A letter from Nov 18, 2024

Dear FutureMe, I often find myself tearing up when I see families with their little girls and big smiles. I long for the feeling of being loved and wanted, although I know that somebody in my family loves me. It feels like having an empty piggy bank, knowing what it's like for it to be full and envisioning what you would do if it was full again, but it's not and you know it's not. Or like having a package in the mail with no set delivery date, you know it's coming but you don’t know when; it's the joy of getting it in the mail that excites you but the uncertainty of the surprise irritates you. I know what it felt like to have a “normal family”: two parents under one roof with siblings and a pet, but even then my family wasn’t normal. It feels like a fever dream to look back on, something I’d seen in a movie, or a figment of my imagination, a dream for what I wish I had. When I look back on my memories of a younger me, I see two different little girls. One is happy, joyous, and lively with her family, eager to play, willing to be the prince whilst playing pretend, and silly. The other is shy, sad, broken, and feels guilt, for what, she does not know, but she knows that the incessant bullying she endures, she can tolerate no longer. The two separate once the door to her home opens and she walks inside, but they finally combine once she has to walk through two: two homes, two birthdays, two Christmases, two pets, two sleeping arrangements, two sets of rules, two parents, and one confused little girl. That little girl felt anger, rage, and pain but again, for what, she did not know. She grew, and as she did, she became angrier, she became me. I often hold so much in my heart, but from the outside, it looks like I always let go through my tears. The tears are surface level, in a less literal sense. They're only from the inconveniences experienced most recently and followed by the sobs and wails of the oldest problems, relating and trying to escape. But I don’t let those bigger whales of issues leave my heart; the damage is too deep, the wound too deep. The wails are replaced by crimson vision; I only see red, blood boiling red. The inner child in me, the two girls combined, wishes for all I cannot have. They wish to release the pressure in my heart, the pain, and the anxiety, but I do not let them because they can never leave me. It is me. Me is pain and pain is not truly I, but one has succumbed to it. I bend to its will and pray I suffice. My heart is vicious, insatiable in its yearning for love but never allowing for it to appear. Friends and family could give me the highest praises, and the darkness in my heart only eats it away, leaving empty words for my brain to consume. I imagine the depth of my heart with a dangerous beast that only knows how to hurt, even if not trying, a red dragon always hungry and everyone will be its feast. I know others around me try, and yet I know that it will never be enough; it is not out of selfishness but, just as in my youth, I am two persons. One who wants to love and one who refuses it and takes in hurt instead. The former is grateful for the support and attempts to appease me, though the latter knows that nothing can slay the beast. My parents try to love me even with the dragon, and I know they are fighting theirs, but sometimes I feel as though they found their white knight and I have to be my own. So I look in envy at the children around me, the ones with houses, both parents under one roof, not rejecting food for fear of cost, the ones with joy. I know I have to work to give myself that feeling, but then what's the point of others loving me if I have to work for that feeling? Why give that feeling to others if I too cannot experience it at all? With all of this, do we learn to love?