To transcribe this, or not to transcribe this. Well. I wonder if this will just languish unread, and what will happen if it doesn’t. Oh well. Too late now. Names and identifying details have been elided to protect the innocent. Hi! How are you?….

[snip]

It’s really weird. I don’t feel all that far away from home. I guess it’s partly shock and denial, but then, there are so many people from California at my school, it should be a UC. Plus, I’m sharing an apartment with AB, RB’s brother. (He’s a first year med student.) He knows all these people from Cal. And since he went to school at Occidental, he knows all the places to hang out in Eagle Rock. It’s pretty funny.

I guess I just didn’t get a chance to do… emotional and mental packing…. Then again, I’m only going to be gone for a year. It’s not like I have to say goodbye, right?

Well, I hope we can keep in touch…. I just want to let you know that I really value your friendship, and I wish we weren’t as far apart from each other as we are, but I realize that I’ve made my choices, and that the strangeness I perceive is due to the fact that there are still things I need to work through. I’ve always felt that I really never knew how to be your friend, almost like I’ve been afraid to try, and the things that have been in my heart did nothing but complicate things.

I know this may sound cheesy, but I really think you’re a very special person, objectively speaking. There’s a uniqueness to you that I realize I’ll never come close to comprehending. This is what drew me to you—I don’t know if you’ll ever believe how just the fact that you exist in this Universe has gotten me through a pretty bleak moment in my life. All I’ve ever really wanted was to know that I had some part in your life.

Aargh. Sorry about that…. It always feels like I’m trying to say things I need to say, but for some reason, what I’m trying to say never really comes out.

I wish I could know that you knew what I meant.

But I have to say it somehow. I’ve always wondered where I fit into your universe, even though I know I don’t ever have the right to find out.

So many questions I’ve been meaning to ask, but I’ve been afraid of the answers, even more afraid that if I asked, I wouldn’t get one, I wouldn’t deserve one. And yet if I never ask, how could you know?

But that’s OK, this is as much as I’m brave enough to put out there. I realize I need to accept that silence is never a final answer, and that there are things I’ll never know.

And if I feel weird about things, it’s in my power to change how I feel, even if I can’t change the situation.

How do I possibly end a letter like this?