Dear Me

Dear Me,

     It’s your birthday today. This is the first time you’ve written anything in at least a month too. Never mind the book you’re supposed to be writing. You’re thirty eight today bud. Almost forty. And quite often you keep telling yourself that you don’t really have a lot to show for it. Just as often you wonder if you ever will. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we already consider ourself a failure don’t we? Your marriage has been on the rocks for years now, you barely see your friends, and even when you do you feel like the outsider, the pity case. Only there because of one person and it isn’t you. Your kids still love you, that’s a plus, but you spend almost every day wondering if you’re really teaching them anything and praying, begging that they don’t end up like you, a sad sack of a man drifting aimlessly through life, a product of too little ambition and too many wasted opportunities.
 
    You know the worst part? We’re scared bud. When did we get to be so timid? We shrink from confrontation and we tremble at the thought of someone being mad at us because we can’t help but think that whatever they think of us, they’re right. If we hide from it, maybe we can ignore it. Maybe we can pretend like we have it together, like we’re not hanging by a thread that’s fraying just a little bit more every year, like we don’t flinch every time today comes around because we truly believe that our birthday isn’t worth celebrating, that we aren’t worth celebrating. 

     What really gnaws at us is the guilt. Man guilt is such a strong kick in the gut. We feel guilty for wasting those opportunities, guilty for disappointing everyone who expected so much from us. We look at our kids and we see so much potential to be such a force for good, for change, and we remember that somebody looked at us like that once, and we let them down. We let ourselves down. Worst of all is the guilt over feeling this way, guilty that we still hurt even though this was the bed we made to lie in. We’re one twisted little basket case bud.
  
   You do get credit for a few things though. You found some new friends and have some great friends that make you forget how miserable you are, if only for a little while at a time, a group of good people who you’re positive only like you because they don’t know the you behind the mask but for now, you don’t care. They make you want to do better and at this point, we’ll take all the encouragement we can get.
 
    The kids, man we’ve messed up there a lot haven’t we. But they still love us, and for all intents and purposes you’re a pretty decent dad. Two of them even made the honor roll last time, and the little guy is happy and as healthy as he can be, so kudos there man. You’re doing at least one thing decently well. 

     If you can be proud of one thing though bud, it’s that we’re still here. Maybe it’s because we’re too afraid to end ourselves, maybe it’s because we don’t want to disappoint anyone else, or maybe it’s because deep down, under all the pressure and sadness we feel, there’s still hope that things can get better. We persevere through daily life and all the struggles we deal with, internally and externally, because those small things we can be happy with are signs that maybe our life doesn’t have to stay the way it is. We keep going, hoping every day is gonna be better than the last, and much to our surprise, some of them even are.   

   I guess I wanted to write to you, to me, to us, because today, our day, I want us to remember that we’ve been through a lot, and even though the load keeps getting bigger and the journey longer, we’re still here to travel it. And that means something. We’re still here.
     Happy Birthday bud.

-Us