An Open Letter

To the person I’ll never be,

I dream about you a lot.

Sometimes the dreams stay the same, but most of the time they shift and they change. Sometimes you are a professor of Art History sometimes you’re a dancer or a wanderer always moving never calling any one place home. One minute you are a photographer, a writer, a poet, a missionary. The next you are an icon, a designer, a rebel leader, a fighter for those who can’t fight for themselves. Someone to be remembered. Most of the time you’re happy, but every now and again you are sad. Sad, but content at the same time because you believe that you are doing something worthwhile with your life.

The only thing that stays the same about you is that you are always helping people. You are the person that everyone goes to for aid and you always, always, do the right thing and have the right words to say. You never have any doubts, and you are confident in the knowledge that this is who you are supposed to be.

Because you see….

You’re not me.

You are a dream not a person at all, but something that floats through my head and keeps me from living my life. You get in the way, but I can’t seem to let you go. You’re a part of me for better or for worse and I am so jealous of you and your perfect lives. The lives that I would love to say are mine.

I wonder if you were ever in my shoes if you asked yourself the questions that keep me up at night. If you ever looked into the mirror and were unhappy with the person, you saw staring back. If you asked yourself, “am I crazy for thinking this?” or if you were ever alone in a crowd. If you ever felt isolated, like no one cared. If you ever dreamed the way that I do about someone who can never be.

If you asked, with no one in mind, why the hell am I even alive?

I guess I can never know the answer to that because after all you are not real just a figment, barely a thing, and I know that I can’t keep holding onto you.

Who knows? Maybe someday I will find a way to let you go. Find a way to be sad, but content at the same time because I too finally believe that I am doing something worthwhile with my life.

Only time will tell.

Sincerely,

The person that I am