(M. 2011, writing me a letter)
I.
There are several different types of moments that make me sublimely happy. Beyond stoked. Out of my mind.
One of those is that second when someone you've been waiting for walks in through the door. No matter how long it's been, you always recognize them, always seems to find the lines in their face the same.
II
You have to find the thing that moves you. You have to ignore what you look like on the outside. Sometimes I want to reach through time and change the tiniest little thing. Maybe then it wouldn't be acne, blushing too red too easily, slight asthma, glasses, the works. I sometimes think what it would be like to be one of those girls that comes back from a run looking like she just had sex instead of looking like she was about to die. I sometimes think about who I would be without all of those subtle things.
There's no happy acceptance on the other side of this conversation. Moreover, there is just acceptance, a different kind of beast. It's one thing to invite in with open arms, it's another entirely to realize something about yourself begrudgingly and with hesitation. I am the latter, on all accounts.
I wish someone would have told me that the strong drugs used to fix one problem would make the other worse. I wish someone would have told me that there is no easy fix, that sometimes just being yourself is the best option possible. I think of all the people who love me for exactly what I am- who know the extent of the red face or the heaving lungs or the squint behind the coke-bottle lenses. I think of those people and what they would say. Any man worth his salt would stand by those things, whole-heartedly, without reservation. And any man that does not is not worth it.
