The first letter

It’s one o’clock in the morning. As usual, I can’t sleep. I had this image in my head just now, in the bathroom, glancing at my own reflection as I turned back to the door, okay staring at my own reflection as I mapped out my distinctive features, and as I was looking into my own face in the dirty mirror glass, I gradually began to see past it, past myself, or past a layer of myself,
my vision sort of blurred but I could see myself more clearly.

I won’t take any Tylenols again, I promise. Trust me, I learned my lesson last time.

Something made me think of you, though.

Not just hearing your voice reason with the otherwise luring insanity of the back of my mind, but something else. A thought, maybe. An image most likely. I don’t even think in words anymore, I think in images and they’re not exactly clear either, they’re all overlapping, and morphing, and constantly moving. I find it hard to focus. I think I was remembering something about you,
a look you gave me or a secret smile.

I think about you a lot lately.

Especially when I can’t sleep. I know, it’s unhealthy. Most likely I am becoming obsessive again. But it’s not like before, when I was younger and I would lose track of time, or my grasp on reality; it’s different this time, now I can have my head in the clouds and keep my feet on the ground. It’s like what I was telling you about the mirror, I see past the first layer,
reality,

and I can gaze beyond it without it actually disappearing or changing, it’s still there, still very much real, just toned down.

Transparent.

Someone once told me that if I you run into a bear in the woods, the best thing to do is to drop down on the ground and play dead, in which case the bear will most likely leave you alone as opposed to if you start running. If you start running the bear’s instincts will kick in and she will take up chase. And they might seem like big, clumsy teddy bears, but they will catch you and one swat to your head with one of those paws could kill you in a second.

I quickly discovered that the technique worked with people as well, or situations.

Later on in life the two bled together.

Playing dead became a way of running. And as long as I was running away, I was dead to the world, just like Juliet. Recently, I can’t help but think it’s Romeo I’m running away from. You know, maybe it’s easier to just stay dead. Maybe I don’t want to wake up again and face the tedious cruelties that await me. Maybe I have good instincts and know what’s best for me… or maybe I’m a terrified little ferret.

I’ll wait for you, that’s what you said.

Well, you wrote it on a wall. We were such kids. Am I still a kid to you? Do you even know me, really know me? No, of course not, what a stupid question, how could you possibly? I don’t know you either. I think I’ve been too afraid to get to know you. I think I’ve been running away. This is no surprise to you, I’m sure. Do you even care?

I keep imagining that you share my thoughts about this and my memories of us, but you probably remember things a lot differently and it all probably means something altogether different to you, if it means anything at all.

It’s almost been five years since the first time I saw you.

It was infatuation at first sight and also the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. I’m exaggerating. You were beautiful. I was speechless, worse, I spoke,

are you with someone,

and everyone thought it was a joke, even you, although the way you looked at me, the rest of the night you kept looking at me and smiling shyly, I’m probably inventing these memories as we speak, but it was New Year’s Eve and by right all our lives could be perceived magical if only for that one night and they did and the night lasted for ever until it was light outside and since it was the first of January and we were in the North of Sweden we had already missed half the day when the sun came up.

The next New Year’s Eve I was on an aeroplane going across the Atlantic Ocean.

I’ve yet to come back.

Do you think it’s possible that you are the reason I’ve lingered here, do you think maybe I’m avoiding you?

Other things have happened, to both of us, it’s not as black and white as that, why haven’t you asked me to come back, why haven’t you missed me enough to tell me to come back, do you even think about me at all? Nothing ever happened between us, so why does it feel like everything happened between us, and it was all that one night, that one night when something could have and was supposed to have happened and nothing most certainly did and that was my fault I pretended to be asleep by the way, I was scared, I ran away, and I kept running, it’s true, but if nothing happened why can’t I forget about you, why do I still lie awake at night and think about the way you looked at me, that first night and every night since it, and even that one morning,

you were framed in the light bouncing off the snow on the ground,

you had snowflakes in your hair, and your eyes were burning,

I’m not trying to be poet, I’m trying to be honest, but I think I’ve forgotten how.

I don’t even remember a single conversation I’ve had with you. All I have of you are images and I probably made half of them up. How sad is that? I’m beginning to think this has absolutely nothing to do with you, actually. I think this is about me. I think I’m avoiding myself, not you, or at least what you see in me, my own reflection in your eyes

as cheesy as that sounds, the way you look at me. No-one looks at me the way you do.

Or I don’t see it. Or I don’t care enough to take notice. It’s not black and white. Nothing is, not even my images of you.

The other night I actually got some sleep, but do you want to hear something ironic?

I had a dream and you were in it.

I was back home and you were there and I worshipped you as always and hid it as always and you, you were back together with your bastard of a boyfriend and completely oblivious to anything having ever been going on between us, so oblivious in fact that I started to doubt it myself, I started to think maybe I made it all up, and then I woke up, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. It wasn’t even real. It was a dream. And I’m losing sleep over it.
I’m thinking maybe going home for the holidays wasn’t the best idea, but I can’t wait to see you, to I don’t know, I don’t even know what we do, do we talk?

Do we touch each other or hug or make toasts or tell jokes or avoid or what?

I don’t even know anymore. In fact I think we’ve only been completely alone with each other twice. And there was nothing to say.

How can there be so much between us that it can fill up five years worth of sleepless nights and not words enough to fill five minutes?

I have to get up early in the morning, I’ve got errands, got to go check out this school, this art school down on Granville Island that I really want to apply to for next year, and then I’ve work in the afternoon, lots of markdowns to advertise and lots of retail fake Christmas cheer to spread with Rudolph, so I should probably go back to bed and at least try and get some sleep. But I really need to sit down an re-evaluate my life situation.

I’ll see you soon anyways.
Take care until then. Bye.
Yours, Ida.