A Letter To Stolen Time

To the seconds, minutes, hours and days that I lived yet didn’t,

Writing a letter to you seems silly. You’re not a person I knew. Hell, you’re not even a memory i have. But you’re something, aren’t you? No easy feeling would make me feel helplessness of this degree. I’ve been agonizing for months over how to describe you. I’d like to call you a part of me that was unjustly taken away, but I never would have noticed you missing unless you were stolen from me the way you were. And I guess in hopes of my thoughts being written out into the oblivion and reaching where you went, I write this letter.

Life has been a nightmare. And I will write no more about that, because we’ve experienced enough of that pain when we were living and breathing the nightmare. And that’s what makes this letter even more of a paradox. When you were here, we were in pain. There was suffering and loss. No hope and no light. That’s what the world remembers you by. That’s what I remember you by. You were never “stolen”, you were here. And every breath that I took with you was excruciatingly slow as I wished for my longest nightmare to end. I longed to wake up.

So now that I have awoken, why do I still find myself missing you? I am no sadist or masochist, not at the expense of other people at least. I guess my yearning is for… an idea of you. The possibility of how glorious you could have been; which just as easily might never have happened either way.

The so called glorious possibility I long for; it isn’t a nightmare. Surprisingly it’s not my best dream either. It’s just simple life. As it was. The life I had; with family that I liked and not, friends that I made and lost, growing pains, moments to cherish and whatnot. Life. That made me dance at 2 P.M. and cry on the floor at 2 A.M. Life, that I hated and loved and wanted to escape and stay forever in.

The glorious possibility that I call my “stolen time” is when I would have lived life the way life is supposed to be lived: being happy and sad, with people I love and alone. Making memories. And I am well aware, that not every second of every day of every month would have been spent how I imagined. But any second of any day of any month could have changed what I would be doing right now. That possibility is haunting.

And it’s not as if I do not have time anymore. I am still doing all the things I wanted to when I was captive with you and I am still living like i would have. But it’s as if I carry your ghost everywhere. Times when I am out there making memories, my friends and I speak of you and how we wish we had you with us. Times when I think life is worth living, I think of you and I think of all the moments I could’ve felt the same thing, but with more time ahead of me.

But I guess you have taught me a lot too. The only lesson that sticks though is “Possibilities, once they’re in the past, are only yearning and regrets.”

I do hope to get my stolen time back, so visit again. I do not care for the thorn that you dragged with you the last time, it hurt way too many of us around. Next time, come empty handed. Just come as plain old time comes to a person. I’ll fill in the memories myself.

With love,

Wallflower.