Yours Truly, Twenty-Nine

My dearest Nineteen,

There’s a boardgame on my shelf gathering dust. Last year, I lugged it up and down the French Riviera in my suitcase—squeezed between summer dresses, Daisy Dukes and dreams—and finally, here, to Alicante.

I’ve opened it once to read the instructions; you need at least three players, and that’s two too many. And yet it strikes even me as peculiar. Why did I buy it? knowing that I have nobody with whom to play. I must have dreamt something up that day, for it’s never the coat on display that we buy, but the self we imagine wearing it; it’s not the cream, but youth; not the wine, but oblivion; not the boardgame, but the group of friends. And sometimes our purchases go to waste because they reflect not the life we lead, but the life we crave.

I saw the box in the window—Mito, it’s called—and stared in at the shelves of colour and the orange glow of the store. Some places feel off limits, as though I’m unwelcome inside, and yet each and every doormat says otherwise. Is it odd to feel like a stray dog on the kerb? forbidden entry but allowed to observe? Sometimes, I can feel my tail between my legs, ears pinned to my head, but you can probably surmise that this time I entered.

Hence the dusty box on my shelf.

It’s not that I don’t have acquaintances; I just can’t seem to make any friends. Are my standards too high? Why do I prefer my own company to that of most? Why would I rather be alone, completely and utterly so, than in bad company? That sounds like a good thing, but define “bad.” Everything and everyone seem to fit the bill except animals (duh). Sometimes, I go to cat cafés just to interact with them, well, just to interact. But I assure you that I’m fine, I’m used to it.

You, on the other hand, weren’t, and I don’t know how you did it. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, and yet I don’t envy—wait, your strength of character... your sense of identity... I envy that, sometimes, when I feel like I’ve disappeared; but I know that like Gibran’s river, I’ve joined the ocean. Spoiler alert: we’re all one, but renouncing the ego is easier said than done.

Sometimes, when the ego demands justice and I’m too weak to be wise, I think you’re much stronger than I. In times of clarity, however, I know your strength comes from a place of pain and you can’t afford to come unarmed as I do; you can’t afford to point out all your wounds, meanwhile I only wince when others dig their fingers in exactly where I said it hurt. You’ll learn to tell them early and the traitors will reveal themselves.

You’ll stop explaining why their hurtful behaviour hurts (it’s not nice when you spit in my face). How absurd.

And you’ll be kind not because it’s deserved, but because that’s who you are.

What you’re experiencing now, my sweet Nineteen, is the hardest it’s going to be for a while. Monotony will settle in, another coat of dust, an eternal ache, but you’ll meet people along the way who’ll hold your hand for an instant, two, three. There’ll be moments in which you can crumble, cry, but don’t linger too long; that’s when things go awry. Often the very arms that cradle us are the ones from which we fall, but it’s better to have had that moment than never to have felt at all.

Let Leon hold you, see the world from two metres high! Say yes to breakfast, lunch, dinner and don’t ask why. Let him translate all those German love songs—the one about Maximilian or the half-smoked cigarette—let him take you to the beach and make your birthday the best one yet; and I don’t think you’ll ever forget him guarding the flame of that cake-shaped candle, or how the wind snuffed it out when he rose to embrace you. But that’s all, it’s the end, go and catch your train. I’m quite sure that at nineteen, you read The Portrait of Dorian Gray, and well, as Wilde says, we “spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever.”

Who’s Leon? They’re all Leons, really; they come and go. Sometimes they’re lifebuoys, sometimes a lifeboat; but sometimes there’ll be nobody to help you stay afloat and you’ll have to do so all by yourself (look at me rhyming! not at all clichéd).

The bad news is that very few people care about you.

The good news is that very few people care about you.

You’re free to be and do whatever you want. Be mad, ugly, stupid, mispronounce a million words, forget book titles, and misconjugate Spanish verbs. It doesn’t matter, none of it; so, hesitate, stutter, and write inconsistent streams of consciousness!

Nobody will ever guess that you grew up commended for your eloquence.

And there will come a time when you think you’re broken—but you aren’t, you never were—and you’ll have to learn to trust yourself again; stop with the doubt and second-guessing! You’ll raise yourself like a child, you’ll show her love and let her explore. You’ll stop hovering about asking if she’s sure. She’ll make mistakes, she’ll learn, she’ll grow, and you’ll realise you were never alone.

What else? I don’t know. Stop complicating everything!

Celebrate clichés, go to the cinema, sit in parks and contemplate the day; go to a café and buy pastries, read a newspaper, watch a play; look for a four-leaf clover, dodge cracks in the pavement, observe the ants; wear silly socks, polish your shoes and iron your pants; laugh at nothing, sing, dance; stop romanticising romance; write poorly, write well; overthink, and then don’t think at all.

Isn’t that nice?

Look, watch me ruin any semblance of order that remains! Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla. And guess what? Nothing happens. It’s laughable, really, how seriously we take ourselves.

I have nothing left to say, I’m tired and it’s getting late. I love you, my darling girl, and you’ll be just fine.

Yours truly,

Twenty-Nine