stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

Dear scene kid with the beanie, I think you're absolutely gorgeous. Even though my friends don't think so at all. I also want to talk to you and get to know you,but I don't know what your friends would say I'm pretty sure we're polar opposites; You're a loud skater while I'm the quiet raver You're a pot head while I'm a E head You like big groups...I can only stand being around one other person But despite all of that, I still want to get to know you somehow My friend said you'd be good for me But In the end I bet you're with some pretty girl who likes to talk about bands X'S, The chick with the frog backpack

i don't even really want to say your name,

i hate the fact that even 6 years later, the holidays are tinged with a hint of anxiety and shame. all because you were so stupid.

thinking back over that period of time in my life, i've reached a lot of conclusions. i was never left in hindsight with the impression that you were (are) a bad or evil person. do i think you are painfully sexist? absolutely. do i think you embody all of the prejudice and cruelty and ignorance that your father was so proud of? definitely. but i don't think you are evil or malicious. i think you were mean, i think you were manipulative, and i think you were insensitive. it's easier for me to continue thinking those things about you, too, actually-because if i didn't, i would give in to that general tendency i have to want to forgive and find the good in people and make amends and befriend the very people who have hurt me most in life. but you are the exception. you are the straw that breaks my back.

it makes me cringe to think about the day after christmas 2003, because when i think about it, all i can think about is everything you took away from me that afternoon (and i don't believe that anyone should ever have that much power over me). but it's true. i didn't give those things up, and definitely not willingly. i feel to this day that they were robbed from me, that they were snatched hurriedly and without warning, and it has left me scarred ever since.

since that cold afternoon, i'm an entirely different person. i'm someone who feels dirty every time she has sex, who can't enjoy sex, who can't allow herself to submit to pleasure, let alone communicate it. i can't be kissed on my neck anymore without it being hard for me to breathe. where there once was a girl who was happy and confident and surrounded by friends, there is now a young woman who consistently second-guesses and guards herself and isolates herself, because she believes that she will always be hurt in the end, and no one will hear her cry. i can't own the good things about myself and i'm more willing than ever to accept the bad things about myself uncritically. my relationship with god is hanging by a thread, and i feel so numb inside about it that i don't know how to get it back. i feel a persistent fear of being anything other than, "fine" to my parents, because it was you who made me their, "sick child," even though they didn't really buy it anyway-and their blaming it entirely on you and dismissing the other things has hurt my ability to share with them. i'm a colder, angrier person than i ever used to be. when i should be happy, i wait for the other shoe to drop-i feel like that emotion is something far off for me, like it's a heat i can feel at the tips of my fingers, but i can't for the life of me just jump headfirst into it.

and i think about that time and even though i know it's not my fault, i still blame myself-i should have told someone, i should have fought harder. but the fact of the matter was that though that afternoon was the one instance that would be worth a police report, it was that whole time that got me to the point that i didn't believe my safety, my body, my purity and my sanity were worth protecting. and to this day, i'm ashamed of myself for ever being in that position.

you ruined my relationship with Joe. by using him as a weapon to bring me to my knees and do what you wanted (just to get you to stop rubbing him in my open wounds), you also bound me forever to him. i will always love him for my own reasons, but i feel when i'm with him like i'm damaged. not like i'm a strong person who overcame you, but who destroyed herself by running to you to get him out of my system. by telling me, "close your eyes, it will be over soon," to get me to stop crying as you took from me the first time, it was his face that i found there-it was the last place i had felt safe. and so every time, every time i closed my eyes, a part of my soul begged him to wake up, and to save me. and he didn't. and so i can't be his friend. i can try awkwardly, i can pretend to, but i can't. because when i look at him, i'm reminded that he never saved me, and wouldn't if i asked him to. and it makes me angry.

and i punish shawn for everything you did to me. i'm closed off physically and guarded emotionally. as much as i make myself vulnerable, part of me always believes that he will let me down-because it was you who taught me that that's what people do to me. they take me for granted, they hurt me, they bruise me. and i want so desperately to stop doubting him. but i'm that kind of girl who holds her breath anymore, who consistently waits for the other shoe to drop. you have taken perhaps my most precious gifts-my faith and my optimism. and i can't seem to track them down, and i can't get them back. because you have them. you have stolen from me in one moment my faith in my own intuition, my sense of perception and reality, my confidence in my talents and strengths, my faith in others, my sweet sensuality. and so even though i'm an authentic person, i still feel in some moments that i'm walking in a shell of the person i used to be. that while i am still nice, and still smart, and still funny, that there's a sense of restraint to it, and it will never approximate the freedom with which i let my hair down and loved myself before you did what you did.

and it goes against every fiber of my being, but i don't want happiness for you. i don't want to wish you well or be civil. as long as you still appear in my nightmares, as long as your name or your proximity makes my heart race and my breathing hard, as long as i feel the shame and anger i do each december, i will hate you, and i will want you dead. which i hate about myself, i really do.

i just wish you'd leave me alone, and i wish i could get back what you stole. because you don't even know the magnitude of your keeping it. it breaks me. you've broken me.

sincerely,
your "queen."

Dear Sarah,

I'm so envious of your giving birth this week. The quilt I've made you is to be humorous and enjoyed but still it isn't enough. You are holding your child today. The world will forever be new seen through her eyes.

I stayed with my husband 28 years ago because he was the one who I wanted to father my children.
Didn't happen. The angst is so overwhelming, but useless to go over again.

You have made so many correct choices. I pray that your journey will be fantastic.

I'm afraid you won't let me be involved, that I won't be invited to babysit, that I will not be worthy... This time really isn't about me though. These are my fears, and I won't tell you any of them because you are surely allowed the joy of your motherhood.

Love you ALWAYS
B

Dear J,

Hello, my friend. It seems we have come full circle. I feel a peace about you now that I never did before. First it was fun, then it was flirtation, then it was weird, then it was formal and cold, then it became fun again. Somewhere in between all those things, I thought maybe I was in love with you. Then you started dating her, and I saw what you were really looking for - a vapid, lifeless trophy wife. And it made me hate you. I told everyone you were a jerk, and I stopped talking to you, avoiding you as much as I could.

Then somewhere along the line, I began to forgive you. Your charismatic personality and warped sense of humor redeemed you as they always do. People, myself included, can't help but gravitate to you. Slowly but surely, we evolved back into the friendly, light-hearted relationship we had before. And then, before I even fully realized it, you became a real friend. The other day, when we had that long and serious conversation, I realized that we've not only come full circle, we've evolved into something even better than before. That day, I told you about my deepest and most secret dream. I've always had this fear that if I ever told anyone that I wanted to go to med school, they'd laugh me out of the room. I've always believed that I was not capable of realizing that dream, and in one day - one hour - you totally squashed that notion. The things you said to me were so encouraging and they completely blew me away. I never knew anyone believed in me that much, least of all you.

After we talked, you said you were glad to have planted a seed. My dear, you didn't just plant a seed - you gave me wings. You set me free from my own self-doubt. You gave me the most beautiful gift someone can give. That day is a day I will always remember with such clarity. On December 12, 2009, you changed my life.

I will be forever grateful to you. I've got a long journey ahead of me, and I know there are going to be times during these next eight years when I need someone to lift me up. In those times, I will always think of you and the things you have said to me. Thank you, friend. I feel alive now because of you.

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. I wish you a lifetime of happiness and love!

All the best,

Me

I wish you'd just marry me already!

:3

to my girl,

i've been missing you so hard, and i don't think you know how much effort it took to approach you today. i love you. you're the best friend i've ever had, and you're so wonderful that it just makes me ecstatic to know what we can continue to be friends, despite my faggotry. i love you. i respect you. i practically worship you, but that's creepy. so i don't but i would if that were a religion. you're just so amazing. but enough butt kissing. to the point of my letter:

thank you so much for understanding. thank you for persevering through my awkward stutter and poor wording. i'm so, so, soooooooooo sososo happy that you accepted my second apology, that it has erased eight months of pain. eight months of depression, of angst, fear, tears and self-loathing. i'm so terribly sorry that i ever lost you. i'm never going to make that mistake again.

and to make sure i don't, i want this to be the beginning of a new level of friendship between us. a friendship where we can tell each other how we're feeling, and what about the other may have made us upset. i want this to be forever. because you're my best friend. and i need you. i know that now.

you're the best. <3
with love,
the first worshipper at your temple >w<

* * * * * *

to captain horrible,

seriously? i haven't done anything to you. like, shut up. if you don't like me, tell me so to my face and get over it. i don't need to hear you stage whispering bad things about me from across the room. it's childish and stupid. what i did was a harm against her, not you. and i know that a good friend understands another's pain and all, but you don't need to go to the extent of putting words up in her mouth. that's not friendship, that's ridiculous.

and for the record? i don't like you. not any more. not now that i've seen what a jerk you can be. i still don't understand how you can get a girlfriend.

piss off;
that bitch who doesn't believe in global warming.

* * * * * *

to mum the great,

i love you. seriously. thank you for dealing with my tears and sobbing rambling for the past few days. and thank you for being my psychologist for five minutes. thank you for helping me get to the root of this, and thank you for showing such an interest. thank you for offering to take me to the doctor. thank you for letting me cry and snot onto your shoulder. thank you for not being grossed out by that. thank you for giving me the talk i've been needing for at least four months. thank you for giving me the resolve to finally talk about my feelings.

but most of all? thank you for giving birth to me. thank you for being my mum. i'll never question your judgement again.

i love you so much,
your very humbled daughter.

* * * * * *

to my metal panda dragon, >u<

i know you don't love me. i don't think i love you either. but i do. i love you like an older brother. and i hope you love me like a little sister. i'm excited to work with you again this summer. and yes, i'm glad you got fired to be able to do it. :)

thanks for being there when i needed you, with out needing details or a full run-down of the situation. you're spectacular.

keep texting me with your hilarity,
your multi-levelled subordinate.

Matt,

You can hate me. You can think I'm pathetic and worthless and crazy and horrible. You think whatever you want. But not telling me if you're dead or alive is just wrong. Damnit, it's just wrong. I don't care if you want to have nothing to do with me. I don't care if you don't want to risk contacting me again in case it unleashes the apparent monster that is me. It's just wrong to leave me not knowing.

It's unbearable and not fair and I don't deserve this. What I did to you doesn't deserve this. It just doesn't. But if I accept that this is wrong and that you wouldn't really purposely do this to me...it means something awful HAS happened to you and that's why I haven't heard anything and I can't really deal with that either. So please, PLEASE, just let me know you're okay. Please.

I miss you.





J,

So you apologised for acting like a bitch the past few weeks. Apparently you're busy and crap. Whatever. This was a good wake up call for me. You're not my friend anymore. At least, you're not my close friend. You're one of those..."friends". It was nice to see how you weren't there whatsoever in my moment of crisis, panic and general nervous breakdown. Thanks for making it clear how much of a priority I am. Now I know how you view things and I will never EVER rely on you to be there for me in hard times. You're just too selfish and too immature. I won't think to talk to you if I ever have another problem. I won't expect you to ever consider how I'm feeling when we're not in touch. This is it for me. Of course, I will still talk to you if you approach me and have the occasional small talk but that close friendship we used to have? The one where we'd discuss everything and spend hours with each other and know each other better than anyone else? Yeah...that's so over.

It hurts that I put so much into our friendship and this is how you repay me. I have been there for you through EVERYTHING. Your family drama, your love life drama, your friend drama, your school drama. Everything. I've always been there to comfort you, advise you and just listen. But the fact that in the one moment where my drama actually trumps yours, where MY issues are actually more important than your bloody work or who your boyfriend talked to at a party, you just totally abandoned me.

Like I already said, I accept your apology. Life is too short. I won't be bitter forever. That's why I'm not actually saying this to your face. But it still hurts. It still upsets me that I mean so little to you. It hurts that my caring and consideration and efforts for this friendship were never worth it. And of course, even if I act unbothered about it all, this doesn't mean we can ever go back to how it used to be. Even if you weren't too selfish and childish for that, I simply have no desire to. This is it for me. Time to move on.

Dear You,
Yes, I'm an atheist and childfree. This does not mean I do not care about what I do or humanity in general. The opposite in fact. I have no personal motivation to continue the earth for future generations, or to be nice to people, but I am, because I don't believe some all-powerful being has humanity's back. My beliefs are my own and I'd rather say I'm doing it for all the people who are going to be reincarnated into a hellish wasteland. I love nature, I recycle, I get my meat/milk/eggs/etc. from organic sources. Hell, I buy my eggs from a local farmer who comes into work once a week.

I have no external motivation, except, you know, I'm not utterly selfish and I believe in basic human decency. End of the story, goodnight.

I'm not the kind of person you think I am. I refuse to bend to your immaturity. If you want to go off and have sex with all the girls you meet that's what you need to do, but please refrain from trying to make me jelous, from trying to get me to come crawling back to you becasue thats just not going to happen. I made my mistake and had my first time with you and you know what I regret it but I refuse to keep reliving what I did and thinking what I could have done. Maybe if we hadn't had our first time together we would still be friends you would still be the boi i go to when I have a problem now I can't go to you and we avoid each other at all costs. Im sorry but I do still want you and I can tell taht you just want to fuck. I dont want that so I have to say goodbye, I;ll miss you, not as a boifriend, but as that friend who was a boi.
All the memories,
never again your girl.

B,

I haven't even got the words. I'm tired of worrying how this'll pan out, when you don't even care. I should just cut you out. And I have. And I don't really miss you, even, and that should tell me lots. But it hurts me that you don't miss me. It shows I was right to say screw you, but it still hurts.


R,

I shouldn't but I miss what we were.


(different)R & A,

I'm so glad you're coming home. R... I learnt to hug people because of you. And A... R loves you, and I trust her judgement, and so I want to know you too. I can't wait for you both to be here. It's going to be awesome, to be able to sit next to you both and talk to you every day.

Dear Girl:

I know you found my letter to you. The one posted in my personal journal, not in this community. The one that used names, not initials. However, you seem to be obsessed with me as of late, and obsessed with cyber-stalking me (Googling all of our names together? Really?) and I don't know if it will take much longer before you find this community and compose one of your own letters to me. I just wanted to give you a heads up, I'm keeping a close eye out for it and am waiting with bated breath to read it. Although, given your loose grasp on basic spelling/ grammar rules, I might have to give up halfway though, so maybe I ought to say I look forward to skimming it.

You will never get me out of your head. From this point on, you will always feel insecure and unsure. Maybe not about me. But about every other girl that gets close to him. About him in general. About your judgement and your relationship. Am I sorry? Not particularly. At least not to you. I have nothing to be sorry to you for. I'm sorry to him, I let things get out of hand, and it got screwed up and a lot of people ended up hurt. But you drew battle lines long ago, so my "winning" certainly doesn't make me sorry.

Anyway, this letter has gotten out of hand. I didn't intend to write a novella, just a short missive, saying I know you found my letter and I am expecting a reply. Maybe not shortly, maybe later; after you feel you've won. But you're the kind who can't let any deed go unpunished, good or bad. You're too childish to let me have what you would feel is the last word. So I'm waiting. Please know that you won't get a response. Just like you didn't get one to your derogatory and angry text message. After all, I know just how to get to you, and ignoring you is the very best way.

None of my love but all of my contempt,
Me.

P.S. Congratulations on getting the apostrophe in the correct place in that text message. But please, for the love of all things bright and beautiful, use spell check on your letter. It would just be painful to read otherwise.

s:

a month ago i would have begged you to not call me beautiful.
today, you can call me beautiful as much as you want.

i'm ready for this to begin now. i'm ready for someone who loves me.

m

I really tried. I wanted to forget you. Leave your life. I promised myself to ban everything from my life that remembers me of you, to send your letters back unopened and not to answer the phone if you call.
Are you very surprised when I tell you now it didn't work?
It's making me sick to know you family suffers because of us. It nearly kills me to see that A. is still fighting for me although I explained everything to him and ended our relationship.
I tried so hard to be reasonable, to do the right thing... but it hurts so much. I miss you, T. I miss you so much.
Jeg elsker deg.

Dear stupid health insurance company or whoever,

I hate this. I hate the painful irony of it, I hate the physical and financial pain of it. I hate everything about this.

I don't even really know how this happened. I was told I wasn't covered on my parent's health insurance after I turned 19. Well I guess through some special loophole I was. I had health insurance till I turned 21. Guess what? I just found out. I just turned 21.

Two years of letting serious health problems go untreated when they could have been. Two years of paying for doctor's visits out of pocket when I didn't have the money. Now I'm being sued for an emergency room visit I couldn't pay for when my insurance should have paid for it.

How did we not know? Why weren't we told?

I'm sitting here not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the almost comical timing in which this has all taken place. Why couldn't I have magically found out ANYTIME sooner? No, I found out exactly after I turned 21.

Shit.

-Uninsured

Dear Z.:
Why are you so pretty? Okay, scratch that. Why are you so gorgeous AND taken AND so much younger than me? We get along wonderfully, I think we may have flirted a few times (but then again, hell if I know, since I'm hardly an expert), and you're such a great guy...with such a great stomach. Which by the way, was there a reason for running around with your shirt half-off for nearly ten minutes that day? It was so awkward and so uncomfortable and it took everything I had not to stare at you all hour. Dammit, stop being so adorable and friendly!
-that girl who files your attachments for Metals class

Dearest Henry,

It's too bad that now I'm having my feet on therapy. I hate my condition in such disability. I miss living my normal live. I can scarcely move. For my worse case, I might possibly even sit on the wheelchair. God, this anguish is seriously killing me. Each day I start to lose my mood. And today I'm quite surprise to see my face is so pale when I looked at the mirror. I look very weak.

But I'm not only physically vulnerable. My feeling's hurt too. I hate most people that used to be called 'friends'. They've backstabbed me, they've betrayed me. Everybody is performing their own play. I'm really nauseous with them, so I choose to isolate myself and stop socialising for the mean time. All I met was not their faces, but their masks. I'm tired of the life full of drama.

While despite of my agonies, I'm falling in love with you deeper than before. Whenever I think of you it's often entertaining my depressive mind, but still I feel like a bird that wants to escape from its cage. I miss you so much, Henry. I am afraid I will not come around to your cafe and see you again. I can't predict when my therapy session will last.

So please do pray that hopefully I'm going to be fully recovered. I hope you don't forget me and when everything is already fine, I want to see you again at least on the Christmas day, last day of this year or the New Year.

Beautifully fragile,
Nina

i can't believe how far you've gotten under my skin.

it's only been 16 days since you arrived on my scene, whispering words in my ears that i had never heard before. so sweet, so endearing, so pure. the first man in a long time to want to know my favorite colors, and not just see pink.
i could hardly believe my eyes when i saw that you were real.
our time we've spent together has been incredible.
you taught me to adore you.
and since then there's a shadow that's surfaced in your eyes, a darkness that's dampened your smile.

already, a wall has been built between us.

my heart is broken for you, your friend is gone and he will not be coming back.
another one of life's mysteries, bitterly unfair and inexplicable.

and now i have this deep-seated fear that you will retreat into yourself entirely and i will never see you again.
i couldn't abide that.

i just want to hold you.
caress your face, run my hands through your hair. (which is really getting quite shaggy, by the way.)
i wish you'd let me comfort you.

-your best girl.

A for Anonymous.

I wish you would call me. I don't want to wish this. I don't want to admit it. But I do. I don't think I know how to separate physical and emotional intimacy. And I don't want to have to. And this sucks. What I do sucks. But it's all I can do.

Want me. Please. What am I doing wrong?

-Me