Dear Change,
You paid me a big visit last year, when I shifted my school. You kept meeting often from there, as if trying to remind me that you would never die. That you would keep visiting me and have small rendezvous around the corner, for forever, until the day that I ultimately die.
I never knew that I would write a letter to an immortal recipent.
I also never knew that you would be stubborn. That if you were asked to go away, you would glare back, and and stand until the person would push around and be forced to change its way.
But you and me never met like that.
We crashed head-on. So hard that I’m still finding my way back.
But it’s lost. Or disappeared at least. That sense of comfort, that one feels when taking a road more taken, is gone.
In fact, I stand on this road, so confused and drained of confidence that I had to think twice before raising my hand in class to answer a simple question.
I am cautiously walking ahead, wary of anything that I might trip on. I don’t want to take any other chances or straying now.
This road is a long one. I have some years to go.
Are you enemies with time? Because that’s what cleaned up that wound from the crash for me, which today remains as a scar. My memories are my scars.
But then, I experienced your magnanimity. You didn’t give me a lot of friends, but you did give me a true friend whom I can trust with all my secrets. That’s what keeps me going today. One friend in school.
Thanks for that.
You also took some close ones of my close ones. Giving me a brush of what death looks like. Of what absence looks like.
Absence isn’t beautiful. It has a straight, poker face, that you can’t even see.
I missed many of my lasts. Many of my last chances. I didn’t complain. I didn’t feel like. Although my heart knew that I was missing much.
My friend told me that too.
You really are unpredictable. And I am not a fan of inconsistency, I say that in the politest way possible.
I don’t want to make enemies of you. I really don’t. I’d be really scared if I did, for you are too smart. You don’t need marks like me to prove that.
Since we are not enemies, we might be, not friends, but perhaps colleagues. Because I know I am going to meet you often in the future. Often, in fact. I’m sure about that.
So if you ever want to come home, you are welcome. My only request to you is that please knock this time. Wait for me to open the door. Don’t barge in, like the last time you did. I took more than a leap year to recover from that.
My best.