I’m writing this letter to you after shedding a few tears because today I hurt the person I love the most. I think for a very long time I have been so caught up with everything I don’t have and everything I used to be and everything that will happen to others and not me that I missed being happy and grateful about the blessings I am showered with daily. I wrote a lot of gratitude lists but I guess that doesn’t help one be truly grateful after all. How does this relate to you or this letter? Well, after the kind of day I have had today, I really didn’t feel like writing any love letters. But I went through the answers I had gotten and reading yours gave me that feeling of comfort and joy in the little things that mean the most and they made my heart a little lighter so here I am writing to you right now. Thank you.

When did you start writing a journal? I used to write in disgustingly cute diaries since I was a very young child but I 100% got into it in 8th grade. I still remember the first journal I bought that I actually wrote in every day and filled up all the pages of. It was sometime during August on the day of Raksha Bandhan. It’s a festival here where sisters tie a sacred thread to their brothers. In return, the brothers promise to protect them and give them a gift. Ignoring the sexist notions of it is easy when you have loving brothers (cousins) as I do and a sister who protects you. Anyway, that year they made sure to give me cash as a gift so I could buy whatever I wanted. And then after we were done with all the customs and rituals we went shopping in the evening. That’s when I bought that journal. I filled it up with all the sweet lies the boys I had crushes on then told me. I filled it up with all the words that made me cry. And all the lyrics that help me be sane. And all the poetry that gave me strength. Ever since then, my journaling habit was solid. Of course, once I entered college and grew up becoming busy and less lonely, I stopped journaling every day. But every time I find myself go into a bad place, I reach out to the only real best friend I have ever had – my journal.

What about you? And have you ever been curious to swap your journal with someone else? I used to read about it in books and see it in movies and I always found it so exhilarating. The idea of doing that gave me more of an adrenaline rush than any adventure sport like sky diving could. The thought of trusting someone with my most innate thoughts and feelings had to be the most courageous thing ever. I think the fear that no one will like me if they actually knew who I really am has been ever present. What about you? What does journaling mean to you? Either way, I do hope it provides you comfort and relief from this ever crazy world.

On a lighter note, Ann, I have been keeping this really tiny journal where I don’t really write as much as I jot down quotes and poetry and words that I come across that hit me. I also randomly illustrate and it’s half-filled now and every time I flip through it, it gives me such joy that I know makes life worth figuring out for. Shall I share something from it with you?

For you who said you eat a lot because you’re lonely For you who said you sleep a lot because you’re bored For you who said you cry a lot because you’re sad

I write to you. Chew your concerned feelings like rice. Because after all, your life is something you have to digest.

- Rice by Chun Yang Hee

It’s translated from Korean so suffice to say a lot of its flow is lost in translation but damn. It hit me. Every sentence from the first stanza made me cry. Whenever we do something irrational people think it’s because we’re crazy. No, you fools, it’s because we are hurting! That’s why we overeat. Oversleep. Cry all the time. But if we have poetry that gets us, souls (people and dogs) that love us unconditionally and wisdom to know that that’s all that truly matters, we will be okay. Right?

And you…you have the strength to do all of that because you have the strength to recognise love even when it’s not requited. So it comforts me to know that you will live a good life – that you already are. Coming home after work to your family and dogs who love you, collecting plushies (love) and journaling, Ann, you’re living a wholesome life and that makes me so happy. Today, I borrow some of that strength from you and promise the universe that I will actively focus more on the things that matter.

To a good life, Ann

Love, Nikki

PS I would love watching Detective Conan! I think that was one of the first anime shows that I fell in love with. The only episode I vividly remember is when he and his friends enter an apparently haunted house and end up finding a mother and son who live there in hiding because the son had killed his father. Do you remember that one?

PPS I highly recommend you to check the Netflix show ‘Anne with an E’. It’s about a smart, brave and fierce girl Anne. And even though you’re Ann without an E, I have a feeling that you’re just as brilliant.

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 7 more spots left, and you can still be a part of it if you’d like :D 

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

Facebook

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

My beautiful Rey,

I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to see you again in such a short time, and what an encounter it was! Racing you to the artifact through the dark forest was so much fun. Those stepstone things and that cliff face were an excellent test of agility, and I must say that your abilities are vastly superior to mine, in that respect. I think it was only your inexperience with the Force that caused you to fall behind in that final stretch, and allowed me to reach the artifact first. I have been training for over a decade, so there is no shame in losing to me. Though I cannot honestly deny some satisfaction at finally beating you at something, if only to show you what I am capable of when I’m not minutes away from bleeding to death.

Supreme Leader will be furious when he finds out that I let you claim the artifact shard anyway. And yet, I find myself strangely indifferent to his potential wrath. Why should I fear his threats when he’s never made good on a single promise? And giving it to you - well, how could I pass up an opportunity to give you something that you actually want? You, who I would never deny anything.

But we really must discuss what happened. You know what I am talking about. You said that you didn’t know what came over you, but I do. I can feel it too, remember? I suppose it might have been the heat of the moment, and it might have been the power of the artifact affecting your behavior, but the fact remains - you kissed me. You kissed me you kissed me you kissed me! Force, I will never get sick of writing those words!

I admit, I have spent most of the last few days obsessing over that beautiful moment, replaying it again and again in my head.The moment I handed you the artifact, you looked at me. You looked at me with something that was not only not-hate, but something pretty far from it. How you smiled at me and said: Have you ever considered giving up being evil? Because you’re not very good at it. And then you kissed me. It was only a moment. But it was a kiss. A kiss you gave to me.

I suppose there is some truth to what you said. I really do feel like I’ve been losing my touch, lately. I will have to talk it over with grandfather.

I know you plan to seek the other half of the artifact next. I look forward to seeing you there :)

Enclosed is something to protect your eyes from the sand and dust. I know, I know, I am mansplaining desert survival to someone who has forgotten more about it than I will ever know, it’s just that - I care.

With devotion as constant as the traffic jams of Coruscant,

Kylo

PS. It’s pronounced Korriban. Only tourists say “Moraband.”

PPS. Youkissedmeyoukissedmeyoukissedme!!! ……………………………….