T is for tired

 Dear Dr. Ross,

There are people that are just born tired. Their cells combine, their mouths form, and they yawn. This isn't to say these people are bored. This isn't to say that these people lack appreciation for the world around them. These are people composed of dreams so heavy, their eyes slide closed and their limbs take on too much weight to carry.

You've never gotten enough sleep, Rip Van Winkle, dream, dream, dream.

Take my mother for example. The circles from under her eyes have been there since birth. She awakens when the world is alive around her. The mundane isn't interesting enough to keep ones eyes open. To miss all the impossible things a mind can create, for the sake of unloading a dishwasher. Oh no. That will never do.

That's what I meant when you asked me what my mother was like. Tired wasn't another word for negligent or sad. She is Alice. She sleeps underneath shady trees and dreams of chasing that white rabbit.

She wasn't perfect. But she did make little cakes, breads, jams, and tea. She just happened to sleep a lot, that's all.

Some people just have too many dreams to keep them here for very long.

I really wish I could make you understand that. You seem so antagonistic towards my childhood, my mother, my memories of her gently snoring, and my mouth full of homemade jam.

Love,
Kendra

S is for stretchmarks

Dear body,
We haven't always had the same idea of what you were supposed to be like. My first want for you was boobs, a butt, thighs, and hips. A real woman's curves. It took years and several cheeseburgers, but eventually you complied. I could no longer see the spread of my hip bones, jutting out like the wings of a flesh colored butterfly.

Then it was my nose, my teeth, my eyes, the color of my hair, the length of my legs, how sparse my eyebrows are, and that one weird mole that rests inside the hollow of my neck. Every time I looked in the mirror I just saw large pores and crooked teeth.

I've never really thought of myself as a pretty girl, but this isn't a letter about my self-esteem. This is a letter about my stretchmarks.

I became dissatisfied with the curves that I demanded of you. Maybe it was because we jiggled with every step we took, maybe it's because nothing fit right, or maybe it's because I ate all my sadness and whenever I looked down it just made me want a brownie.

So, you were nice enough to comply. I'm starting to be thin again.

But now, you're riddled with these shimmery white stripes. My calves, hips, breasts, and butt are now marred with stretchmarks.

And I really don't mind them.

These are our stretchmarks. They go for miles and miles to explain the woman we've grown into. The body of the child we've left behind. They are pink and red and silvery white, stretched around those parts people like to touch. They are ugly but they are the evidence of maturity. I look at them and I am proud.

Honestly, I don't think you've ever been so lovely.

I think I'll keep you this way. Crooked teeth, stretchmarks, and all.

Love,
Kendra

Q and R, questions and responses

Dear God,
I grew up with you guiding my life from a very young age. In fact, I even wrote sermons in the hopes of one day becoming a lady pastor. They were all about how you should just love everybody, and they were all written in crayon.

I grew up, eventually. I stopped believing in you, or maybe you stopped believing in me. But I do still believe people should just love each other, because why not? It just makes things easier.

My reasoning for believing that when I was younger was because I was told we were all made in the image of you, and that you were a benevolent and loving God. It only seemed logical that compassion was the mirror and not this dumb monkey meat you put me in. So I tried to treat everyone as if they were all conversation pieces with God. I tried to love them as you did, I tried to show you what a kind monkey you made, a monkey that would teach other monkeys to be kind through actions.

But, then, life had more interesting and difficult questions. The only reply I could muster is that you couldn't possibly exist.
You see, like my crack addict uncle, I would rather you be dead to me than to stand next to your festering sink hole of lies and apathy.
That sounds way more bitter than I intended. Sorry.

I realized very soon after those hard ball questions, I was very different than these other monkeys. And they noticed. It was like waking up in the garden of Eden, bloated with those thinking apples, without a fig leaf. Except in this garden, everybody else had been awake for a while,no one else was naked, and their tummies didn't hurt from binge eating from the tree of knowledge.

These monkeys are really kind of rude, you know?

I was mad about that. But I eventually found science, which answered a whole lot more questions than your old testament of chicken soup for the soul, and I was satiated. I actually find more comfort in elements than in everlasting life.
I'm a random chance made of star stuff, and that's a whole lot better than being somethings lonely echo.

Listen: I'm not here to bash you for anyone else. I've seen the work you do for the ill and grieving. You give people hope and that's lovely. Thank you.

I just don't think people should be encouraged with a reward for barely meeting the qualifications of being a decent human being. That should just be a thing they do.
So, stop handing out paradise like it's candy. People are getting lazy down here.

Love,
Kendra

P is for personal space

Dear overly physical friend,
I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but please do not touch me.
I need more personal space than you do.
Yeah, I get it, I know we're friends. That's what friends do, they make physical contact to show some sort of human solidarity. I get that you are just being nice. I get that it's "my thing." And I honestly feel bad about it. I don't want to hurt your feelings and, contrary to my spacial needs, you do not actually repulse me.
But I don't like being close to other humans. My comfort zone is two feet. I was actually ridiculed by my psych professor for having double the "average" distance. Weird, right?

This rule applies to everyone but a handful of people, and even those people have stipulations.
Even when I am full on ugly crying, my best friend understands that touching should be minimal.

There is one situation that this does not apply. But we will never get there. So don't worry your pretty head.

listen: I'm not cold. I'm not still. In the right situation, under the right circumstances, and on my terms I love physical contact. I adore it. I will one day break the mold and probably rest my head on your shoulder or give you a hug. But don't force me there. I may not touch you for a while after that. Please don't force that either.

I can't explain why I'm like this. Nothing happened to me to make me this way. No amount of therapy has fixed it.
And I'm sorry that it hurts your feelings.

I will make you a cloth mother.

If that helps.

Love,
Kendra

Lmno

Dear Adam,
I'm lazy. I will have many times that I don't update this thing like I'm supposed to. But I'm trying to keep on keeping on because of your unwavering and relentless support. I'm not calling you a nagger. Certainly not calling you that.
You tell me I should write and sometimes I have nothing to say. I have plenty to say when I call you 5 times a day (I'm surprised that your lady doesn't hate me).
So I thought, maybe, I should just write a letter to you.
Marsupials. I always wondered if it was gross inside their skin pockets. I bet so. I bet they never wash inside of there. Disgusting.
See? Lazy.

If I would have changed one letter in this post, it would have become offensive. Now I have my O.
Ha. Wakka wakka.

Okay. Now back to my homework mountain and cramming for finals.

Love,
Kendra

PS. My next letter will be better. I promise.

K is for Kurt

Dear Kurt,
You fell down some steps some years ago and scrambled your beautiful egg.
I was real sad about that.

I would have very much liked to have met you. Maybe pressed the bottoms of our feet together. Maybe held your hand.
Whatever you were comfortable with, really.

I just think you were the tops. I read your books and you made me believe what I already knew to be true.

But listen: the dumb confused kid I was and still continue to be, well, she thanks you. All your apples and dots and hi-hos, well, they kind of shaped me into the lady I am.

You'll be happy to know that I'm farting around and trying my best to write every day.

Love,
Kendra

J is for Jeff.

Dear Jeff,
It's funny, isn't it? J will always be for you. After 16 years it's the first thing I think of whenever anyone asks me to name anything j.
No big surprise, bro. You were only the best person I've ever met. Truly.
Let me tell you about something I remembered the other day:

I was probably around 9, I think? Anyway, mom sent me off AGAIN to that slow burning hell that was girl scout camp. You know, I was terrible at making friends. Everyone always made fun of me because I was weird and my legs were too skinny and I wouldn't put up with anybody's shit.
It was the middle of that second hell week. I had already been ostracized because they blamed me for the lizards that showed up in that bitch, Candy's, shower tote, when someone put glue in the cabin's sunscreen bottles because they can't take a joke, and then they freaked on me for sinking the canoe (even though we were all wearing life vests and it totally wasn't my fault, they were the ones thrashing about because I pointed out that it was named Crystal Lake).
Anyway, I was particularly blue. No one had come to my rescue, even though I sent Mom numerous correspondences about how every bone in my body was broken.
The girls were particularly cruel that day. They started calling me hotdog and wouldn't share any of the good colored paints.
But you knew, some how. I got a letter that day from you.

You told me I was dumb, you didn't miss me at all, and I shouldn't ever come back.

So I did what any loyal and loving little sister would do. I used my shiny new fire starting knowledge on Candy's dumb bird house. I got kicked out of girl scout camp forever, and even though I was grounded when I got home, we hung out in your room and you read me Batman comics while I ate the brick of cheese you stole for me from the fridge.

Totally worth it.

I miss you, dude.

Love,
Kendra

I is for inebriated

Dear beer,
You are lovely. I'm sitting here on my front porch, looking at my beautiful Atlanta skyline, reading some Vonnegut, and enjoying the shit out of you.
I once had this crazy idea that you tasted like horse piss. I, eventually, took my baby steps into wheat beers and now have developed the pallet for a bitter ipa.
You see, I'm uninsured. I'm an uninsured anxiety freak. You help out. You help out a lot, buddy. One of you in the evening before bed keeps me from staying up all night with intrusive thoughts and arguments with that one guy that insulted me seven years ago.

Listen: I don't need you. That's not what this is about. This is my way of saying thank you. My country has a shitty health care system, I'm horribly poor, and have been blessed with bad chemicals.
I've had a particularly interesting brain bug day and you are doing a wonderful job. I don't even care that I could, at any moment, spontaneously combust and set all that I love on fire.
Don't care at all.
And it's because of you.

Love,
Kendra

E, f, g, h, is for

Dear Rob Thomas,
    You have no idea what you are talking about. A heart does not break from ideas. It breaks from poor diet, old age, or genetic defects.
The epicardium actually keeps that shit together fairly well. The chambers of your heart do not split in two just because you are sad. It does not stop to consider your feelings. It's just as relentless and unforgiving as the idea you are experiencing.

Don't worry, I'm not suicidal. I'm grateful for my life and do not wish to cause any harm to myself or others.

But, I just wanted to point out that no matter how awfully sad, or horrible things can be for you emotionally, your heart will not break. It just, mockingly, keeps on pumping blood through your body. Like nothing is even wrong.

The heart is an Asshole.
Write about that, instead.

Love,
Kendra

D is for death.

Dear people that attend my funeral,
Whenever you go to my loved ones at my funeral I never want you to say "the flowers were lovely."
Listen: I want my funeral to reflect my life, a place that is so confusing and absurd and ridiculous that there is no time for grief. I want the last memory to be had of me to be something that battles the immeasurable loss you'll surely have. So please, at my funeral go nuts. If you think something is hilarious, laugh, laugh your fucking heart out. If you suddenly get the urge to sing a little ditty, make a chain of paper hearts, flip a table, or get knee crawling drunk: do so. Do it with gusto. Make sure that everyone knows you still can feel something else, that you are not bound to your grief, and that quiet sobriety just will not fucking do. This will be the second most important thing to ever happen to my monkey meat, make it fucking count.

Love, Kendra.

C is for choices

Dear Little Baby Kendra,
          Hey, little baby. How are your toes? Good? Good.
You have no idea, yet, but life is going to get very strange for you. You are going to get freaked out by all of the weirdness that's happening in your days and in your head and you're gonna make some pretty unpopular decisions.

It's okay, though, because you're going to be young and dumb and confused. I'm here to deal with the mess you've made. That's what I am here for and I'm good at it. I can't really hold it against you because I'm still making choices Future Kendra will have to deal with.

I wish I could tell you not to drop out of school. I wish I could tell you not to date the conspiracy theorist with anger issues, that guy is bad news. And I wish I could tell you not to freak out and run away at every life change.
But you wouldn't listen, even if I could, would you? No. Because no one tells you what to do, right?

Yeah, that's still a thing you do. You also never really get over playing the drop game. Or with your toes. You're still kind of a dumb baby.

Listen: I've gotten to the point to where your choices no longer keep me up at night. Finally. And I've even accepted the words I would say to you, if I could, for myself and my choices:

It's life, little baby. Now: shhhhhhh. Calm down, it's okay, you're okay.

I've got you.


Love,
Present Kendra

B is for boyfriend

Dear Boyfriend,
        You should know by now how much I love and adore that beautiful face of yours. That gorgeous stupid face sends me flip-flopping directly over the goddamned moon.

I'll never say this to you... ever... but I've even written some really terrible poetry about holding your hand. Yeah, I'm pretty fucking ashamed. But you send me. You honestly do. (Thanks, Sam)

There is just one thing.

One tiny little thing. 


YOU ARE THE WORST COMMUNICATOR ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET AND IT MAKES ME HATE YOU.

I get a little crazy. I do. I end up getting way too drunk, way too emotional, and end up passed out in my laundry hamper.
(Okay, so... typically... I don't get overly attached girlfriend emotional, unless I'm already laundry hamper drunk. The previous statement is for dramatic comedic effect. I'm not actually that crazy. Promise.)

You live 659 miles away from me. It takes me 2 hours to fly, 11.5 hours to drive, and it would take me a little over a week if I wanted to follow the example of a late 80's pop song. But texting? Calling? It's the power of the future, my friend. Use it.

It's how you know someone loves you, they care about your day and what happened inside the parameters of the time it takes the earth to complete a rotation cycle. In every other respect you are near perfect to me.
But when we don't talk? My anxiety flairs up. I start wondering:
Does my monkey not love me? Did my monkey find a different monkey? Maybe with thicker hair and a smaller waist? Did he find a funnier monkey? Maybe one that likes to smear rust and whale fat on her face and takes pictures of herself smiling in all her beautiful monkey glory? 

And it kinda makes me want to pee in your shoes. Because I'm not that girl. Normally.

Listen: I get you have your own life. I get that you can't talk to me every second of every day. I totally respect that and, honestly, I would hate it if you tried. I love you but I can't move across the country for so much snow and a boy that never calls.

Love,
Kendra

A is for Assholes.

Dear Asshole Neighbor,
What the fuck are you doing over there? It's fucking midnight, dude. On a Sunday. It sounds like you are jackhammering the side of your house with a frozen animal corpse. I'm pretty sure that this a demonstration of your drumming skills, sadly.
We, across the driveway, are less than impressed. Perhaps if you tried when you're a little more sober and stop being a ham fisted dickbag, you'd have more rhythm.
Also, speaking of the driveway, it's supposed to be shared. I realize that your windowless white van probably needs to stay out of view from cops, but can you park it closer to your house? I hate having to wrestle my trashcans around your pedomobile. Those bins are heavy with evidence of mine and my roommates blossoming romance with alcoholism.
Which, by the way, you are not invited to. So stop getting high and wandering over here to drink all my booze. I'm always going to be too busy to hang out with you. Always.
Love,
Kendra
PS. Don't ever say "my girl" when referring to me again. It's weird, gross, rude, and presumptuous. Especially considering that I've talked to you for a total of, maybe, twenty minutes.