March 13, 2011
Dear Winter,
There is no need to beat around the bush here. I know that it is over between us. I realize it more and more every day as I wake up and notice that you are slowly slipping away and we are growing apart. You always find a way to make it back into my life just when things are going well, I take you back, try to re-embrace you and hope that this time is the one that will be great… but you always prove me wrong. And it is not my fault. It is yours. And I’m just here, I guess, to say goodbye again.
I wish you well on your way, yes, because I do not like to go forward in my life with negativity, and my soul has rotted as a result of this too many times. But there are some things I have to get off my chest before I finally push you out to sea.
Fuck you for giving me a treacherous head cold and disgusting, coughing congestion because I decided to touch the dirty subway bars, not wear a coat the couple times I decided to go outside, or allow my landlord to go 150 years before properly replacing my windows. You brainwashed me, said it would be okay, I trusted you, fuck you.
Fuck you for allowing the body I spent all summer trying to achieve just become average, convincing me that you would like me anyways, even if your cloudy, deceiving visage told me I didn’t have to work out 4-5 days a week anymore. I hate you for sucking the tan right out of my skin and reminding me in the paleness all of my physical imperfections. I trusted you and it is only now that I know I can get everything back that I want… the perfect revenge body to really make you sick when we run into each other again. Don’t like that? Maybe you should have thought of that before you manipulated me and crippled my self esteem. It is not my fault. It is yours. Fuck you.
You physically abused me… you sprained my ankle and hindered my ability to walk for almost 24 hours.
You were cold, dismissive, and didn’t ever know when to stop.
But you know what? While it is reasonable for me to highlight all the negativity you have forced into my life this infinite, icy season…
I will remember all of the good you brought to me as well.
You allowed me to one day wake up and realize that I was going to be able to let a lot of pain go, and allowed me to recognize it that very instant so I could always remember from that point forward things would get better, and that everything was going to be okay. Thank you for opening up a new underbelly of this city to me, allowing me to splash my creativity across the walls, taking it away against my will, (but in my best interest), and then allowing me to do it even better in the near future. Thank you for giving me so many nights where I felt cared for, important, necessary, essential to someone else other than just myself. Thank you for movies, dinners, cards, parties. Thank you for whispers. Thank you for long hugs. Thank you for making me feel poor enough to hate you, but hopeful enough to know that things are getting better.
And thank you for leaving me kindly, as I am trying to do with this letter. Everything can happen, is happening, will happen. It all can happen soon. And I know that spring will do that better for me than you can. I know that hurts, it hurts me too, but know that you were right for me in many ways when you were there, and I have no regrets.
The point is, winter, that I woke up this morning, stretched, thought about the things in my life that are going in good directions. Spring is reminding me that all the work I have done and all the waiting I have endured really can and will pay off. Spring reminds me of all the special people I have in my life, what they each mean to me individually, and how I am welcome to bring them and enjoy them in a new season.
I’m sorry winter, but it is over. My sense of nostalgia, even during the terrors, makes this harder than you know. But it is for the best.
I hope we can someday become friends.
But right now, I need you to not contact me at all.
It is the only way that I can survive.
Take care of yourself.
Sincerely,
Joshua
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