10/24/10

"Dear Stranger,

Like the many letters that came before mine, I must admit to being slightly nervous.
I didn’t think I would be—after all, if you have read so many others than the fear is
mutual, there is no need to express it. This last statement is false and a pattern I seem to
follow for life: if someone else has done it, felt it, gotten through it, then I should be able
to avoid it, right?

My mother struggled from depression when I was younger. She divorced my father for
some various unknown reasons—at least, unknown reasons to my seven-year-old self.
Her decision has changed all the rest of my life and while I at one point determined that
to be good, it is difficult not to see the bad right now. I am suffering from depression and
I cannot help but think that I am becoming my mother. I attempt to tell her how I feel but
she keeps asking if I have done this or that to make it better. I know she means well but
all I hear is my own failure in avoiding this state of being. I am lonely and uncertain and
a thousand other emotions that a thousand other people have felt before. How can I know
I am so similar to strangers like you without feeling like a face lost in the crowd? How
can I bear to be different if it means I risk standing alone?

At every corner I turn I keep hearing the same message: “ Live life more forward.” I hear
it in the words of William Blake and the loud, chaotic, deep-thinking symphonies of
Mahler. My voice teacher tells it to me two times a week—that's right, I am a singer and
a pretty good one at that although I don’ t think I will be able to perform for a profession
since I have passion but not THAT much passion for it. That last sentence was a run-
on and I am fighting the urge to go back and fix it—Live life more forward. Even in my
physics professor tells us to “ dare to be correct!” It’ s as if the whole world keeps spinning
a circle of words around me. Live life more forward.

In that vain I wish to tell you more details. I could go on about the pain and the loneliness
but the truth of the matter is that the thing we think is most secret is really the pain
everyone shares. If you know yourself then you know how I hurt and if you have ever
been betrayed or adversely effected by someone important to you, you know how long
it stays. I do not need to talk of these things, you know. We all know. And we spend our
whole lives afraid of what it might mean to shout that to the world. I KNOW AND I AM
NOT AFRAID OF WHAT WE SHARE!

So, instead, I will arm you with the strongest weapon you have: what makes me happy.
If you know that, you can take it away but I don’ t think you will. I love to sing. I love to
sing to myself because it is my way of connecting to the world. At one point I wanted to
be a poet because seeing the way my words could find that shared meaning it someone’ s
heart made me glow inside. I stopped writing because I did not believe I could make that
shared feeling complex enough for modern society. Live life more forward. My favorite
part of singing is when you finish a piece, especially a sad one, and you see the eyes
moist in the room (the ones other than your parent’ s although that is more legitimate than
I usually give credit). In that moment of moist eyes there is a collective still before the
clapping begins—that is how you know you have moved someone, anyone, the room.
Those moments of silence are sacred moments. They are the look in someone’ s eyes
when you put words or a voice to something they did not know how to say themselves.

That’ s the truth about art: we are all saying the same thing in different ways until we can
finally communicate with each other. We may try to burry it in complex metaphor or
process or narrative but in the end we are simply trying to put voice to the longing in all
of us: “ Someone, give a damn about me in whatever form that may come.”

Look, I tried for details and ended up in the abstract one more. I must admit, I don’ t know
many things about myself. Actually, it’ s more that I know many things about myself
but each day I can only seem to name a few. My head is easily overwhelmed with too
many “ shoulds” and “ coulds” and “ mights.” I think less often of who I am and more
often of the me I should/could/might be if I could change one more thing. I am guessing
you share this trait. I may be wrong but I am probably right. Live life more forward.

I love dogs more than cats but given my tendency to sign up for too many things, cats
are much easier. It doesn’ t really matter right now, though I can’ t have either while I am
moving around so much. My father is veterinary professor and he taught me to never buy
a pet until I could actually afford to care for one—I don’ t know where I will be in the
next ten years but I know it won’ t be very stable. Still, I miss having something warm
and soft to pet and someone that loves you simply for feeding them. Pets are the best.

And now, because I think I have rambled on longer than I should (more for need of
sleep than for wanting to quit) I give you one more detail: wool socks are the best part of
winter.

Thank you for being a therapeutic tool. I will not pretend to be interested in your reply:
the next person will be interested enough for the both of us. Good luck. Live life more
forward.

Love (as much as you can love anyone),

The person in the mirror"