A letter to my younger self: concerning a beautiful, broken organ

Little one,

It'll be months of trudging through the desert. Your soul will call out for water, you'll howl to the moon for deliverance, and that simply will not find you.

You're going to find yourself in a place of no relief and I wish so badly that wasn't the case. I wish your heart could find rest, but you'll dip your hands into the pools of mirages and feel only sand slip between your fingers. I wish I could tell you that you'll forget your songbird. You will not. You'll be angry, and his absence will draw poetry out of you like a sieve. But you will not forget him.

Not ever. Not really.

His smile will reopen wounds you had been trying so hard to mend. Eventually, you're going to find yourself in a place of defeat. You'll convince yourself that you don't miss him, that your heart doesn't scream through the spaces between your ribs for him, and you'll think you've succeeded.

But little one, right when you believe you're there, on the edge of your desert, your heart is going to break wide open again.

Because you love him. You love him so much that your heart cannot bear it. You love him like every symphony has come to live in your chest when you think about him.

And you want him, more than anything, to be happy. Even if that happiness has nothing to do with you.

You're going to sit in your car and weep. Night after night after night. You'll weep until you're dizzy and drunk from it. You'll pray to a silent God that your songbird would return. And you'll pray, when you realize that he will not return, that he at least is loved, that he isn't lonely, and that his dreams fall into his hands like falling stars. That whoever finds his heart next is kind to it. That wherever he goes next there would be rain, because he loves the rain.

And this, little one, if the most beautiful and broken your heart will ever be.

A letter to my younger self: concerning infected wounds

Dear Savannah,

I wish I could write this to you, two weeks since my last letter, and tell you that things get easier and that you stop crying.

Certainly, your family and friends will have moved on. They'll start giving you funny looks when you get emotional. They'll offer up half-baked platitudes about the future and how much potential there is out in the world. When you mention a new co-worker, they'll ask you if you think he's cute, and you'll dig your fingernails into your palms until you bleed to keep from lashing out.

Cutting your hair (something you will have sworn off after an incident in the seventh grade) will start to look like a good idea. You'll consider cutting it short, to the ears - hell, shaving it all off will start to sound relaxing.

You won't eat. The first week of the break-up, you won't eat a thing, and you'll drink so much water that you'll have to pee every twenty minutes. First, it will be because you haven't got an appetite. Then it'll become a fast. Somehow you will convince yourself that God will fix things so long as you can manage to starve yourself until the week is up.

And He won't. You can cry like Hannah in the temple, you can dehydrate yourself with your tears, and you can force yourself to not eat for a week, but nothing is going to change.

I'm not going to tell you to eat. I'm not going to say "take care of yourself".

Mourn.
Grieve.
Scribble on your arm while laughing so hard that you cry.
Freak your family out.

Telling you to do anything else would be hypocritical.

Look, this is a warning. If I thought my letters could reach you, I'd tell you to avoid the musician at all costs. No movie nights. No sharing poetry. Don't get close to him. Don't go over to his house on June 4th.

Do not kiss him.

Do not let him kiss you.

Do not offer him your heart.

Little girl, the crush will go away, and you'll get over it over the summer, but I'm asking you -- I am begging you -- to stay away from him. He's got the sweetest heart and the most gentle hands, and losing him will feel like your lungs are filled with lead.

Oh, if I thought I could reach you, I would take you by the shoulders and shake you until you listened.

It feels so much worse than you could have possibly imagined. And maybe it's God's way of teaching you sympathy, or a lesson. Maybe it's because you mess up. You break the boundaries you set at the beginning. You move too fast and go farther than you ought to.

Savannah, you'll lose your mind over this boy. You will be driving home from church camp with your mother in the passenger's seat when you drive past your sister's high school where he teaches music, and you'll break down in tears. You'll cry over goddamn freeway off ramps that you took with him. You'll cry over Harbor Blvd because it's the street you took to get to his house. You'll cry over shitty 90s music he liked. You'll cry over plays you had planned on reading with him, and movies you had wanted to see because of him, and you'll sob your eyes raw over anything and everything Greek, because he was so proud of his culture and you had learned to say "thank you", just to impress him.

I'm afraid that you (we) get attached way too easily. Our heart is a needy thing, and we so dig our roots into whoever is stupid enough to get close. We say "I love you" too soon, and we move in, unpack our belongings, and start painting the walls before the papers are signed.

And I'm afraid this is going to wreck you. I'm scared that this will be the last straw. It feels like the last straw. It feels like the end of the line. The end of a book. That shitty, unsatisfying kind of ending to a book you don't end up recommending to your friends. Already, the walls have started to be rebuilt and reinforced. I don't want to speak to anyone. I don't want to tell them how I'm doing.

I want to plaster a smile on my face and tell people I'm "okay". I want to become even more of a background piece. People are telling me to do something wild, to stand out more, to be bold. They think that breaking me out of my shell will help me feel better about myself, but all I want to do is sink into the earth. I want to be the person people don't see at all. I want to be a whisper, then a breath, then nothing.

I don't want to be here. I don't want to do anything.

My heart is hurting too much.

I was supposed to be healing, but I think this wound is infected. It's not healing right. Something is desperately wrong inside, and I am petrified.

Jesus, I wish I could stop you from loving him.

A letter to my younger self: concerning scarier fates than being alone.

Dear Savannah,

You'll love a boy and everything will be right.

You'll love a musician and suddenly the world will be alight with symphonies.

You'll love an artist and you'll see colors you don't know the names of.

You'll love a boy and, with a great sigh of relief, you'll stop fretting about the future, so long as his fingers are curled around yours.

And then, little one, as always, you'll find yourself alone. Much, much more alone than you will have felt in a great deal of time.

Oh, and you'll sense it. He'll grow distant, he'll draw back. He'll leave on trips and his schedule will fill up and you will find yourself grasping onto the loose threads of his clothes.

You'll sense it in his kisses. In the lack of his touches.

You'll sense when you have to text him first.

And everyone will tell you that you're imagining it. That he adores you, and that he's only got a lot on his mind.

But you, little one, with your heart well-trained in the art of knowing when someone has had enough of you, will know better. And despite their words, and in spite of that wishful, blind optimism you have crouching in your chest, you'll already be paving those walls back up.

I have nothing for you here but apologies, my dear Savannah. I apologize that two and a half months is the longest relationship you'll get to boast about. I apologize that you'll brag to people about your handsome pianist boyfriend two days before he'll tell you that he doesn't want to do this anymore.

I'm sorry that you won't get a Valentine's day, or a Halloween, or a Christmas with him. I'm sorry that you'll buy tickets to see his favorite show for your one year anniversary and won't even make it to the three month mark.

I'm sorry that you're not the kind of girl to fight for what you want. I'm sorry that you'll let him go as soon as he asks to talk about your relationship. I'm sorry that you will rebel so hard against the idea of guilting him into staying with you that all you'll be able to choke out is "It's okay. I understand. I understand."

I'm sorry that you feel like such a burden that the idea of asking him to reconsider makes you want to vomit.

I'm sorry that it's easier to understand the idea of someone not wanting to be with you than for them to want to stay. I'm sorry that you won't even ask for answers because deep down you already know why.

I'm sorry for the inevitable "plenty of fish in the sea" and "it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all" spiels you're bound to be inundated with.

I'm sorry that this will be the tipping point in which you really start to consider if there is something inherently wrong with you.

But most of all, I am most sorry that you will be given the taste of love after a long, painful year of becoming content with loneliness, only to have to rebuild your walls all over again.

You'll wonder how in the hell you had managed to let someone get that close to your heart, after you vowed to never let it happen again. Oh, little one, how many times can you rebuild your heart? What will be left of it next time, now that so many pieces have been taken away? It doesn't even look much like a heart anymore. How much longer can you possibly keep this up?

Little girl, please, build your walls even higher. Reinforce them with steel and apprehension. Let no one scale those bricks again. Shoot down intruders. Hold the drawbridge. No one gets in. No one gets out.

Please, little girl, don't let this happen again. I don't know that you can recover from another heartbreak.

Don't fight for it. Don't cling to the threads of his clothing. Don't hold your breath for him to call and tell you he was wrong, that he still wants to be with you, that he was just stressed and wasn't thinking clearly.

Savannah, he left because he didn't want you anymore. There's no point in fighting for something that was never there.

Savannah, I'm sorry you will fall in love, and he will not. I'm sorry that you only know the feeling of being cast aside, and never the feeling of scooped back up. I'm sorry that he will still be the kindest, loveliest boy you will have ever met. I'm sorry you don't get to be angry at him.

I'm sorry that you don't get an "I love you", or an "I was wrong". I'm sorry that you'll watch the greatest feeling you've ever felt slip through your fingers.

I'm sorry that you'll wonder what you did wrong. 

I'm sorry.

I'm so, so sorry.

A letter to my younger self: concerning the boy from far, far, far away

Dear Savannah,

I think the time has finally come where I can tell you about the boy from far away without cringing so hard that my face hurts.

What a stupid thing it is to fall in love at church camp.

Sorry, I know that's going to sound harsh when you're young, but I need you to know that these things never work out.

Never. Ever. Ever. 

And here is a definitive list of why these things will never pan out the way you think they will:

- Boys from other churches live (at a bare minimum) very far away. Others will live very, very far away. [And gas money is expensive in the future, so don't even humor it, kiddo. Save your money for more important things, like late night fast food runs.]

- The ones who bring their guitars and aren't part of a worship team can't actually play. Spare your ear drums.

- And the ones who can play are mostly playing to get attention. They'll play alone under trees, brooding and crooning out obnoxiously bluesy renditions of old worship songs with watery eyes. Don't walk over to comfort them. Literally every other girl on campus will do that for you.

- Something is in the air, and it isn't love. (Hint: it's hormones. It's only hormones.)

There will come a time, Savannah, when you'll read this and say, "Well, of course! Camp crushes are an incredible waste of time!"

And that will be the year that you will get hit out of nowhere by the boy from far, far, far away.

He'll be a musician, and incidentally he'll even be your age (which will be unusual since this will be the year you go as a "counsellor in training", and you'll be stuck in this weird purgatorial age between the adults and the students).

He'll croon out Frank Ocean and John Mayer and you'll find yourself swooning a bit more than you ought to be.

At the end of the week you'll even write down your email for him (because giving him your phone number will seem "too forward" for some bizarre reason), but you'll end up texting anyway.

I'll be honest, I'm having trouble romanticizing this next part, being where I am now. See, at the time, you'll be riding that ridiculous emotional high from camp and everything will have that fuzziness -- a blushing vignette -- over it, so you won't be able to see just how incredibly awkward the situation will look from the outside.

Your friends will humor you for the first week or two, but eventually you'll hear them tip toe around you with things like, "So do you think you'd be happy in a long distance relationship?" and "Is skype even romantic?"

And you'll say yes, because this boy is the closest anyone has gotten to caring about you in a long, long time.

(Jesus, I'm so sorry that that's true. I'm sorry that some totally average boy from Indiana whose idea of getting to know you consists of "What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" and "Have you ever had sex?" is the closest thing to love you'll feel in a long time.)

You, being you, will doggedly pursue conversation while trying to remain south of the annoying border. You'll ask him about his family, and his favorite pieces of poetry, and what he loves about playing music, and every answer you'll record in your heart as if it's the most precious secret you've ever been offered.

But he won't ask you anything back until you prompt him to, and then it will be something a kindergarten teacher would ask her students. Uninspired, and frankly unthoughtful.

But, my God, you'll persevere. You'll ask him anything you deem important, and occasionally throw in an easy one, just so you don't come off as too intense.

When you find out that he is texting other girls from camp, you'll dismiss it with a "well, we're not dating or anything", despite the fact that he had told you how badly he wanted to kiss you. And how badly you wanted to kiss him.

In fact, that'll be just about all he does say to you. Instead of bothering to get to know you, he'll just talk about the things he would like to do to you.

Savannah, you'll lose months of your life just glued to your phone for that boy. And those are months you'll never get back. You'll go places, like bonfires and parties, but you won't really be there - not really.

When he starts school in August, he'll stop talking to you entirely, too busy with school work and socializing, and whatever the hell one does at college in Indiana. You'll text him and he won't text back for hours, maybe days, and you'll feel like a piece of garbage someone is just too lazy to throw in the dumpster. He'll never give you a goodbye and you'll be left trailing after him with thousands of questions.

You'll try to move on, but your heart will continue to do that stupid skip-beat thing every time you see his name on your phone, and instead you'll end up fighting even harder to keep his interest. You'll text him just to ask him how his day was, and you'll pursue conversation just so he doesn't forget about you.

You'll work so hard at this, that it'll make you never want to fight for anyone ever again. (And unfortunately, that's another story for another time.)

 Two weeks will go by without a single text from him, and you'll officially throw in the towel, after much embarrassment and many pitiful tears. You're friends will call him an asshat (and they'll be absolutely right), and you'll begin to see him as just an ordinary boy.

And then, out of the blue, you'll be sent a picture of a lamp (well, not a picture of a lamp, but rather, there was a lamp in the picture and not much else), paired with a string of words that will make you uncomfortable, then angry. After five minutes without a response, he'll text you to explain that his idiot frat friends took his phone while at a party.

You won't respond.

Another picture with another string of suggestive vocabulary.

Another "apology" on behalf of his "friends'" behavior.

This will be where you will realize a few things about the boy from far, far, far away:

- He is an asshat.

- He's an asshat who apparently doesn't know that blaming his "friends" for dirty messages is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

- He's an asshat who never actually wanted to get to know you, and that's why he didn't give two shits when you told him what your favorite poem was, or bothered to ask you questions of substance when you were trying to get to know each other. All he wanted to do was call you pretty and tell you how badly he wanted to kiss and cuddle with you.

- (You really could never be in a relationship with someone who was allergic to dogs.)

You, being you, will accept his apology. But you, being you, will sever the ties there and finally move on.

Savannah, I write this to you, and it's not eloquent like some of my other letters. It's messy, and vulgar, and it's not filled with flowery metaphors, but it's important for you to know that nothing about this situation is, was, or ever will be romantic. You'll be where I am a year later, looking back and laughing, littering this letter with the word "asshat" because it's the only suitable noun for such a person as the boy from far, far, far away.

Don't be mistaken, you'll absolutely hit a new low point because of this boy, and you will suffer for almost three months. You'll feel more alone than you've felt in a very, very long time.

But little one, if you are reading this after you're heart has been shattered by the boy from far, far, far away, I want you to know that there are a few good things on the horizon waiting for you: two jobs, a play, and Halloween night. (More on those later.)

Forget about boys from Indiana, and boys from camp, and boys who don't handle your heart with care. You are valuable, and there are actually people who will treat you that way. Just hold fast, little one, they are coming.

Love,
Yourself.

Crying Wolf: a poem

Until I was twelve,
I insisted that I was a wolf.
It was only one facet of my
Debilitating social awkwardness,
But it's the one that keeps me up at night
Lately.
Lately,
I've been thinking about
Whether or not it's all that bad to die alone,
Or die at all
(Or die right now, but that's a scary tangent).

Wolves are fascinating
Because wolves travel in packs
-- In tight-knit families,
Fiercely loyal to one another,
Nurturing their wounded,
Willing to go down defending their pack mates.
And yet,
Despite this natural closeness,
Occasionally a wolf will arise,
An unhappy Omega,
A hopeless outcast,
A restless wanderer,
Who will tear themself away from the group
And go on their way
Alone.

I don't sleep well at night
Lately.
Lately,
I've been thinking about
The feeling of hands on my skin,
Fingers caressing my face, my neck,
Warm breath on my cheek.
Instead,
I curl myself around a pillow,
Kiss my own shoulder,
Tuck my own hair behind my own ear,
Press myself up into the corner of the room
And pretend to be held
As I try to fall asleep.

When I was a child,
I never imagined myself as
The Alpha.
Back then,
I didn't think it was possible to
Be anything other than
Placating,
Pleasing,
Practicing my apologies in front of a mirror
-- An Omega.
But now
My feet itch to leave.
This pack is not my own.
This cave is not my home.

I've been looking at plane tickets
Lately.
Lately,
I've been howling at the moon,
Pleading for answers,
Or directions.
"Where are the others?"
"Where is my pack?"
But the moon is a silent guardian
And rarely howls back.

My paws bleed a lot
Lately.
Lately,
I've worn my claws down
Digging in the earth,
Searching for bones
For remnants
For proof that other wolves like me
Have been here.
My hands are sore
From being clasped in prayer too tightly.

I've heard the howls of another wolf
Lately.
Lately,
I've played his howling over in my head
To lull myself to sleep.
I wonder where he is,
If he belongs to another pack already.
He sounds so lonely.
But I don't have the voice
Or the right words
To howl back to him.

The sun is too hot
And my fur too long.
I need to find water.
Where did the trees go?
Why is the earth so dry here?

I burrow under the sheets like a cave
Lately.
Lately,
I don't look both ways
Before crossing the street.
It's gotten easier to pretend
To be happy here,
But at night,
As the moon crests above the trees,
I begin to bristle at my surroundings.
I am the restless wolf,
The tired wolf,
The crying wolf,
The lone (so, so alone) wolf.

I'm better at playing the part
Lately.
Lately,
I'm content with cold sheets
And loveless pillows
But loneliness is an awkward bedfellow.

A letter to my younger self: concerning a good body

Dear Savannah,

I've told you already how people will paint your body with angry hands and cruel colors. I've said that they will tear down your body, bruising you with their harmful remarks, prodding you with every passive aggression.

And I've told you that you will eventually learn to hate your body.

Because that's the easiest explanation. When you're young, you'll have no idea what to think of the curves of your hips, or the soft creases along your torso. You're made up of gentle bends and delicate careening lines. You'll find very few sharp edges, and much fewer points. Everything about you will be rounded off and sanded down.

Your breasts will fill in to the point where you'll feel outlandish for wearing them out in public and wish you could fold them away. Your thighs will rub snugly against each other as you walk, and your hips will sway along to the rhythm.

And all of this will feel so painfully awkward while you're in high school.

Because the pretty girls in high school are slender and lean, narrow chests and tight abdomens, smooth hair.

"Effortless," you'll think to yourself.

Your beautiful friends will tell you how pretty you look some days. They'll point out how nice your butt looks in certain pants. They'll tell you how envious they are of your chest.

None of it will feel quite right. You'll wonder to yourself whether their comments are sincere or if they're being kind to you because they like you. You'll thank them and make a point to hide those features better next time you go out.

And then, little creature, you'll meet a girl with unruly hair and the curves of Aphrodite herself. She'll be something straight out of a Botticelli paint, or a figure that Michelangelo mercifully freed from marble. You'll see her and you'll see those familiar lines, curves and gentle bends, those curls, those soft, bohemian corners; you'll see this girl like your reflection on the surface of a lake.

You'll see her, and she'll be the most lovely thing in the room. When previously you had felt so inexplicably wrong against your backdrop of slender, tight-bodied friends, you'll see her and realize how misguided you were to see yourself as a anything but marvellous.

This will start a quiet revolution inside you. Cautiously, as if you were approaching a sleeping feral beast, you'll admire yourself in the mirrors of your house, taking inventory of those once infernal curves. It'll be a slow progression. The ugly voices in your head from high school will jabber on, but you'll begin to tune them out.

Once you cross that fine threshold into adulthood, your body will start to feel more appropriate and desirable.

Like, hot damn.

I know this is hard to imagine, especially after battling those harmful voices in your head for so long, but there will come a time when you will long to retain the shape of your body.

I'm not saying you won't have rough days. Those are inevitable.

But, little one, you will love the body you have. It's a good body. It's a body that is pleasing to the eye, perhaps even to the touch. There are men who will look at you as if you are a divinity. There are women who will long to have a body as "effortless" as yours.

You've got a heart for strength and for pumping blood through your system. You've got a stomach for poetry and for nourishment. You've got legs to support yourself and to stand up for the downtrodden. You've got hands to hold and to heal.

Sweet little thing, you are valuable and your body is good.

Love,
Yourself

A letter to my younger self: concerning feeling unloved

Dear Savannah,

There are plenty of people who love you without condition or reason. They love you because you're kind to them, or because you listen to them, or because they've watched you grow since you were fresh out of your mother's womb.

There's a sea of people who love you for all of the quirks and flaws and skills and difficulties you have. These people will rally up beside you in adversity and will defiantly take your side when all seems lost.

And yet...

And yet, regardless of all the people who adore you, you'll still look around and ask, "But where is the one? The one who is supposed to make me feel whole? The one who will bundle me up on rainy nights and cuddle me close? Where is the one my heart craves?"

Savannah, I know you're too young (too wholly misunderstanding of the complications that await you), but I ask you to bear with me while I explain:

You'll have your heart broken. First, it'll be the Trickster boy. Eventually it will be the incredibly short-lived flirtation with a boy who lives very far away. (There's another story that will have to wait until I've fully digested it myself.)

You'll have your heart torn to shreds by a boy you hardly know, but who you'll convince yourself is God's choice for you.

And despite these heartbreaks (and perhaps because of them), you'll begin to see boys through narrowed eyes, considering them a lot more closely than you had before. There will be no more of this, "I don't deserve someone like him", but rather "I deserve to be with someone who truly cares".

This is where you'll realize that what you crave is an endangered species.

"I need a boy who loves Christ," you'll say.

But most of the boys you know who "love Christ" speak of women as a right of passage. They're first concern is finding a woman who will be submissive, and their next concern is the state of her virginity. They would rather memorize chapters of Deuteronomy than show love to people who need it. They'll be quick to judge a girl on the length of her shorts rather than on the tenderness of her soul.

"I need a boy who understands my need for art," you'll say.

But most of the boys you know don't know what that even is. The church-going ones will call it idolatry, or vanity, or pointless, or whatever negative adjective suits their fancy at the time. They'll call you selfish when you talk about pursuing your career, your dreams. They'll see you sprouting wings and shoot you down before your feet can even lift off the ground.

You'll ball your fists up tight, eyes puddling with tears, and you'll say, "I need a boy who just..."

And you'll stop there. Because what are you even saying anymore? What do you need from a boy that doesn't contradict itself?

You want

You need a boy who gets you. And that will sound so awfully cliche that you'll want to tear up the words as soon as they leave your lips.

No one will understand, and when they say they do, they don't. Not really. Because everything is very cut and dry for everyone else. Their needs don't contradict each other as much, and they'll be more comfortable with compromise, and they'll be better at other things so it will just work out.

God, if you even found someone who matched your heart, who managed to fill all the empty spaces, who could refill you when you've poured yourself out for others, if someone like that even existed, what would you do? You're inexperienced and scared as all hell. If he touched you, you'd apologize. You've been told how gross and clumsy and plain you are for so long that you wouldn't want him getting anywhere near your body for fear of him running in the opposite direction.

But, oh God, you want to be good enough.

Savannah, I've wondered for a while why you (why I) like the rain. Plenty of people like the rain, I know. It's not exactly ground-breaking to like the rain.

I've decided that you like the rain because there's something weirdly comforting about it. It's almost as if, perhaps, something is out there saying "It's ok, little one. I'm sad with you." Or maybe because there's someone else in the world standing out in the rain with just as heavy and longing a heart as you.

Or maybe you just like wearing big sweaters and how the rain makes your hair stick to your face in a very Jane Austen novel way.

Little one, I don't think we find anyone for us. Because our demands are too unruly and complex, and because boys in real life aren't like boys on pages.

It will get to the point where you'll begin scribbling the word "lonesome" on your arm, as if you need a reminder.

Your friends will tell you that you'll find someone, and that you're too pretty to not fall in love, and that you'll marry someone who is just perfect for you, but little one, I don't think he exists.

One time, I was working on a puzzle with hundreds of pieces, and as I got to the end of the puzzle, I realized I didn't have all of the pieces to finish it. That's how I feel about finding this person. He's the piece that got wedged under the couch or tossed out in a dustpan, or perhaps this puzzle was just mistakenly made without a piece to finish it.

Savannah, I don't want you to think that this pain is intolerable, and though it certainly stings, and though you'll stay up until 3AM on most nights with a restless heart, you as a person are still loved by too many to count.

You are valuable, and I love you. It's okay to cry yourself to sleep. It's okay to be hurt and lonely. We make it through.

Love,
Yourself