A Response to my 13 Year Old Self: Endings and Beginnings

 "All things end. It may be sad when they do, but would you really wish you never knew it, or that it was there once. I have had a few people and things that I loved and they left. They are not coming back from where they went, but I wouldn't change the fact that I met them, that I loved them."

 I am coming back to this page as someone who has left behind many friends and, most recently in May, my beloved cat. 

You were right back then. I still feel the same way. I wouldn't trade the time I got to spend with them and the memories I have, even though it hurts sometimes. Miette was a really sweet and amazing part of our life.

You get to spend six more years with her. You start to notice that she's getting old and sick, but she still tries her best to jump up onto your bed to comfort you. There comes a time where you'll have to lift her, but you won't mind. It begins to give your life a strange kind of importance to take care of her, to feel like you made the most of the time you had left. You wake up one day next to her and by the way she's breathing, you can tell it's the end. She lives for another day or so, curled up in your bathroom. You sleep on the floor to be closer to her. You play recordings of your voice and her purr for her and you can tell it gives her comfort. You start to cry in a way you didn't think you still could and she looks into your eyes and softly blinks. You both found your own way to tell each-other it's okay. And it is. 

You'll miss her for the rest of your life. It'll be weird to close your door all the time. Weird not to need to remember to buy cat food, not to see her in the garden. 

And whenever a storm happens, you still wonder if she's cold out there.

"I often wonder why they chose to leave or if it was even their choice. If they chose to leave us behind for something else, what could possibly have been so appealing.

When they go it is hard to understand why, hard to let them go. But hear this now. Maybe,just maybe, we are a better person for it. Think of the things you have accomplished without them. The things you didn't have the courage to do, the things you did because you said "For _____!". Even the small things you did for that person you saw on the sidewalk because you remembered a loved one, made that person's whole world change.

One day, even you will leave. But when you go, just remember, if you where kind, if you smiled at least once, made someone laugh, cheered someone up, there will be people who miss you and who became better people because of you. "

 

It's worth it to stay alive. It's worth it to put your heart out there. I still have difficulty with that, but (for one stupid kid's heartbroken ramble) it has the right message. Thanks.

"And you know what? Maybe the ones who you thought left you behind, maybe they always knew you'd see them again. And in that case, I suggest you tell them everything you did, because the two of you have a lot of catching up to do."

I can't say I believe in an afterlife, but I do know I want to live a life worth telling the grand story of if there is one. 

I'd tell my gerbils I'm sorry I couldn't protect them. I'd get to meet my grandmother, tell my ancestors how technology has changed, be despised and beloved by the people I'd've never known the minds of. I'd see how my childhood friends' lives played out. Was it fun? Where did you go, what did you see? Did you ever miss me the way I missed you? 

I am someone who very much wants the answers to questions the human mind is probably not designed to know the answer to. And I'm still going to keep looking. 

I think another person you begin to realize you miss is the person you used to be. I can't remember who I was when I wrote this initially. I was the author of this piece at some point, but I feel that the person who wrote this years ago is also someone who no longer exists. 

I share some of her memories. I still have that ache and that void that I want to fix with more words and more hope. 

I don't know how this all works out, but I can say, that looking back, I'm living my life for the better for you. For the scared child that just wanted the world to make sense and be happy. You deserve to love and lose and feel. And you will. I will. For you.

"Thank you for reading, because if just one person liked what I have to say, that is what makes me smile."