Letters

Throughout my school years, I have struggled to keep it together and trusting people. One day, back home during holidays, my great-grandmother told me “If you cannot trust anyone, trust the pen and paper. Write your thoughts and clear your mind.” Perhaps, because it was her advice, or perhaps, I was a stubborn teenager – I never took it seriously, and was convinced that it would be ineffective. Nonetheless, the circumstances had it so that pen and paper were indeed my last source of hope for a clear mind.

So, there I was buying a diary and a sharp pen to go with it – and so writing, I did. The diary had become the only place, where I could freely share my thoughts about the school, my classes, friendships, and, of course, the boys. Long before the boarding school, my parents had sent me to summer camps, in hope to test whether I could make it for three weeks far from home. During one of these trips, I met a boy. A boy whom I have met previously on other occasions, very random coincidence that it was that both our parents decided to send us to the same summer camp.

This boy had my heart, and I lived in hope that one day our paths would cross again. The hope that one day when we would reunite, we would fall madly in love and get married. Yet years were going by, and we were not meeting anymore, we did not even have social media contact, as Facebook was slowly emerging. All I had were my memories dropped in that special diary that I kept close to my hear and far from the eyes of the others.

One day, I had decided it was time to let go of this childhood love, and forget about this boy. Writing about him in the diary was helping me clear my mind, but I needed to do something for my heart. So, I started writing letters. Letters that were addressed to this boy but were never posted. Letters that were written from my heart and that had expressed, to my best ability, the love that I had for this boy. These were the first letters that over the years were my way of dealing with letting go of someone or something that occupied significant space in my heart.

One day, I found the courage in my heart, to finally say goodbys to the boy and to the letters – and set my heart free to open up space in my heart for someone new. So, I found a quiet space in the backyard of the boarding school and burnt the letters – wishing the boy all the best. A few years later, I found out that he is happily married and has a healthy family. At that moment, my heart smiled.