#csrletter

May 6th, 2018. 2 a.m.

hey you;

How fitting. Letter 21 when your 21st birthday falls on Monday. 

You have been gone for just over 2 years now, and I can’t say it has been easy learning to live without you around. But, I can say i’ve made progress. i can speak about you, and I can tell people I lost you and how I lost you. I can talk about you without tearing up, or bursting into tears completely. And now, I feel like i can be honest with myself when it comes to you. 

I’m never gonna see you again and I understand that. It was difficult, struggling between wanting to believe there was something after this life, because I wanted to see you again, but also not believing in an afterlife. I still look for you everywhere, hoping for signs that you’re with me, but I don’t need you to linger with me anymore. Infact, I’ve given myself a rest with looking. 

I’m trying to let go of my guilt. Guilt that comes from breaking promises I made while you were here. I felt guilt for not visiting your grave for many months, but now I release that, knowing that I can visit you at home, in my memories. And I think that you’re aware my attempts to quit smoking for you, were ill-fated. I tried, I really did. But I know you never expected me to quit anyways, and you never asked. 

Even more so, I’m trying to release my guilt from things I did when you were here. I didn’t stay with you. I downplayed my feelings for you. So many things. I can’t begin, nor should I try, to go through them all. 

I will never have what I had with you, with somebody else. I now that one day I’ll have a relationship that is multiple times the amount ours was, but it won’t be what I had with you. I’m okay with that, I’m at peace with that. You filled a part of me that nobody else could. I don’t expect anybody to take your place, nor would I want them to. You were you, and that was the best you could be. 

It hurts, knowing that I think about you more than I ever did when you were alive. I guess that stems from the fact I didn’t need to think about you. I was seeing you everyday. I didn’t have to think about you to remember your smile or to miss you. I never missed you or forgot anything about you because I saw you daily. Now though, your negative space appears and I’m scared one day I’ll go all day without thinking about you. The sounds of your voice grows harder to hear, and leaving behind the little details that made you, you, seem inevitable. I no longer remember some of our inside jokes. I talk about you in past tense, no longer trying to keep you in the present. 

but on Monday, I will raise a glass for your 21st, and as always, I’ll think of you and I’ll smile. I’ll always remember you, and I’ll keep you in my thoughts.

August 1st, 2019. 9:52pm.

hey there,

I haven’t forgotten you, I promise.

I just don’t know what to say anymore. One sided conversations never hold up, and I suppose that’s your fault this time around. Because you’re gone. You’re gone so you can’t hold a conversation with me. Thats infuriating.

You know what’s more infuriating? Talking a friend out of suicide. And it’s only infuriating because I’m doing it selfishly. I’m doing it so hopefully they decide to live, because I don’t want to go through all of this again. I don’t wanna feel those would open up again, I don’t want them to be fresh. 

What’s even more infuriating is that even though I’ve taken millions of videos and photos of you, (and I know I did.) I can’t fucking find them. 

And its infuriating that the few videos I can find, you didn’t fucking talk.

One sided conversations. 

They’re infuriating because I can’t remember your voice. So maybe I have forgotten you. Maybe I’ve forgotten the small details. Your voice, your smell, your laugh. 

You know what I haven’t forgotten though?

Your hugs.

God I miss your hugs. And how you’d smirk at me, as I held my one sided conversations. 

Even though, of course, they were infuriating.

I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Christian. So, I’ll stop by and talk when I can think of what to say, without screaming at you. Without crying. 

I’ll stop by to talk when I can remember your voice again, and fake that you’re talking back to me.

January 10th, 2018. 2:17am.

Hey you,

It’s almost that date again. Two days until we mark off a second year without you in our lives. And by we, I mean the many many people who cared (and still do) about you. I know I say it every time I write but I know it’s been a while since I spoke to you, on here at least. I’m sure you hear me talk to you everyday, when I go out for a cigarette and beg you to knock it from my hand once more and stomp on it. 

Things aren’t getting better when it comes to missing you. I don’t suppose they ever will, eh? 

Life is trucking along though. I have a vacation planned for me and Ian to go to Cali in March, a week after my 21st birthday. Tickets are bought and we’re both excited. Mom is excited to take me out for my first legal drinks. I know you wouldn’t like it but its a big marker in life. At least, until I hit 50 and they say I’m over the hill and such. Hah.

Anyways, everybody misses you. Rachel and I talk about you often, and it seems like its getting easier day by day to reminisce together. It used to be a lot harder to speak about you to each other but a few drinks and cigarettes help and we can finally muster up the courage to speak. 

We both miss you terribly, C. Everybody misses you. I miss you. 

Speaking of missing people, I wonder if you miss us? Or if you’re too distracted by all my rats up there to have time to miss us. I can’t say I mind the thought of you being too distracted by Tilly and Serephine and the rest, to miss me. That’s the kind of distraction I’d wish on myself when I die. 

Regardless, you are so missed, and you are so loved. Say hi to all my babies for me, and give them a kiss on their wiggling noses in addition. 

November 24th, 2017. 12:50am.

Hey C,

They keep calling me C at work. It’s throwing me off, man. 

I miss you, and I think it’s hitting me so hard tonight because yesterday was thanksgiving and I’m missing you because I can’t say I’m thankful for you, to your face. 

I miss you and that’s all i know what to say right now.

June 1st, 2017. 1:56pm

Dear Christian Scott,

I’m over at Ian’s writing this as he plays Black Ops. What’re you doing today? I’m going to Oneonta later on today so that’ll be fun and then I’ll probably be back over at Ian’s after he gets off work. Dad doesn’t approve of him too much I don’t think, mainly because we work at the same place. But my boss encourages it and loves that we’re together so I’m not too worried. 

Things are going well for me down here. I’m working hard and enjoying my time with Ian and friends. I’m sick as a dog right now but that’ll fade at some point, with the right amount of medication. I don’t get much sleep still but it’s okay, I’m doing okay I promise. My parents are worried that I’m running myself into the ground but I don’t think so. Work is just tiring is all. Don’t worry about me, I’ll get some rest at some point. 

With that being said, I’m drinking way too much coffee again so that needs to end. Oops. Doesn’t help that Ian enjoys coffee just as much as I do. 

I like work. I thought working at the schoolhouse would be terrible and honestly in many ways, it is, but there’s so many good things. I love the people I work with, I love the jokes and I love that at the end of the night we all sit at the bar and laugh for hours after work has ended. It’s a good time. It’s a work family. 

I still miss you everyday and I’m still pushing through those tough days but I’m doing okay. Atleast I can say hat. I’m doing okay.

May 16th, 2017. 9:48pm

Firefly,

It’s been a while, I know. You know me, bad at staying in touch, per usual. Happy late birthday. I know, I’m late on that too. I’m sorry. 

I worked on your birthday. I broke down once. I’m proud of myself for getting through it as well as I did. I can’t say the same for later that night but work, I handled. 

You’ve been on my mind a lot more that usual. I’ve been talking about you a lot more too. It’s getting easier to say your name.

But I still talk like you’re here with us, firefly. 

I don’t think that’s a bad thing though. I mean, I don’t believe in heaven but I know you’re here with us. I know you look over us and watch us grow. 

I wanna believe that you smile when you check up on me, but I don’t think you do. I think your eyebrows furrow and your frown, because you see me smoking a cigarette or you see me lost in my thoughts and worry. I wanna believe taht you laugh when I laugh but I think that instead you just take it in and observe how it’s a little too loud to be real. 

God, I’ve been missing you something strong. 

I can not believe we’re 20, C. I wish you were here to start exploring life.

I’m gonna catch some fireflies soon. It’s almost that time of year again. I’ll be waiting for you, as always, hun. 

I love you and miss you, Christian Scott.

Hey CSR,

Back home. I went to see you and left you some oreos. Enjoy them, and maybe donate one to the ratty babies. 

I went to see Adri also, and I went up into your room. It still smells like you, which was something I’d forgotten. Your smell. How odd that something as simple as your cent could hit so hard. 

I also saw those god damned white sneakers in the foyer. Didn’t I tell you that those were gonna get filthy? You also wore them down, god damn. There was barely sole left. 

I miss you. 

I need you here with me, lately, more than usual. I need you everyday but today, I really need you. I sobbed to Slater last night, because I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

Come home, Christian. 

Hey Mr. Grumpy Gills,

I’m sorry I haven’t spoken. Life got extremely hard and I haven’t known what to say. 

I cried over a couch. 

Specifically, your family’s couch.

They’re selling it, and I saw on facebook and I just started crying. I don’t pretend to known exactly why, but I just know I started crying. We spent alot of time in the living room cuddling on that couch, watching movies, and listening to you play piano, and wrestling on that couch. We took naps together, squeezed as close as we could be, on that couch. 

That couch holds memories and I feel stupid for being upset.

Its a couch.

I don’t know. I feel like everybody is moving on and i’m still stuck in limbo. 

I’m still reeling over this and its almost been a year.