You’re making me look like the neighborhood nutcase. All my neighbors hear at least once a day is “Hi, bunny! Hewwo, bunny-bunny! Hi, little bunny! Hi, sweet bunny-bunny!” when I talk baby talk to you because you’ve ventured out from under the deck. You’re freakin’ adorable, and I’m not not feeding you because I dislike you, but because you seem to be doing pretty well with what’s in our backyard. Thanks for getting braver and actually watching me with interest now instead of running.
You might have some of the people here fooled, but some of us KNOW how little you actually do. Walking around at high speed doesn’t make you look busy - it makes you look high strung.
While I thought I had purged every bit of bile and every bit of poison you poured into my system, a recent conversation with a friend shows my self-esteem still suffers from all you did to me. It’s funny, I thought I put it all behind me but what’s left now is the insidious scars, deep inside, where I don’t even realize they are there. And it was only realized because my friend gave me a metaphorical slap to the head.
So thanks, for destroying it so thoroughly that even at 31 it’s not fully back.
Signed,
Your “duty”
Dear Neighbor,
Thanks for letting me in when I banged on your door when I was 8, giving me a drink, and chatting with me. I mean, how unsafe was I? I didn’t even know you, and neither did my parents. But you stopped mowing the lawn and came in the house, and took the time out to chat with me.
Signed,
the little unshy girl you met so many years ago
Dear Lady in the parking lot:
Thanks for the 75 cents you gave me to get across the bridge when I had my wallet stolen and didn;t have a penny on me. No, I haven’t used it for drugs.
Signed,
Embarrassed young adult you met in the parking lot
Dear Man Who Changed My Tire:
I could have done it but I didn’t know about standing on the lug nuts and couldn’t get them open. You were wearing a silk shirt and you still got down on your knees and changed it for me. Thank you.
Signed,
Woman with crappy car (back then)
Thanks for letting me use your phone to call my brother when my car broke down.
It was late at night, I didn’t have any money on me for the payphone, which was busted anyway. You let me into your home despite not knowing me from Adam.
You and I lived a block away from each other; you were bubbly, sweet, affectionate. You kept giving me little gifts and homemade notes, and we’d go out walking all the time and giggle like lunatics until our stomachs hurt.
You were boy-crazy. Absolutely and completely boy-crazy. Always kept on blabbing and nattering about your latest crush, your latest make-out session, the last time you snuck out of the house to meet your guy on a date.
And there was this guy on our block. Cute boy, messy dark with glasses, tall and quiet and a bit awkward, but gentle and kind. And you knew I liked that guy. You knew that I’d wanted to ask him out but never got up the courage to–I was overweight and shy and I’d never had a real relationship before.
So you started dating him. And came over, all the time, to spill every single last little detail about your dates in your bright, chirrupy, squeaky little voice. And when he dumped you, you phoned me up in tears and I sat there for hours listening to you wail.
I can’t hate you because I know it’s partly my fault. I never asked him; I never started dating himself myself. I can’t hate you because you were placed in an institution a year or so later, due to your constant lies and running away and doing dangerous stuff on the street. And I can’t hate you because I really, genuinely, once upon a time liked you–a lot.
Look- you and I both know what you took from me, and you know I know because I confronted you about it. Still, you denied it and gave me a ridiculously implausible excuse that nobody could believe. But you continued to act like nothing had changed between us. Years later, when you asked me why I didn’t keep in touch with you, you forced me to relive the betrayal all over again. So, fuck you. I hope you’re happy with yourself, you pathological liar.
-Me
Dear Prostate:
C’mon, man. You’re too young to be causing the problems that you’re causing. You make my life very difficult, in a couple of ways. And you’re making me worry about my overall health. So loosen up, and let things flow like they were meant to. Dig?
Stop being a lazy ass and get some exercise. The doctor is worried what with your high blood pressure and family history of heart problems. Seriously dude I want to live to 80 and if you fuck that up and have a heart attack before then I’m going to kick your ass.
Dear old boss,
Thank you for not firing me even though you had every right to after my atrocious performance. Thank you for understanding how debilitating depression is and giving me every chance to make up for my failures and unexplained absences. Extra-huge thanks for going so far as to write me a positive letter of recommendation.
Dear mom,
Your mother is dead. She doesn’t control your life anymore, and there’s no excuse to take out your irrational love/hate complex for her onto us. Get help.
Dear J,
I really really liked you in high school, and even after my then-best-friend stole you from me, I didn’t blame you. I was a pathetic twirpy boy back then without a shred of self-confidence or talent. I only wish we could re-connect after all these years and be friends again. I also hope you’re not knocked up and living in a trailer, because you had quite the talent for attracting bad company.
Dear God,
9 out of 10 women I meet get the impression I’m creepy before I even open my mouth. I’m not super-ugly, I dont smell, and I wear fashionable-ish clothing. Mind giving me a hint or something?
It was a really wretchedly hot day when my sister and I loaded our daughters into my car for a two-hour trip to retrieve her property from a repossessed car. We were in an area of town that looked rather run down and needless to say we were ill at ease. Then I discovered that my car wouldn’t start. Now we were stranded, with two young children, and it really was HOT.
You came out from your house to see if we needed help. Upon discovering our plight, you brought us into your home, let us use your phone to make a long-distance call (before the days of “unlimited calling”), and refused payment for it. You took us down the street so that we could buy hamburgers and feed our kids. You let us stay for several hours until my husband arrived with the means to tow my car home. While we were there you’re near-grown children gladly entertained the little ones. You made us all feel so welcome and never asked for one thing in return.
Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, for the kindness and generosity you showed to us that day. I truly hope you’ve gotten yours back in spades over these last several years!
I wish I had been nicer and more thoughtful. Unfortunately, I was in my “it’s all about me and being totally insecure” (it was 27 years ago). I treated you badly and I’m sorry.
I’ve thought, over the past few years, about all of you and some instances of my misbehaviour. I was so young and naive and, sometimes, stupid.
I hope your thoughts of me are more positive.
And to R: I’m glad it didn’t work out between us. It wouldn’t have been the most successful relationship.
Why do you wish to no longer remain in touch? We were close friends for several years and shared an apartment for quite some time. The last contact I had with you was when I walked across the stage at my college graduation and I distinctly remember your incredibly loud and gleeful voice cheering for me over the thousands of people. I have sent you many e-mails and attempted to call over the last five years. I heard you got married to the guy you hoped it would be. Congratulations. Why don’t you want to talk to me? Did I do something wrong? Or were we just not as close as I thought? Are you upset because I accidentally took the blade to your blender when I packed up my kitchen things upon moving out? At least if you told me I wouldn’t wonder.
About two weeks before you died in that stupid car crash was the time I was planning to tell the family that I’m gay. But I chickened out. It’s three months later, and they still don’t know.
Now I’ll never know if you would have found a way to put your fundamentalism aside in favor of Christian love; whether you would have condemned me or loved me.
But I just want you to know that you’ve always been my hero, and whichever way it might have gone, I’d never stop loving you. And I miss you.
You and I were born one week apart in the same hospital. Our families were very close. As a youngster, I idolized you. My family was once rich and yours was middle-class. When your father died, your family came to stay with us. My family lost all of our money when my father’s company sued a multi-national corporation who had been a partner until they egregiously broke the contract. Your family became rich when your mother built up the business with your father’s life insurance money. I moved away with Mom, but later came back to live with Dad. When I came back, I was so excited that we would finally be close. You were rich and popular, you treated me as a poor family relation at best. You allowed your friends to ridicule me and then stopped having anything to do with me. Every once in a while, you would come back around and want to spend time together. I always jumped at the bait and it always ended painfully. The last time we saw each other, I was at rock bottom. I said that you knew nothing about how to get by on your own power. You articulated what your looks had always communicated -I was an embarressment. I told you I would not stay that far down. I am doing better. I am moving forward and big things may be coming down the pike in the next few months. If things happen the way it looks like they will, I will be coming home. I might see you. Will I then be worthy? Your whole family works for your mother. You left home only to run back with your tail between your legs. I’m out in the world and it has been hard, but I am making it. If the big things happen, I will not be running home. Even if they don’t, I still will not run home. You hurt me so much and you have never cared enough to acknowledge it. I still care so much. I imagined that we would know each other our whole lives and share our memories. I loved you for you, not for the money, and I meant less than nothing to you. Why?
I’m still mad at you. But all I need is for you to apologize, to acknowlege you shouldn’t have done what you did, and I’ll be fine.
The way you described me in that post - how long have you felt that way? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? If I knew that my actions or reactions were alienating you, I would so have stopped. Now I don’t know what I’ve done to make you feel the need to cut me out of your life so completely. I know the straw that broke the camel’s back, but until then I didn’t know that there even was a camel, let alone that it was carrying an imposing load of straw.
You once said you would love me until I told you to stop. Then, when we split up, you said that it was still true, but more of a love-between-friends, and that was fine.
Today, you said that I can spend the rest of my life without you.
Thanks for making the final year of my degree hell. I dont know what happened but I wish you would just let me know what I did wrong. In first and second year things were great, but in third I took off for a half the year and when I came back I was suddenly treated like some sort of pariah despite the fact that I had remained in regular contact. However it got better and things were fine, but then fast forward to our final year and you guys treated me like crap practically everyday.
So thanks for consitantly ignoring me, not inviting me on nights out, oh yea and the one that really hit home - for ignoring my birthday even though I had bought all of you lovely presents for yours, and while I dont believe in giving presents to get them, a simple birthday wish would have been nice.
Oh, and incase I didnt get all this before, thanks for visiting the city where I live and still go to school last week without letting me know so that a practical stranger asked me had I see you guys.
Cheers
me
To me,
why did you put up with this crap? Seriously, do not do it again!
me
Dear Chris,
The owl cam has been the highlight of my spring for four years now. Thank you for having such a brilliant idea and, even more so, for maintaining it so faithfully. I imagine the archiving and daily write-ups seem burdensome sometimes. My husband and I often hear eastern screech owls calling to each other in our neighborhood, which is just a few miles away from yours, and I’ll bet at least one of them is one of the owlets raised in your back yard. The eastern screech owl has become a sort of emblem for all that’s good about our marriage. Thank you.
Dear R.,
I hope you realize how much you devastated my life ten years ago, how you wrenched all my idealism out of me like rupturing intestines from a roadkill. I can’t imagine another human being as smart as you are being so baldly hypocritical and crassly cruel. Thank you for kicking my ass out of the field when you did, however; I know my life is better for having left it. I would not have been happy working with people like you.
Dear John B.,
This neighborhood is not your personal Monopoly game. Quit buying new properties until you learn how to take proper care of the ones you already have.
P.S. Who exactly do you think you’re fooling with that fence, ya slumlord?
Dear Maine,
Thank you for having real estate and a cost-of-living we can afford. Thank you for being so freakin’ gorgeous. Thank you for being so close to New Hampshire, where so many of our dearest friends live (the ones who aren’t in you, of course). I can’t wait to see you again!
Dear family who helped me after I wrecked my bike:
I was nine years old. Riding my bike close to a mile from home. I wiped out hardcore in front of your house, bleeding from my hands, both elbows and knees. I was a crying mess and you took me inside and carefully cleaned my wounds and called my grandma to come get me because my parents were out of town and I was staying with her. You loaded my bike in her van and gave me some delicious Kool-Aid. Thanks for helping me when I was scared and hurt.
Dear boyfriend,
I think I am falling in love with you. It’s too soon to talk about, but I think I love you. And I’m terrified I will lose you after I move next week. You are the first guy I’ve known I can actually imagine staying with for a very long time. You’re perfect. We could sit and stare at a blank wall all day together, and I’d be perfectly content. It hurts to think you won’t be a ten minute drive away for much longer.
Dear roommate:
Turn off the goddamned TV every once in awhile, would ya? Jesus, no one else I know seems complelled to have the TV on CONSTANTLY. I don’t like having to ignore the sound when trying to study. This apartment is small and the walls are not thick, you know this. I can’t wait to get out of this shit hole and away from you. And wash your dishes.
I’m so friggin tired of you calling and changing plans on me. You seem to think that since were such “good” friends, that I’ll understand if you can’t make it to the dinner that we set up two weeks ago. Or that it would work out so much better for you if we could get together on another night. I go out of my way to make things convenient FOR YOU, and then something always comes up.
Oh, and as soon as I figure your being habitually late into the equation, you decide to show up early, which really screws up my attempt to have dinner ready at a certain hour. BTW—the next time you bring your hubby over for a meal, try not to go to a work potluck beforehand!
Thank you.
Where are you? Are you happy? Are you drinking again? Where are your kids – are they with you? Are they happy? Are they well? Did you go back to school? Are you with anyone now?
See, I’d know these things if you’d call. Or write. Or email.
Dear Mr. L.,
If you didn’t want to know, you shouldn’t have bloody asked.
Dear Orlando,
I really shouldn’t have cursed at you. I should have cursed myself. I can’t believe you let it slide; you didn’t have to. So I’m sorry.
Dear bitch, whoever you were,
Yeah, I had an ice cream cone. And I was wearing a tie-dyed shirt. Just another teenage punk. Except, I was also the waitress who brought you your freaking English muffin and coffee every morning. So fuck you for making that horror-movie-heroine face when I rolled up on you. Actually, no: it makes me laugh: big corporate warrior queen, afraid for her precious faux-Anne Klein. News flash: All you Sally Forths looked ridiculous in those getups. Like overgrown schoolgirls, and you weren’t even hot. And wearing the Nikes and carrying the pumps. I’m not at all sure we were better off before “business casual.”
Dear guests of Universal Studios Hollywood,
I know we were paid to pretend to like you, but I really did. I loved reading your t-shirts, asking where you were from, describing the different attractions to you, telling you the best places to eat, what else to see in L.A., and helping you choose the best souvenir. I liked approaching a cranky family and turning their mood around. I liked seeing people come off Jurassic Park whooping and hollering. And thank you to the family who gave me a Diet Pepsi on one of the hottest days. You didn’t even ask; you correctly guessed diet! You guys were the only thing that made what was otherwise just a retail job, bearable.
