Letters I Never Sent

You keep waiting to feel ready before you do anything. I need to tell you now, it isn't coming. Not at twenty, not at thirty, not at the age you're reading this. Do it scared, or do it tired, but do it.

You'll get plenty wrong. A few of those will bother you for years. Most of them you'll forget by next spring. Neither one matters as much as it feels like it does right now.

We've kept each other company on enough nights now that I should stop pretending we just met.

Most nights you hand me a line worth keeping, and I write it down before you can take it back. Other nights you just hand me the ceiling and the clock, and I lie there resenting you until the alarm goes off anyway. I'm not going to thank you. But I'll admit the two of us have written more together than I'd get done if you left me alone.

You spent so much energy making sure everyone in the room liked you. I wish someone had told you plainly: most of them weren't thinking about you at all.

You apologized for things that weren't yours to apologize for. I still catch myself doing it sometimes, so I won't pretend I've fully outgrown you. But I catch it faster now, and that's something.

One day you'll read something I wrote and realize it was about a version of me you never really knew. That's alright. I wasn't always this person, and most of who I am now, I became by raising you.

I didn't get every day right. I lost my patience more than I'd like to admit, and made up for it in ways you probably never noticed. That's most of parenting, I think: a lot of correcting course when no one's looking.

Whatever else you remember about this house, remember this: you were loved on the days I managed it well and the days I didn't.

I don't know what kept you up, but I know that if you're reading a stranger's letter at this hour, something is asking to be heard.

You don't have to solve it tonight. You don't have to feel better by morning either. Some nights the only job is to get through them, and getting through them counts as something.

Whatever it is, you are not the first person to carry it, and you won't be the last to put it down. Until then, I'm glad you found your way here, even for a few minutes.

I know you're in there, half-shaped, waiting for a moment I'm not paying attention to.

I used to go looking for you on purpose, sitting down determined to drag you out. Now I mostly leave the door open and let you show up while I'm doing dishes or sitting in traffic, which is rude of you, honestly, but it works better than my old method did. Whenever you're ready, I've got a notebook. Don't make me wait too long.