letter #6: to myself

B,

Late at night, and everything becomes unclear, and yet seems brilliantly transparent to me at the same time. I have caught myself today several times looking in the mirror, trying to identify where within the topography of nose and eyelids and cheeks and lips I can find myself. Does my face contain me, or is it just a mess of cells and nerves and skin? That sense of distinction that I felt between mind and body was unnerving. I looked at my mom this morning and realized that I was not attached to her - she was an entirely different person than I was. I felt lonely.

Maybe mirrors are dangerous. I find myself indulging in them the same way I indulge in music - selfishly, and recklessly. Music feels reflexive to me - it absorbs me, and gives me something in return. I easily believe that in some way, I can see myself in other people's words, and riffs, and hooks - that I will understand me by listening to them. Maybe this mad search for 'new' music that I have been on lately has been a search for myself.

But I'm not making much sense, am I?

I used to imagine that I was broken, and unfixable, but now I know that from the cracks of the sidewalk, beautiful things can grow. And you know me, I'm always looking for beauty, beauty, beauty. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm making it on my own, and that maybe it's not such a bad thing to believe in my own potential.

Life keeps changing, and there's not a lot that I can make sense of. If you could tell me so, I'd like to think that you would be proud of me. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to think that I would be proud of myself, if I could stop thinking and figure everything out... Soccer was good for me in so many ways - mainly, I know, because I figured it all out on the field. Life, and love, and war and pain - you could feel anything with the ball at your feet, and I craved the challenge of understanding it.

I'm trying to fucking hard to be sincere, and it's killing me. I guess I'll leave it at this. The imperfect love letter to myself, that I probably should have written 10 years ago. Here's my message: I like you. and I'm trying so hard, I really am, just to be you. Uh ... me. Just to be me.