Even The Best Fall Down Sometimes, Even The Wrong Words Seem To Rhyme, Out Of The Doubt That Fills My Mind, I Somehow Find, You And I Collide

--"Collide", Howie Day

Before I started working on The Carisa Meridian the longest piece of writing I had was a hundred or so page letter I wrote to my friend Jina. Not only was I proud of the accomplishment itself, I was also proud of the fact that I had developed such a rapport with an individual that writing triple digit letters didn't seem altogether odd. In fact, those letters between us stand as arguably the single most candid work I've ever produced. Yes, you could say there's a small part of me in everything I write and, yes, you could say that I'm honest everyday when I write here. What you couldn't say, though, is that anything I've written since those letters stand as a permanent reminder of what I was like over ten years ago. Besides grilling Little Miss Chipper, those letters would be your best at finding out the young man I was back in those simpler times known as the 90's.

I remember when I was writing them I would be amazed at just how much information I manage to cram into them. I wrote about the silliest and smallest occurrences in my life. It didn't matter. I wanted her to know it all. It wasn't important how interesting I made my life. In fact, I think my life was considerably more boring compared to hers at the time. The only thing that was important was that she got to know me as much as possible. I mean--I've always been a candid individual when it comes to the people in my life, but with that letter I was making a conscious effort to provide a sort of bible of all things mojo that she could come back to and refer to whenever she wanted to remember something. Aside from the "real" gifts I sent Jina, I wanted to make those letters my piece of art to her. I wanted to make it a gift to last the ages, the gift of me. That's why as the letters continue, they get progressively longer and more in-depth.

The same was true about her letters to me. When Jina and I weren't talking for those ten years, I would sometimes re-read her letters to me. I would chuckle or get sad at all the events that happened to her so many years ago. But what made me really sad was the fact that, as far as I knew, those would be the last mementos of her. Those letters took on the properties of a keepsake of someone who might as well have passed on from this Earth. As such, I treated them like they were gospel. I did everything I could to remember the girl who had meant so much to me during my formative years, before the dawn of Breanne, and who had taken the time to send me those small bundles of joy every few months. I honestly don't know what I would have done during my periods of self-doubt and loathing, when I absolutely hated myself for fucking things up with Jina, if I didn't have those letters to sustain me.

The one thing I never counted on happening was being able to read those letters I had sent her again. I thought they would forever remain with her, just as her letters to me would remain hidden away at my place--two gravestones to a long dead friendship. I never imagined that I would someday be reading them again or that she would be reading hers again. I thought that would be impossible.

But it's not.

This weekend I'll finally be mailing all her letters to me back to her. And, soon after that, I shall receive all my letters to her back to me. I'll finally be able to see what I was like during the happy times of our friendship and I'll finally be able to re-connect with that person, that person I was, who believed that the two of us would last forever. All I know now is the repentant me now who is just enjoying the fact she's communicating with me at all, which is nice in itself.

But it'll be really nice to rediscover what it was like when everything was nice and everything was perfect, and I had a good friend whose name was Jina.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers