Journal — Letters Series
I have been thinking about a famous physics experiment I heard about once. I don’t remember where. There is apparently a cat in a box in a secret lab somewhere — possibly Area 51 — that is both alive and dead until someone opens the lid and looks.
Nobody dares touch the box. People have bad memories with boxes. Just ask Pandora.
Somewhere inside me, there is still a teenage girl who could discuss literature for hours and run across a lacrosse field as if she had been personally hired by the gods of competition.
There is also a young woman wandering through Paris with a beautiful model friend, discovering fashion, life, and, for reasons that remain unclear even today, a memorable incident involving panties at Galeries Lafayette.
There is a young woman who shaved her hair to look like Sinéad O’Connor and sang very explicit punk songs in a squat with a band that probably should never have trusted any of us.
There is a woman convinced she was about to become a famous 3D designer because she had discovered a virtual world that felt like destiny.
And of course, there is a girl who fell in love and got her heart broken. And another who broke a beautiful heart that cared far too much for her.
Several women who should probably not have been trusted with major life decisions.
This is where quantum mechanics becomes useful.
Until I open a memory and look at it, all those women exist at the same time: brilliant and foolish, brave and terrified, glamorous and ridiculous.
Sometimes, before breakfast, they all speak at once inside my head. Not clearly. Not politely. More like fragments:
Their voices don’t agree. They never do.
Now, let us be serious.
This series is an attempt to open the box.
Each week, I will write to one of the people I used to be. Not to judge her. Not to fix her — I am not sure I could fix anything, including myself. Not even to fully understand her. Only to spend a little time in her company.
Sometimes I will tell her things she already knew but forgot. Sometimes I will apologize. Sometimes I will laugh. And sometimes I will simply sit with her silence.
And she will probably look at me like I am dreaming.
I might tell her about the frying pan incident. Or she might tell me things I have since learned to edit out of polite conversation. I might even mention that, in my timeline, I still occasionally say things I once learned in a squat from a girl named Basquiat Méré.
We are not finished becoming.
Some letters will be affectionate. Some will be embarrassing. Some may require apologies that arrive too late to change anything. A few may require witness protection.
Together, they tell the story of a life that was far less linear, far stranger, and far more interesting than I realized while I was busy living it.
So here they are.
Letters to the one I used to be.
This is the first letter in an ongoing series.