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A Very Clingy Greeting.

January 18, 2012    |    0 COMMENT(S)

I've been trying to begin this paragraph for about an hour now but so far the only thing I've gotten out of it is the vertical blinking cursor judging me for the lack of anything of substance. It's been looking at me, judging me intently, with a kind of questioning glance that said, "How can you not say anything to Andee?"

You see, therein lies the problem. Yes, there are so many things I can say to you. In fact, I cannot think of anything that we cannot talk about. We have talked about the weather and sex and post-structuralism and milk tea and boys and their jackets and yet I feel like there is still so much we have not touched. Like lipsticks. Or donkeys and horses and other farm animals. But then I am reminded of a particular person who turned pretty with makeup on and who is vaguely tangential to a donkey reference, and I think, "Oh God, maybe we have talked about everything."

Also, we have been together for roughly the last four years. And I think that for every single day of those four years, not counting the weekends and holidays and vacations, we've seen each other. That means around 220 days a year of being physically together (yeah, I did some math - don't ask), and that's not counting our texts and chats. That means it's been 880 days of talking in person and a total of 1460 days communicating with each other since we met. That also means I see you more often than I do my parents.

That's a lot.

So, why then, am I finding this extremely difficult? It's not that I don't have anything to say or that we haven't been seeing each other enough. Clearly I can say anything whenever, wherever.

I guess it all boils down to the fact that for all our 1460 days together, I have never written you a letter.

Now before you say anything, this isn't about my thesis. I won't be using this as a manuscript, don't worry.

We all know a letter is a very intimate conversation with anyone, enclosed in the exclusivity of the paper and the envelope. It possesses a distinctiveness in that anything that transpires in it is only between the receiver and the sender. It is affirming on some degree to the relationship between the two. But the one thing that distinguishes a letter from a regular conversation is that it's one-way. It's just the "I" talking to the "you," - it never answers back.

And I guess this is what stumps me. I can't imagine talking to you without you laughing or throwing me that look of annoyance or slapping me - anything, anything from you. I think we've gotten to that cliched point of finishing each other's sentences, or more accurately, completing each other's expressions of amusement. It just isn't a talk with you without me throwing you a Karla face all of a sudden or you raising your eyebrows in a sinister way.

Wow. I never thought of all people, you would be the most difficult to write to.

I hope this doesn't make you love me any less or take away my title as your Most Clingy Friend. I swear if I could just write you a decent letter that would so much as stir your goosebumps, I would have done that much sooner. But I can't, and to tell you frankly, I'd rather not. Because if anything, that only affirms how close we really are, that not even the separation brought upon by a piece of paper can come between us. There is no space for a letter, because there is nothing a letter can contain that we cannot share in person.

And besides, I'd rather not write you a letter because it's sure to sound cheesy and needy and clingy and I'm just not like that. (Ha! See, I can imagine you rolling your eyes!) So you know what, I'm not gonna write you a letter.

("Stop trying to make a letter happen! It's not going to happen!" - obligatory Mean Girls reference)


I am going to post this picture though, just to show you how I think we're both gonna react if I said all this in person.



I love you, and there is no one else I would have spent my entire college life with. I've always found comfort in our closeness, and I pray that even if the actual, physical nearness were to change, the familiarity wouldn't. So I hope I won't get to have a reason to ever write you a letter, because truth be told, I'd rather always have you in person.

Happy birthday, Andee! :)





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