Dearest Read.dream.repeat,
My heart is shattering just a little right about now, for the same reason you mentioned – “When you think that a relationship would work against all odds, that something good would eventually come out of it, but it’s a delusion. My heart shattered when I realised it wouldn’t change for better.” So I find it fitting to write to you at this moment. It’s hard, isn’t it? And also quite funny how our heart feels so strongly that it can fool our brain to think it will work out somehow.
I started to develop a crush on a very dear, dear friend. Despite the fact that:
He can never step foot in my country
I can never step foot in his country
He and his family values are very traditional
I, on the other hand, shudder at the T of traditional for how sexist that word usually means all across the world
He wants different things from life – marriage and all that picket white fence jazz
I want a life I can be free in
We have never met in person
There’s an age difference – not significant enough but significant for me anyway
Yes, so basically geographically, politically, religiously and personally the odds were against us from the beginning. But our emotions work in mysteriously frustrating ways. I can’t be mad at him breaking these facts to me, right? I can’t expect him to live in a bubble just because I so comfortably can.
But it’s not just romantically; these reasons are going to be the end of our friendship too. If not now at some point in the future. So, what must I do in such a situation? Definitely not listen to songs like Qismat. That’s just me being dramatic so I can’t the pain out of my system before it poisons me. We have to do that, don’t we? There’s so much pain in the world and we can’t let it eat us up. But that’s enough about me!
You love snow and winters, right? You’re a woman after my very heart. I dislike people who shit all over any season that isn’t summer. Fuck sun kissed skin and sweaty bodies. Give me sweater weather and a reason to feel something on my skin that soothes it. I’m sure I can better articulate it but for now I’ll let my teen self talk:
“Winter is often related to hard conditions and the chill of lonely hours and bitter pangs of defeat but you know what? I was made in winter, I don’t survive it, I thrive in it. I’m a winter baby but I’m also a summer love.”
You know something that was on my 2019 resolutions list?
‘Pet a dog’
I kid you not. So, when I was about 5 or 6 years old, one evening after my sister and I were done playing and were returning home, about 4-5 street dogs started following us. Now, I know people say if you don’t do anything to dogs, they won’t do anything to you. Untrue. I also know they say you shouldn’t run. But if we hadn’t that day they would have bit us. I remember one was about to bite me and my sister pushed me out of the way and I fell on a big flower pot and started bleeding from my leg. I don’t remember the exact order of events but I remember being shit scared, my sister, who was about 9 at the time, yelling to run and us rushing into the closest shelter next to us – a dentist’s clinic we would frequent. I remember her getting her first-aid kit out and calling our mom. Ever since then, I have been scared shitless of dogs. But over the last few years I started admiring them from a distance – cute pictures on tumblr and adorable videos on YouTube. Yet, even if a domestic, non-threatening dog came near me, I would be the first one to vacate the scene. I wanted to get over that and so I put that on my 2019 list.
Throughout the year, I couldn’t will myself to do it. Then finally, literally on the very last week of the year, 29th December, I pet my friend’s dog Boon. And I think that was definitely a start! Who knows, I may even get one as my pet – decades from now – because I agree, most humans aren’t worth love.
What you said about love – ‘Like because, love despite’ is my go to mantra to understand this emotion. You like somebody because of certain qualities, but you love them despite of some characteristics. If it’s love, you accept – have you ever really felt that way about anyone? I think when I was younger, it was easier to love people despite their flaws, weaknesses and fucked-upness. I think, that, in fact, made me love them more. But lately, I find myself, like everyone else my age, running at the first sign of any problematic behaviour. Too many fish in the sea syndrome? Too hurt to take a chance? Who knows but I do know that lately no one seems worth it. What do you think?
I think friends who help you when you need them the most are truly a blessing. I’m so very glad to know that you have that. And as far as being at the lowest point in your life, as you know, now there’s only going up, my friend.
Loads of love, Nikki
PS You have a really cool bookstagram xxx
I wrote this letter for Read.dream.repeat based on some questions they answered. You can read the questions and their answers here.
Guys - I have received 29 people’s responses for The Love Project - 29 days of love letters. So I won’t be accepting anymore, however, you can read other letters here.
I may do this again later in the year and if you would want to receive a love letter from me then, you can drop in your email ID here xoxo
