Hey you in the future — I hope reading this helps you.
I hope you are happier. I hope you lived through this, and it all got better. I hope you were kind to yourself through this, because you knew you deserved it. I hope you found a way to not be lonely.
At the very least, I hope you got used to it. You can get used to anything, you know.
Because right now, it’s hard. It’s really fucking miserable. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I want to do it right. I want to live through it.
Everything is cold and dark and the leaves are all gone. I’m sure this place will be beautiful in the spring. I hope I see it. You in the future — I hope it’s beautiful. I hope it lifts you up, and you feel lucky and you feel serene, and all the happy poetry that I can’t muster right now. I hope in the future it’s on the tip of your tongue and you can’t stop feeling moments of small joy all the time, joy you can’t even find the words for because it’s just that everyday mundane kind of joy that is as unremarkable as it is precious.
Hey you in the future — do me a favor and tell me about that spring. Send some of that sunlight back to me in these darker memories. Remember me, because I fought so you could stand in a field of green and soak in the sun. Be kind to me when you speak of me. I’m doing my best. It’s not easy. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I’m doing it anyway.
I’m looking forward to that spring. I’m looking forward to all that light and all that warmth. Until that time, I’ll keep finding ways to laugh at myself.
Hey you in the future — hold me in your arms. Wash me in hot water and sweet smelling soap. Dance with me when we’re alone. Tell me it’ll be okay. Tell me I’m pretty. Tell me I’m loved.
I need that kindness. I can’t have it now, because it hasn’t happened yet. So I will take the promise of it instead. You in the future — this is the only thing I ask of you.
Maybe it’ll be hard for you to remember. Maybe you’ll forget. Already from this sentence to the last it is slipping away. I’m leaving behind faded imprints. I ask for compassion, if remembrance is too hard to come by. Compassion doesn’t need clarity of memory. It only needs this: one breath, then the next. Keep going. Keep living. Please, for my sake, keep living.
You can do this. I know you can do this. You have strength in you. You found this strength. You asked it of Allah and They granted it to you. You pulled it out of your fucking bootstraps. Those boots you wore to walk a mile up an icy hill. You were strong enough to do that. So just keep going.
Hey you in the future — I know life will be hard for you too. Life always is. Maybe you have a way of making it harder for yourself. But we’ll work on that, won’t we? If you carry me through this, I’m sure you will be carried in return.
How do I feel now? I feel powerful and deranged. I feel full of hope and loss at the same time. I feel like I’m standing on top of a mountain at the bottom of a chasm. But there is nothing empty about this feeling. There is no part of me that is numb. Whatever this unnamed feeling is, it’s threaded through every inch of me in this moment. In the morning, it might be gone. It’ll probably be gone, knowing how these things go. But that will be another day lived. And that’s something. These days, that’s something.
You in the future — see you then.