I've got so much I'd like to say to you but no real idea how I'd like to start. I don't want to start off with all kinds of silly small talk, but always feel that I have to. Things like, 'how are you?' and 'what's new?' which would sound very fake but are actually genuine. Well, I'll try to forget those things and really get the ball rolling right away, and try not to miss anything.

I came to a conclusion today. I'm not living for anything anymore. Up until now, I've felt that my life had at least some kind of meaning, whether it be to help people, to be a scapegoat, or anything else, however miniscule. Lately I've just been so depressed and I didn't know why. I'd reverted back to being 16 or so, with so much depression and anger inside me and nowhere to vent it and nothing to create from it. I feel like I did when I was 16... I feel powerless against everything. I'd really hoped I'd grown past this kind of feeling and left it in the past, and it's devastating now that it's back because I'm not used to it at all. And I guess I got to thinking about how I vanquished it last time, and a lot of the reason was you. I would have done anything for you. I would have killed in cold blood and thought nothing of it. You truly made me the happiest person in the world, or at least, the happiest and most carefree version of me there was. It was all you. You were my motivation to try to make the world a better place. And now with everything falling to pieces as they have been lately, and the cold dead future of adulthood on the bleak horizon... it makes me wonder what indeed it is I have to look forward to. I don't want you to feel bad now, that's not the point of this letter. Actually, I want you to feel good in whatever you're doing and where ever you are because... well, because of how much you've really done for me. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have learned what love is, and how to do it, and just how important a thing it is. If it weren't for you, I think I'd be a lot less dedicated, moral and determined as I have been over the span of time since I met you way back when.

I still love you very much, I want you to know that too. Love, to me, is something that does not die. And the way I'm feeling at this exact moment, well, I wouldn't mind living in this feeling's shadow for a while. It would keep me going, that's for sure. You know how much of an emotional junkie I am, I get off on all of them.

I don't feel like I have a purpose anymore. I don't feel special anymore either. And I don't know which I'm more worried about. I know I don't want to lose myself, but what I am keeps coming into question so repeatedly it's just getting harder and harder to nail down. I like to think at heart I'm a wonderful person, I mean, who doesn't? But I can do such horrible, terrible things sometimes to people who I think deserve them. I'm capable of such an enormous spectrum of feelings and behaviour that I want to explore the whole range, but to dwell in the deepest darkest evil that I am capable of, for any amount of time, is really a scary thought.

Everything has always been about control. I so rarely lose control, and if I do, it's only for a matter of seconds...

I want to lose control, Rebecca. I want someone else to take care of me for a while, but that is an impossible task for two reasons. The first is because it would be such a difficult task. It would take a person of a heart 5 times the size of mine to be able to really shelter me and enjoy it all the time. The second is that... I don't trust anyone enough with my well being. Everyone I know is far too hung up on looking after only themselves. Well, mostly everyone. There's just no one I trust a quarter of the amount I trust myself is all.

There's something else I'm not sure of. I think... and oh God do I ever hope, I think I've found someone... someone who might even surpass you at your greatest. And that's a compliment, girl, not anything CLOSE to an insult. Because up until now... there's only ever been you. Yes, I've loved besides you, and I mean... love is love... love is the ultimate... all you fucking need is love! ...but with you I was so innocent and so trusting and so pure and so unweathered. So... I'm kind of scared. I know, I know, I'm being a real wuss on this one but... hmn, I don't know... 'but' what?

This is turning out to be a lot harder than I'd thought it would be. So many times I've wanted to write you a letter, just a note to tell you I hadn't forgotten you and never would... and I never did. I was afraid of that too. I thought of it especially around your birthday, and of course at times like this... my thoughts always turn to you. And to me. To us, really. And yes, we had our hard and painful times, but I can't help but stick to the good ones. Like the time I wrote you all that poetry and put it up in your locker along with that delicate dried rose. I was such a different person with you. I was so much more... well hell, I was just more. Your laugh, your smile, your eyes. Remember what they called us? The 'match made in hell', because we were perfect together but heaven would never allow the coming together of two being that were so evil seeming. Heh, so fitting. My God, you were always so wonderful to me.

I just had the biggest cry I think I've had in at least a year. Just thinking about you made me go through my old box o' stuff to find those pictures of us in the Stoney Creek mall in the photo booth. They weren't in my box, I'm fairly sure they're downstairs in my one university box. I'll look for them tomorrow, it'll give me a reason to wake up. Do you still have your two pictures, I wonder? I really, really hope so. I really hope I meant as much to you as you did and do to me. And you know, I think I did. I didn't find those pictures in my box, but I found your school picture, and a couple of your patented 'bored' letters. The first one I read... well, it just did me in. I burst out crying, I had to. It was just so beautiful. It was so *you*. Other stuff too. Like your Shoppers nametag, your valentines day heart that you hid in your sock, movie stubs... and your monkey picture. I still have your monkey candle up on my shelf buried under a bunch of stuff. Your monkey picture hit me really hard though. You probably don't even remember it. It was in your locker, and you just left it there when you moved out of it, with a couple of other things that I also took. It's just this picture from a childrens book of a mama monkey holding up her little baby monkey and they're just as happy as can be. And it just hit me again as I described it, I've got wetworks flying everywhere.

Why does it hurt so much, geez! It just makes me feel like everything I have an am now is so worthless when I think of how things used to be. I want to put the monkey picture up on my wall but I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop crying if I do.

I wish someone could console me. I know people who'd like to try, yes, but they wouldn't be able to. So many people think they know me so well anymore, but they just have no idea. If they did, they'd leave me the hell alone. But you... you did know me. I was so much a part of you, and you were so much a part of me... and then it was just... gone. I like to think that if only you didn't have to move away... or if maybe we'd started when we were a little older, maybe... then maybe I'd get a 'happily ever after' out of all of this. Fuck, maybe then someone other than us would have taken us personally. I don't think I ever told you about the ride home from your sisters apartment that first time. Me and my mom and dad stopped in a Burger King for something to eat before really leaving, and my dad just turned to me and said something like, 'so that's probably about it for the two of you, eh?' and... and... I don't know how I didn't just break his worthless neck. But that 'happily ever after'... in a perfect world, yes, that's completely how it would have gone. I would have been completely content to spend the rest of my life with you, and if there was one thing... just one thing I could do over, it would be to keep you from poking around in your dad's things, which I know were right there out in the open as it was... but that's what I'd do. Then maybe he wouldn't have had reason to throw you away. You know, I find it so impossible to understand... how could he have been so wrong about you? Your own damn father... it makes me so angry! If he'd gotten to know you... if he'd tried to understand you... and even me, for that matter. Fuck.

Thinking about things like that... it really doesn't do me any good so I might as well stop. I need to change the subject anyhow. I started saying earlier that maybe, oh please maybe... there's someone else for me like you. It's going to take a lot out of me in the next while... and I'm either going to be as happy as I ever was, or I'm going to feel like I don't want to live anymore. It's so strange how the course of your life, something you think of and deem as your own can be altered and ultimately controlled by something or someone else.

Well, this girl... I have to find out. For some reason I think you'd probably hate her. Well actually, either that or you'd be pretty good chums, really. Ah hell, I have no idea, it's hard to tell with something like that. And you know, this might mean leaving everything I ever was and had behind and trying to start all over again... but I have to do it. And the only reason I have to do this... is because of you. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't know what I was missing and would just stay 'neutral' and 'safe'. So I have to thank you once again for something else. Thoughts and memories of you are going to give me the courage and strength I need to carry on and persevere, though everything and all around me be nothing but suffering and pain. I've had a little saying recently, 'everything is pain', and it has been. The moments of happiness have been altogether too fleeting and insignificant as compared to the things I could and should be chasing and feeling.

Being a little punk all my life, I've always carried the notion that the monetary things in life... they just don't matter. I've never felt that to be more true as now. What matters most cannot be measured, and if it could, the readings would be fudged and bastardized by slick jerks by now anyway. I can't always make a difference, but I can always try to. That's something else I've been missing lately and is going to be very difficult to get back. The farther you go down the wrong road, the longer it takes to get back. It's like going over one way tire spikes. You'll roll over them so smooth you won't even notice... it's backing up that's going to fuck you in the ass.

So I have a really hard journey ahead of me. And yes, there's going to be some people who want to help me, but with any hope they can just realize the best way they can help is to stay the hell out of my way. Because they may be nice and they may be important... and then again, they may not... because right now, they're not what I'm looking for and they're not what I'm headed towards.

I'm going for the ultimate prize, Rebecca. I'm going to do it. It's been a while, but really, deep down inside... past and beyond all that self doubt and self loathing and self pity... I know... and I mean I KNOW I can do this.

All I ask from you is that you wish me luck, and that you really, truly do realize that you've always meant the world and more to me. So with a little luck, and a lot of determination... I'll get to her. I'll find her and she will not get away, because I know what I've already lost and I'm not about to do it again.

My head hurts and my cheeks are stained with dry tears, and I love you. I'm not out to find your successor, it's different than that. More like... someone to pass the torch to. Someone to start rebuilding my life with out of itty bitty lego blocks. Someone with whom I can have what you and I had.

You know I wish you all the best regards in the world, and I hope things have been going as well as possible for you. I hope you too have again found someone who can be your ultimate like you were and are to me. I hope with all my heart and being that you are safe and well and most importantly, happy. So happy that some days you have to cry because of it. So happy that you don't even want to be any happier, for fear of bursting! Happy. Finally and peacefully happy.

I've gotten to the point that I don't want this letter to end and just want to keep going, but I think I've said the things I had to. I want to wish you happiness and love a million more times though! Well, consider this a million and one... be happy. Seek out most what makes you happy.

Only a love as innocent, pure and true as ours was will save me now, and I cannot afford to(and owe it to myself not to) settle for anything less.

I'm a thousand times a better person because of you, and I will always love you a thousand times more than my worthless words can say,

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