Dear Charlie,
It's been almost four years to the day since I last wrote you, and I was reading through some of my old letters recently, so I figured I would give a bit of an update.
Things are really different now.
I'm older, for one thing. Obviously. I'm halfway through my twenties. Isn't that crazy? I think I first started writing to you when I was sixteen, and I never saw myself making it to this age, but here I am! It's exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I still don't really know what to do, but does anybody really?
There's a lot to catch you up on. I guess I'll go in chronological order to make it simpler.
Lani and I are still friends. We don't talk a lot, but she's still in the group chat and we'll text privately every so often too. She's with a guy now that she seems really head over heels for, and I love that for her.
Jack and I had a long heart-to-heart about everything. A real "lay all your cards on the table" kind of talk. It helped to clear the air and settle things for good. I don't love him anymore, but he's still my best friend. That whole situation couldn't have turned out better.
The agoraphobia thing is better too. I still don't like leaving the house if I don't have to, but it doesn't give me panic attacks anymore. Neither do cars or driving. I have my license and my own car now, which is totally insane.
I found a great group of people online that I still talk to from time to time, and there's one person in particular that I still talk to every day. Actually, I see them every day too, because I moved halfway across the country to live with them.
We met on Twitter, funnily enough. We were mutuals for a while, then we ended up in the same Discord server and became friends. We got even closer one day when I tweeted that I was bored and wanted to video chat with someone, then they gave me their number to call and we talked all night.
Their name is Nix. We were friends for a year and messaged each other almost every day, video chatted from time to time too, when somewhere along the way I developed feelings for them. I kept it to myself for a while, but my friends convinced me to tell Nix how I felt because they were sending some pretty serious signals (to the point where even my oblivious ass noticed, haha).
I told them how I felt, and they felt the same way, so we decided to do the long distance thing. A few months into our relationship, they got on the plane for the first time to come meet me in person, and I think we were set in stone after that.
We took turns flying back and forth every few months and video chatted whenever we got the chance outside of those trips. They're a big reason why my agoraphobia got so much better. I mean, I willingly hopped on a plane and left my home for weeks at a time just to see them. I don't know if I would have done that without their help.
It took two years of being long distance for us to decide that we didn't want to do it anymore, so I moved in with them last June and it's been the adventure of a lifetime.
I'm so in love. I've never felt this way about anyone before. Nix and I are building our little life together. I'm settling into this new job that I actually enjoy, we're looking to go adopt a dog next week, and we're talking about getting engaged sometime in the near future.
Things are still hard from time to time. I had to go back to an intensive outpatient therapy program a few months ago thanks to a particularly awful depressive episode, I take an absurd amount of medications every day just to stay stable, and I still see a therapist once a week to help keep myself sane on a day-to-day basis.
In spite of the little hiccups, though, I'm happy. That's not something I ever thought I'd get to say, but that doesn't make it any less true.
It gets better. It really does get better.
Love Always,
Just Nick
06 | 22 | 25
