happy birthday, Chelsea
Chelsea,
how does it feel to be the big one-eight, miss adultly person? ha. well, cheers, because here’s one last silly note from your kid best friend (BFFs FOREVAR!), typed out in the few minutes before bed because I can’t write them in class and pass them to you in the hallways anymore.
so happy birthday. I hope it’s the most amazing birthday you’ve ever had, because it’s time for things to change. but I’m not trying to scare you, I promise! let me try that again. okay, well, remember when we were like, twelve, and we said stuff like “I’m gonna do THIS when I’m 16” and “I’m gonna go HERE when I’m 18”, and we never actually ended up doing any of that stuff because we were twelve and we didn’t get anything? and remember how we said that no matter what, we’d be friends till we’re 80 years old?
okay, I’m not a big, special adult like yourself, so I won’t let myself sound immature for saying this, but: that last part? let’s actually do that. because even when I was twelve, the one thing I was sure of was that you were going to be the most important part of my life for a very long time. you’ve changed me, but in the best ways anyone can change a person. when we met again in 6th grade, I was a brat and I was selfish and unsocialized. true, it can’t be held against me because it’s how I was raised, but I would have been a good soul in the body of a bad person if not for you. you taught me the things my parents couldn’t: friendship, love, kindness, generosity, respect. you made me into the person I am today -- someone who loves themself and who deserves good things and works hard to get them.
I’m not sure if I changed you. I know beyond a doubt that I helped you more times than any person could count, and I know that I’ve even saved you, but I’m not sure if I changed you the way you did me. but regardless of what I did or didn’t do, we both became part of each other, embedded so soundly into each other’s souls that it really happened without our realization. we even used to be what felt like one person, both of us just two halves of one whole. that’s not the case anymore - we are our own people, but that means I have twice the room in myself to love you. I’m so grateful for what you’ve done for me that I could never forget you if I tried.
we’re going to go off to different colleges. there’s something that’s not so bad about being in two different cities when we’re in high school and we’re only a half hour apart, but are either of us even 100% certain of where we’ll be next year? hardly. are we even totally sure where we would LIKE to be? either way, things are going to be a lot different now, and not just between us, but between ourselves and every other aspect of the world. today I was unlocking my bike at school and getting ready to leave, and it suddenly struck me: I’m going to unlock my bike here maybe 100 more times in my life, and then everything will be different. my life is going to change forever. over our lifetimes, things change little by little, and sometimes in leaps, but I feel like college is a bigger leap than anything before. all my life, I’ve known where I would be a year later, and now I don’t. and it probably won’t be anything like this.
all the work we’ve done to make honor roll and please our parents and get scholarships, and it’s all for something we aren’t even sure of. it’s all for something that might not even be fun. my worst nightmare is to hate my career - if I pick the wrong one and I get stuck with it, what will I have worked towards my whole childhood? you know, we spend our days growing up and wishing we could do it faster, but suddenly when we have responsibility we realize we can’t just be young anymore. that is the most horrible, hollowing realization that I have ever been stuck by. everyone says they’re the best years of your life, and they probably are, but you when they’re happening to you you’re just too clueless to appreciate it. and now that we’ve gone to school every weekday of fall, winter, spring, and even some of summer every year since we were maybe five, it could have all been for nothing. what if I become an english teacher and I never want to do anything but rip my hair our from all the homework and tests I have to correct? is that what I spent money for college on? is that what my entire education led up to: a long, horrible life?
whose idea was that, anyway? I mean honestly, who decides to set up the trap for themselves and for the rest of society to make it so that all you do in your life is work and work and work until you retire, and then you can’t enjoy not working because you’re too retarded to know what’s going and you were too stupid to save any money to sit around not working? who wanted to trap themselves like that? it makes life so meaningless! I’ll tell you what I think. I think poetry is more important than the guys who build computers. I think it’s more important than businessmen and their stock and I think it’s more important than selling cars. I think poetry, real poetry, is golden. I think that every person in the world should work their whole lives to just write one amazing poem, and then the world would be so much more beautiful.
I know I’m not going to be able to take this transition with a shrug the way Dustin did. I mean, one of the things I love so much about him is that he’s so relaxed and emotionally stable, which is something I do think has passed on to me to some extent, but I’m not going to be able to sit there reading a book during my graduation and I’m not going to walk away from high school without much of a second thought the way he did. I also don’t think I could stand being in college without any plans like he is now. he is a junior and he doesn’t know what’s going on after college; I couldn’t even be a freshman without knowing that! it would drive me insane! he might be the only part of my future I’m absolutely sure of right now, but he’s not so focused on his own. and that’s okay, because that’s how he avoids stress and he always manages to be fine anyway and I admire that so much about him. but I won’t go to college with the ease he did, because I’m leaving behind a lot of things I know I’ll miss deeply and a lot of things I’m not even sure about.
I like my friends here in Chicopee, you know I do. but they’re not real friends - they’re just people I hang out with when they’re around, because it’s convenient and it’s fun. but it’s not the same as being with you, not in the least. and sometimes it’s tiring, because even Richard, who’s my age, acts like such a child. it’s all bad sex jokes with them, not even good ones, but I pretend to laugh because maybe when I was a freshman I would have really found it funny. I laugh because I’ve got less than a year left to laugh with them. and maybe I can teach them something, like maybe convince Richard that instead of “liking” three girls and sitting around waiting to see if one likes him, he should wait for a worthwhile relationship. Ariel’s a nice kid, but she’s not dating material in the least. she still needs a brain in her head.
that brings me to some news: I’m moving again. we’re moving to South Hadley, which is really close to here, so I’m not too concerned. dad says I probably won’t have to switch schools again, which would be so awful because I’m settled in nicely with chorus and drama and my poetry workshop. it took me months to become emotionally settled here, and while it did change me for the better in the end, it’s not a process I’d care to repeat. but yeah, we’ve already got a place picked out and we have to be out of this one by the end of November, I think.
I do hope I can stay at this school, because I really am comfortable, although I haven’t found anyone with the soul and the mental caliber of my old friends from Westfield. I haven’t found anyone nearly as insightful as you, as funny as Josh or Mike, or as pretty much anything as Dustin. you’d think there’d even be even just one computer geek at Greg’s level, but the best I can do is compete with Kevin in programming class and I’m still smarter than him. I value intelligence so, so highly in my friends, and I’ve met a lot of nice people, but none as smart I would really like, and it makes it difficult for me to connect with them. I wish you, at least, were here, and then I could just be more whole in this place.
we have so many drop-outs in this school. I wonder how anyone can do that. you’re forced to be in school for all those years, and you don’t even bother to make it count for something? you take the easy way out when you’ve only got a few years left? it’s like a waste of your life. maybe school is a waste of some people’s lives, but they could at least milk it for all it’s worth. you get lemons, you make lemonade. you go to school, you live it out like the rest of us. that brings me back to work: where are they going to work without college? they’ll struggle their entire lives. is that what they survived school for? and why do they even have to be backed into a corner that way...? why do we have to go to college to be able to be financially comfortable? it’s so horrible. if you half-ass college and getting a job, you could be ruining your entire life and society won’t forgive you for that.
so, I want to tell you right now to go to Emerson. go and don’t hold any part of yourself back, not ever. go and make lifelong friends and be in plays and audition for Broadway. fucking do it, because if it’s your dream, then you’ll probably never be happy without it. don’t go for a safety job that’s all right but it’s not your passion. do something that will be worth going through 16+ years of school to be there. go act, because if it’s beautiful to you, you can make it and even if you don’t, you’ll at least be able to know it was worth trying for.
and remember me when you’re famous, because I helped you somewhere along the way, even if it was just in middle school when I said made you feel less emo, or we were 16 and I got you a back of silly stuff to cheer you up when you were feeling down about yourself. we may not always be best friends, but there is something we WILL always be; unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a word for that certain something, but it’s something that will last as long as we live, even if it’s only a thought that hangs upon the way you molded me into a person I will never be ashamed of being.
with all that said, don’t ever forget our childhood, because there was something about being twelve that was so amazing and so retarded at the same time, and there are parts of us that were alive then that will always live in us. I hope you love being 18, and when you’re 20 I hope you love that too, and every year for the rest of your life. so happy birthday.
love, Christel
p.s. it would be really awesome if you could buy me some M-rated video games, pretty pretty please!
how does it feel to be the big one-eight, miss adultly person? ha. well, cheers, because here’s one last silly note from your kid best friend (BFFs FOREVAR!), typed out in the few minutes before bed because I can’t write them in class and pass them to you in the hallways anymore.
so happy birthday. I hope it’s the most amazing birthday you’ve ever had, because it’s time for things to change. but I’m not trying to scare you, I promise! let me try that again. okay, well, remember when we were like, twelve, and we said stuff like “I’m gonna do THIS when I’m 16” and “I’m gonna go HERE when I’m 18”, and we never actually ended up doing any of that stuff because we were twelve and we didn’t get anything? and remember how we said that no matter what, we’d be friends till we’re 80 years old?
okay, I’m not a big, special adult like yourself, so I won’t let myself sound immature for saying this, but: that last part? let’s actually do that. because even when I was twelve, the one thing I was sure of was that you were going to be the most important part of my life for a very long time. you’ve changed me, but in the best ways anyone can change a person. when we met again in 6th grade, I was a brat and I was selfish and unsocialized. true, it can’t be held against me because it’s how I was raised, but I would have been a good soul in the body of a bad person if not for you. you taught me the things my parents couldn’t: friendship, love, kindness, generosity, respect. you made me into the person I am today -- someone who loves themself and who deserves good things and works hard to get them.
I’m not sure if I changed you. I know beyond a doubt that I helped you more times than any person could count, and I know that I’ve even saved you, but I’m not sure if I changed you the way you did me. but regardless of what I did or didn’t do, we both became part of each other, embedded so soundly into each other’s souls that it really happened without our realization. we even used to be what felt like one person, both of us just two halves of one whole. that’s not the case anymore - we are our own people, but that means I have twice the room in myself to love you. I’m so grateful for what you’ve done for me that I could never forget you if I tried.
we’re going to go off to different colleges. there’s something that’s not so bad about being in two different cities when we’re in high school and we’re only a half hour apart, but are either of us even 100% certain of where we’ll be next year? hardly. are we even totally sure where we would LIKE to be? either way, things are going to be a lot different now, and not just between us, but between ourselves and every other aspect of the world. today I was unlocking my bike at school and getting ready to leave, and it suddenly struck me: I’m going to unlock my bike here maybe 100 more times in my life, and then everything will be different. my life is going to change forever. over our lifetimes, things change little by little, and sometimes in leaps, but I feel like college is a bigger leap than anything before. all my life, I’ve known where I would be a year later, and now I don’t. and it probably won’t be anything like this.
all the work we’ve done to make honor roll and please our parents and get scholarships, and it’s all for something we aren’t even sure of. it’s all for something that might not even be fun. my worst nightmare is to hate my career - if I pick the wrong one and I get stuck with it, what will I have worked towards my whole childhood? you know, we spend our days growing up and wishing we could do it faster, but suddenly when we have responsibility we realize we can’t just be young anymore. that is the most horrible, hollowing realization that I have ever been stuck by. everyone says they’re the best years of your life, and they probably are, but you when they’re happening to you you’re just too clueless to appreciate it. and now that we’ve gone to school every weekday of fall, winter, spring, and even some of summer every year since we were maybe five, it could have all been for nothing. what if I become an english teacher and I never want to do anything but rip my hair our from all the homework and tests I have to correct? is that what I spent money for college on? is that what my entire education led up to: a long, horrible life?
whose idea was that, anyway? I mean honestly, who decides to set up the trap for themselves and for the rest of society to make it so that all you do in your life is work and work and work until you retire, and then you can’t enjoy not working because you’re too retarded to know what’s going and you were too stupid to save any money to sit around not working? who wanted to trap themselves like that? it makes life so meaningless! I’ll tell you what I think. I think poetry is more important than the guys who build computers. I think it’s more important than businessmen and their stock and I think it’s more important than selling cars. I think poetry, real poetry, is golden. I think that every person in the world should work their whole lives to just write one amazing poem, and then the world would be so much more beautiful.
I know I’m not going to be able to take this transition with a shrug the way Dustin did. I mean, one of the things I love so much about him is that he’s so relaxed and emotionally stable, which is something I do think has passed on to me to some extent, but I’m not going to be able to sit there reading a book during my graduation and I’m not going to walk away from high school without much of a second thought the way he did. I also don’t think I could stand being in college without any plans like he is now. he is a junior and he doesn’t know what’s going on after college; I couldn’t even be a freshman without knowing that! it would drive me insane! he might be the only part of my future I’m absolutely sure of right now, but he’s not so focused on his own. and that’s okay, because that’s how he avoids stress and he always manages to be fine anyway and I admire that so much about him. but I won’t go to college with the ease he did, because I’m leaving behind a lot of things I know I’ll miss deeply and a lot of things I’m not even sure about.
I like my friends here in Chicopee, you know I do. but they’re not real friends - they’re just people I hang out with when they’re around, because it’s convenient and it’s fun. but it’s not the same as being with you, not in the least. and sometimes it’s tiring, because even Richard, who’s my age, acts like such a child. it’s all bad sex jokes with them, not even good ones, but I pretend to laugh because maybe when I was a freshman I would have really found it funny. I laugh because I’ve got less than a year left to laugh with them. and maybe I can teach them something, like maybe convince Richard that instead of “liking” three girls and sitting around waiting to see if one likes him, he should wait for a worthwhile relationship. Ariel’s a nice kid, but she’s not dating material in the least. she still needs a brain in her head.
that brings me to some news: I’m moving again. we’re moving to South Hadley, which is really close to here, so I’m not too concerned. dad says I probably won’t have to switch schools again, which would be so awful because I’m settled in nicely with chorus and drama and my poetry workshop. it took me months to become emotionally settled here, and while it did change me for the better in the end, it’s not a process I’d care to repeat. but yeah, we’ve already got a place picked out and we have to be out of this one by the end of November, I think.
I do hope I can stay at this school, because I really am comfortable, although I haven’t found anyone with the soul and the mental caliber of my old friends from Westfield. I haven’t found anyone nearly as insightful as you, as funny as Josh or Mike, or as pretty much anything as Dustin. you’d think there’d even be even just one computer geek at Greg’s level, but the best I can do is compete with Kevin in programming class and I’m still smarter than him. I value intelligence so, so highly in my friends, and I’ve met a lot of nice people, but none as smart I would really like, and it makes it difficult for me to connect with them. I wish you, at least, were here, and then I could just be more whole in this place.
we have so many drop-outs in this school. I wonder how anyone can do that. you’re forced to be in school for all those years, and you don’t even bother to make it count for something? you take the easy way out when you’ve only got a few years left? it’s like a waste of your life. maybe school is a waste of some people’s lives, but they could at least milk it for all it’s worth. you get lemons, you make lemonade. you go to school, you live it out like the rest of us. that brings me back to work: where are they going to work without college? they’ll struggle their entire lives. is that what they survived school for? and why do they even have to be backed into a corner that way...? why do we have to go to college to be able to be financially comfortable? it’s so horrible. if you half-ass college and getting a job, you could be ruining your entire life and society won’t forgive you for that.
so, I want to tell you right now to go to Emerson. go and don’t hold any part of yourself back, not ever. go and make lifelong friends and be in plays and audition for Broadway. fucking do it, because if it’s your dream, then you’ll probably never be happy without it. don’t go for a safety job that’s all right but it’s not your passion. do something that will be worth going through 16+ years of school to be there. go act, because if it’s beautiful to you, you can make it and even if you don’t, you’ll at least be able to know it was worth trying for.
and remember me when you’re famous, because I helped you somewhere along the way, even if it was just in middle school when I said made you feel less emo, or we were 16 and I got you a back of silly stuff to cheer you up when you were feeling down about yourself. we may not always be best friends, but there is something we WILL always be; unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a word for that certain something, but it’s something that will last as long as we live, even if it’s only a thought that hangs upon the way you molded me into a person I will never be ashamed of being.
with all that said, don’t ever forget our childhood, because there was something about being twelve that was so amazing and so retarded at the same time, and there are parts of us that were alive then that will always live in us. I hope you love being 18, and when you’re 20 I hope you love that too, and every year for the rest of your life. so happy birthday.
love, Christel
p.s. it would be really awesome if you could buy me some M-rated video games, pretty pretty please!