Dearest Saleta,
Your vibe and answers were so quintessentially tumblr – aesthetic, joyful, pure and defying the societal conventions. I can picture you wearing a vintage floral dress that’s flowy and lacy, wearing a flower crown and dancing to rock music. Smiling super wide and clicking Polaroid pictures, scribbling a happy quote and the date on it in your giddy happiness. Texting all your friends and loved ones about how grateful you are to have them in your life and just how much you love them. Were you born in the wrong time? You seem too precious for now. All of this also reminds me of a song - I wish I was a punk rocker by Sandi Thom. Do give it a listen, if you haven’t before.
Also the way you described your fashion style made me think of one of my favourite YouTubers – Ashley @bestdressed. Maybe you’d resonate with her and her fashion sense. Are these too many recommendations? Sorry, when I think someone will like something – book, movie, Youtube channel, song, tv show – I feel like this personal sense of duty to tell them about it because these things have brought me such joy and to think that I would have never come across some of it is a thought that makes me shudder.
You mentioned online friends. And that takes me down the memory lane. I was a very ‘weird’ teenager so no one around ever related to me. I also found most of them stupid and unimpressive. Yet I was never lonely and that’s thanks to the internet and all the beautiful and crazy people it enabled me to meet from across the world. The first time I met someone online was at 13. He was 17 and his username on a chat room website was ‘Edward Cullen’. It prompted me that he would be around my age because I really was tired of coming across old creeps who started the conversation with ‘asl’. And ever since then I was on a roll.
Some of the most precious people in my life I met online. From my first official boyfriend to a few of my dearest friends. But until I was 17, I thought it was something I had to hide from everyone in my “real life”. I thought the fact that I talk to people online in such a meaningful and constant way reflected on how miserable or awkward or unliked I was in my “real life”. But of course I kissed that mentality goodbye a long time ago and I’m so glad. The fact that we can connect with people we have and probably will never meet, who live starkly different lives than ours is a sign of how non-judgemental, accepting and earnest we are and I think that’s pretty damn awesome, isn’t it? I would have never done this before but I’m now going to go ahead and list all the places online I spoke to strangers:
Yahoo!Answers
Omegle
Wakie
Whisper
Tumblr
Wattpad
That for me is a sign of growing up. Thank you for being a witness to that. Love is freedom, you said. I wish more people saw it that way because you’re right. But at least you see it that way and I can only imagine that some others do too and that’s a start! So many people end up hurting people in the name of love and the Netflix show YOU is such an apt example of that. Sure, people will say that it’s merely a fictional and dramatized version but I know so many people in reality who are trapped in lives that suffocate them on a daily basis but they cannot leave the people who make it so for them. I hope you are never one of them.
The book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Kdrama Because This is My First Life
The German to English translated novel written completely in the form of letters – Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer
The movie Before Sunrise
The song Palatte (25) by IU
These are a few of the more precious things I recommend to you that I hope add some value to your life. There are no words of comfort or strength I need to offer to you – and I am relieved about that. So, this is my way to add something positive to your life instead. PS I also want to share something beautiful my love shared with me yesterday: When you look at a flower, some of the photons that enter your eye finally end their 1,00,000-year journey from the center of the sun. Nobody else sees them. Just you. 10% of those will give up their energy to cause a chemical reaction that – literally – makes them a part of you.
So I suppose then, you truly have sunshine within you, Saleta. Stay awesome, Nikki
Guys, February is 29 days of love letters. I’m writing love letters, as part of The Love Project, and if you’d like me to write one to you, drop me an email at [email protected]
There are 8 more spots left, and you can still be a part of it if you’d like :D
I wrote this letter for Saleta based on some questions they answered. You can read the questions and their answers here.











