vemod

Everyone keeps asking how the new job is going, and I keep saying it's great. The money is better. The title sounds impressive. From the outside, it must look like progress.

But I miss the small office with the broken coffee machine. I miss staying late not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I miss believing that what we were doing mattered, even if it only mattered to twelve people in the whole world.

Success is a strange word. It shape-shifts depending on who's looking.

I know it's been years, and you've probably forgotten that afternoon in September. But I haven't. The way your face changed when I said those words—it still visits me sometimes when I can't sleep.

Pride is a terrible thing. It makes you defend positions you don't even believe in, just because backing down feels like losing. And I was so afraid of losing back then. Losing arguments, losing face, losing you. The irony isn't lost on me.

You were right about the book. You were right about a lot of things.

Two minutes left in this year, and I'm writing to you—or to who I used to be. Strange how we can become strangers to ourselves, isn't it?

You would barely recognize this life. The city is different. The job is different. Most of the faces are different. But late at night, when the world goes quiet, I'm still you. Still wondering if this is the right path, still afraid of the same things, still hoping for something unnamed and maybe unnameable.

I wish I could tell you it gets easier, that certainty comes with age, that one day you wake up and know exactly who you are and what you want. But the truth is, we're all just making educated guesses, even now.

The clock is about to strike midnight. Another year gone, another year arriving. And here we are, suspended between what was and what might be, writing letters we'll never send.

You asked me if I was happy, and I said yes. It came out so automatically, like a reflex. The truth is more complicated than that, isn't it? The truth usually is.

I'm doing well at work. The apartment is nice. I have friends. These are all true things. But happiness—that's something else entirely. Sometimes I catch glimpses of it, like when the light hits my kitchen table just right in the afternoon, or when I hear that song you used to hum while cooking.

I wanted to tell you that I understand now why you and Dad made the choices you did. That growing up means realizing your parents were just people trying their best with what they had. But the words felt too heavy for a Tuesday night dinner, too much for the space between the salad and the main course.

Maybe next time.

I've been sitting here for an hour trying to find the right words. The cursor keeps blinking at me like it knows I'm stalling. You were right about the silence—it does get heavy after a while. It fills up all the spaces we used to occupy together.

I drove past the coffee shop yesterday. They repainted it. It's blue now, that kind of blue that reminds you of early morning before the sun burns through. I almost went in, but then I remembered you don't go there anymore. Or maybe you do. I wouldn't know.

There are things I should have said that night. Things that might have changed the trajectory of everything. But I just stood there, keys in my hand, watching you explain why you had to leave. The strange thing is, I understood. I think I understood even before you said it.

I hope you found what you were looking for in Portland. I hope the rain doesn't get to you. I hope you still write in the mornings.