Letter I
To nobody,
You’ve never had a great memory, or at least, it never seemed to work how you’d like when you thought you needed it most.
Your childhood has always looked like a vivid array of the stories and songs you loved contrasted by the vague-but-loud sensation that just about everything else felt awful.
You always remember deeply caring about people — always wanting to see the best in others — but for some reason you never felt like you could really have close friends. People seemed to like you well enough, but it always felt like you were the person they only went to when they wanted needed something from you.
You can remember always being angry at your parents, but figured it was only a teenager’s angst or proof you’re an ungrateful person. You remember wanting to run away, and often; so often, in fact, that the concept of running away feels like a singular memory that spans across your entire childhood. The same sensation. The same space in your mind. And despite the idea of running away being a lonely, miserable ordeal, it still brings you more comfort than the physical space you reside in.
But none of these memories help you understand why it is that you feel the way you do. It feels like anytime you reach into your memory for a moment in the past that might have an answer, your memory hands you an empty page in its place; a mess of feelings with no scene to attach them to.
But — and this point is essential — you do not need to remember every detail of a memory for the feelings you find to be devoid of truth. Even though your feelings may not tell the full story (or much of a story at all), they do tell you something, and that something is worth listening to.
L.E.