love letters

i like to call myself a writer sometimes. mostly this is because i have been an english major for so long and have written a lot, academically, but it's also because i just...like to write. i like to write in my journal, i like to write on my blog, i like to write the family christmas letter. i like to write people notes because i feel like i can say it better on paper than i could in person.

i've noticed that i also like to write letters to the guys i like at any given time of life, the really big crushes that took over my life. i've been reading through some of my old journals, and there are several instances where i wrote letters to my crushes instead of actually saying anything. for the most part, i didn't say anything to them because i was pretty sure they didn't like me back and, therefore, it would have been incredibly embarrassing for me to confess my undying love in any fashion. sometimes i wrote the letter just as an outlet for me, to clear up my own feelings and figure out what exactly i was thinking.

But I'm starting to come to a realization: you haven't forgotten about me, and I don't think you will anytime soon, not that I'll let you, though I did try that...and it didn't feel right. But I'm pretty sure you talk to me more than you talk to almost anyone else...

i guess i need to write it all out because my feelings/relationships/prospective relationships are almost always confusing. is that me, or is it just life? i don't know.

If you had any inkling that I was feeling like this, you'd probably run in the other direction. Believe me, I wish I wasn't.

i remember, in elementary school, all through my days at cesar chavez, i loved david apana. i knew his address, i knew his phone number (549-6785), i convinced my friends to three-way call him--i loved him. one day, i wrote him a letter expressing all of my most intense grade-school emotions, and before i could talk myself out of it, i put it in the mail (because i had his address memorized, of course.). almost immediately after the postman picked up our mail, i wished i had that revealing letter back. i mean, obviously it was an awesome letter with different colored pens and probably stickers and maybe some of my mom's perfume spritzed on. but, even though we are talking about snail mail here, i was putting myself in a vulnerable position.

i needn't have worried--nothing was ever said about the letter, so i have no idea if he ever even received it. of course, nothing ever happened between me and david, either, but that was probably for the best. since then, though, i've been more careful about wo i share my love letters with.

i like the written word. it's a way to be both personal and distanced at the same time. and that comes in handy when you are a girl with a lot of feelings and not a lot of guts.