Marisa Donnelly

I called you last night. Because I saw that picture,
because I wanted to know if your voice still sounded
like Saturday mornings with closed blinds,
an old truck with the windows down on the highway
in the sticky-hot Western sun. It did.

I won’t disappear from your life like a ghost you forget about, like a ghost that never mattered. I won’t haunt you, but I won’t become invisible. I’m the type of girl that no matter what happens, no matter why or how or what put a giant rift between us, I’ll always have love for you.

You cannot always see the timeline of your life with tick marks at every painful memory. You cannot choose to remember the people that have hurt you, the negative words that have been shared, the times when you were low and didn’t know if you’d make it through.

Because you did. You did make it through.

She’ll be gentle, even in her anger.

Everywhere on the internet you’ll read about ‘living your best life,’ or ‘living the life you’ve always imagined’ or just ‘living a good freaking life’ and although all these articles and posts and Instagram photos and blogs and advice columns have our best intentions in mind, they’re narrowly focused.

“Her smile. I swear to God it stops me in my tracks.”

Laughter. Which is often overlooked, but so very essential for a strong relationship. There needs to be moments of silliness, of finding joy in the simple things, of teasing one another, and of not taking life so seriously.

We love food. Honestly, eating is probably the highlight of our days.

In twenty years, you won’t remember that you drunkenly spent $50 on drinks on a Saturday night—you’ll remember the ugly bathroom selfies with your best friends and dancing until the sun came up.

Take pictures (and selfies!) of and with everything.

I’m terrified of touching someone whose heart isn’t intertwined with mine.

This is what the past teaches us: how we’ve grown, what we’ve learned, the people that have shaped us, and the person we’ve become. This is important.

It’s perfectly acceptable to feel like a purposeless, super anxious, weirdo right now. You don’t have all the answers, and you’re not supposed to.

We’ve all had those ‘what if’ moments, where we wrack our brains for the exact slice of time where we inevitably destroyed everything we once had. We try to wrap our head around why the person we thought was our everything ran, or hurt us, or said goodbye. But there’s one, huge thing we so often forget: Sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Listen, this letter is for you. To know that in the future, I will love you. I will love you deeply and fully. I will be unafraid and unhesitant. I will not compare you to pain of the past, but trust that people are different, that you are different and worthy of a chance.

“It’s deeper than any substances.”

We get so caught up in this idea of true love, that we’re supposed to find it by this certain time, that it’s supposed to look a certain way, that we’ll know, beyond a doubt, what we’re doing and how things will pan out. But love isn’t like that.

Stop apologizing for who you are and just be. Be silly, be strange, be happy, be crazy, be independent, be in love, be unafraid, be nervous, be strong, be okay with leaning on someone else. Be whatever the hell you want. Be you.