Dear Past Me,
It’s hard to believe that we are really made of the same cells, you and I; we are so different now, we hardly even look the same, I am shorter, thinner, colder than you are. My hair is better than yours, my jaw and cheekbones have finally emerged from the softness of your baby fat, but my skin is not as clear. (How did you keep your skin so clear, anyway?)
Of course you are a part of me, you are etched into my very being, but I can no longer clearly see myself squirming in our skin, I can only see myself filling up the casing that you so thoughtlessly marked and radiating out of it. I have achieved repose, which means that you will too.
In a way I am jealous of you. As angry as you were, as uncomfortable as you were, as insecure as you were, you truly believed that you knew everything worth knowing. You believed that self sufficiency could be achieved without hard work, you dressed up as a misanthropist, but deep down you believed that people were good at heart. You refused to accept your own ignorance and naïveté and so to you they ceased to exist. Now I know that one cannot go through life that way, that it’s a road that leads nowhere, but for a few years it sure was a lot of fucking fun.
I shouldn’t be advising you, that ship has sailed, and even if it hadn’t you wouldn’t listen anyway. You never listen to anyone, we still hold that, at least, in common. I shouldn’t be advising you, but I will do so anyway. You know all of this already, but your denial runs so deep. It will be a few more years before you rifle through the piles of knowledge in your head and find these truths. When you do so, they will first ruin your life and then build it back up stronger and better than before.
Stop taking out frustrations on your own skin, there is decoration and there is desecration. The urge to ruin yourself for the future is powerful but it will only serve to make that inevitable future harder. Ink and scar tissue will not stop the passage of time, no matter how much you would like them to, and transitions are always more pleasant when they go smoothly.
Stop assuming that a man will save you, in fact stop expecting anyone to save you but yourself. Love does not grow from necessity and clinging, those things only breed resentment and loathing. There can be no knight in shining armor unless you become Boadicea. Whenever you think salvation is come, think again and do not let yourself fall into self-deception.
I still do not know why it is that you hated yourself so much, but I wish that you had stopped earlier, that you had seen how wrong you were. The most important thing that I can say is that I am glad that I am no longer you. I am glad that I have put you behind me and filed you away in the annals of my mind. I will never truly forget you, but god damn I am glad that my life has diverged from the path you nearly put me on.
Love,
Cate