shouts things in the cafeteria or screams at people for not agreeing with her ideas. Be the one that's always cracking jokes and getting problems right in math class. Be the one who never forgets to take her anxiety medicine. Be the confident one, the humble one, be the version of you that everyone likes the most and you will find the people that like your other self as well and just as much. Will there be people who don't like both sides? No doubt. Will there be the select few that you hang onto, because they do like both sides? Obviously.

That was super cheesy wasn't it?

Eh, it's good. I like it. 

Sincerely, your friend, that'll always like both sides.