the soft

a letter to all

a letter to you.   

hi, i know you're tired. i know you have those black circles underneath your eyes. i know that your skin grows rough and bumpy as the tests come back, with scores less than your expectations. i know you're scared of the future. i know that you don't want next school year to come because that's when they'll pick you apart -- determining your worth through some numbers or letters and some words loosely stringed along to be an essay. and you're scared that they'll confirm all you've ever known -- that you have never managed to be proud of yourself. you're scared they'll pick you apart and all they'll see is nothing, an empty thing speaking empty words. you're scared that they'll find exactly what you expect them to find -- a heart pumping dust, a brain filled with doubting thoughts.   

hi, i know you're scared and tired and a lot of the time you feel alone. and even though you have friends and family, some part of you feels alone. i know you worry. about the past. about the future. about everything and nothing in between. 

let me tell you this. time is a construct. the past no longer exists. we revisit it all the time but that time has passed. it will never return. it is as if it has never happened; it exists only in the way we perceive things, the way you regret when you see the photos of the passed, the way we walk delicately on this earth. the past only lives on in our brains. and as for the future we inexorably walk toward, it has not existed yet. there is no footsteps there: there is nothing there. and if there is nothing, the present allows you to make something.

we come from nothing and we walk toward nothing. the present is what you have. i believe in you. i believe in your ability to make the present what you want, to shape the future that calls for you. 

i know life is hard right now. it all will pass. 

to myself

i sometimes hate you a lot. i hate you for the way you look, your personality, your failures and your lack of effort. i sometimes hate you a lot, for your inability to truly connect, for your inability to believe and to try, for your ability to confine yourself to the past, for your fear of the future. 

and i sometimes love you a lot. i love you for the way your smile brings dimples shining out of your cheeks, the way you can laugh through anything, your failures, your successes, your aspirations. i love you because you always try to do the best for yourself, i love that you stumble forward, i love that a year's worth of skin has made it worth the while. it's a learning curve, it really is. you've failed much but you've loved much,  you've lost much but you've gained much. 

- and even though we hurt, we are okay.