Letter 1

Dear reader

I’m writing this to you because I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe you might be able to identify with some of the things I’m going through and even if you can’t help me, you might be able to just understand. I don’t think telling you this is going to fix anything, I don’t think it’s even going to make me feel better about myself but here it is: my life story.

I’m a 20 year old stoner, smoker and possible sociopath. I’m a student at UCT and a presenter on the campus radio station. I work in my res’ tuck shop and I have a good circle of friends. To the outsider it might seem like I would be happy, that I have my life on track but to the insider, to me, it becomes increasingly apparent every day that I am completely uncertain about every choice I’ve made; that everything seems futile. Nothing I do seems to give me the satisfaction and at the end of the day I just feel useless: useless and very very lonely. It seems my alienation will never go away.

I was always the weird kid. I’m tall and skinny with a bad back and glasses that never seem to sit level on my face. I hate my body. I hate my short sightedness and even though the only thing I ever seem to be complimented on is my full, dark and curly head of hair, I still stand in front of the mirror every morning with my razor in one hand, working up the courage to shave it off again. I hate the fact that I smoke. I hate how even when my lungs are burning and I’m hating every inch of the camel classic as it slowly burns out between my lips I will still feel the need to light a second one five minutes later. In a TV show I was watching recently, one character asked another if they sometimes wished they could change everything about themselves and I think I probably would. The only problem is that it wouldn’t be long before I started hating everything about my new body.

Maybe I obsess too much; maybe I’m too worried about what people think. Maybe my ultimate fear is that I will be forgotten and I know how sad that sounds but it’s the truth. I want to be remembered and for people to have stories to tell about me. That’s probably why I do stupid things like tell everyone I’m a sociopath or fall in love with possibly the worst girl to fall in love with in the world. I talk about how I just want to stand out and make up all these elaborate plans for the future designed to make me stand out. I say I don’t want kids, that marriage is my ultimate fear and that the last thing I want is to be stuck in a job I don’t really like just so that I can afford to put my kid through school and give him a warm place to sleep. I say I’d hate that and that I just want to travel the world, learning languages and promoting weird music on obscure radio stations but it’s just not true. At this moment in time the only thing I want is someone to share my life with; someone to speak to everyday about nothing in particular and hold tight at night when the cold winter comes rushing in. I’m so lonely and I often wonder if this will ever really change.

I’ve fallen in love three times in my life. The first was a girl I met when I was in grade eleven. I met her during my school play. We both had small roles and I followed her everywhere. I was smitten with this girl and was content in just getting to know her, chatting to her as often as I could but never really making a push to be with her because I was shit scared that she didn’t feel the same way. Eventually her friend pushed us together and I remember lying on a bed at the after party of our last night on stage, holding her and telling her how much I wanted to be with her. It is one of my most cherished memories. Of course it wouldn’t last. We dated for a month before she panicked and broke it off with me. It was at her house, her face covered in tears while she told me that she didn’t think she was ready for a relationship. She said she still wanted to be friends and I think she meant it. I told her I couldn’t just be friends with her and that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

The truth is that if I had just stayed we could have made something out of it and every time I’ve seen her since I can’t help but wonder about some different branch of the trouser leg of time where I had stuck it out and we had ended up together. Maybe I wouldn’t be this lonely and I know she feels as lost as I do. I saw her in Durban these holidays and we had a few good moments. Hell, if it wasn’t for the fact that we live in different cities now I would probably go over to her house right now and ask for a second chance. Pointless speculation won’t help me now though.

The second time I fell in love shook me completely and changed my life forever. I fell for a nice girl who was so habitually addicted to bad guys that my timid nature and sexual inexperience would never work for her. I would have done anything for my blue-haired poster girl and although she took everything I gave her, it didn’t stop her from leaving me for a junkie ex-con who transformed the next six months of her life into total hell. When I got the news that she had left me I cried. It’s the only time I’ve cried in five years and it tainted everything about Durban for a while. Losing her is the main reason that I finally decided to log on to UCT’s website and book my spot here for the next year. So I suppose I should thank her for that I suppose… I still saw her after that. I couldn’t make myself turn away this time. Instead I tortured myself by helping her through the rough spots with this bastard and meeting her for coffee or a drink every now and again to catch up. I don’t think she ever knew how I really felt.

I followed my third love down to Cape Town. She was the only person I knew when I first came down here. We’d shared a few close moments over the preceding months and almost slept together on her last night in Durban. I was really looking forward to exploring this new city together with my dark haired Irish beauty but it was not to be because she fucked a friend of mine in a tent at a festival we were both working at. That was the first time she screwed me over. Maybe I’m making a big deal of it, maybe she didn’t know how I really felt at the time but it broke our friendship for a bit. It took a while to mend it but we became friends again and just when I thought there might still be hope she got herself into a love triangle with my two new friends. She fucked the cripple after going on a date with the American and this drama went on for months and months with me caught in the middle, comforting everyone and still falling for her despite myself. She’s with the American now and I think she knows how I feel. I wish I didn’t feel the way I feel but I do. I would drop everything to be with her still even though the evidence as to how much of a bad idea that would be is laid out right in front of me. I’m still in love with all three of them and it has made me the person I am today. I smoke weed to switch myself off and smoke cigarettes to get myself out of bed in the morning. I shove this loneliness and alienation into my schoolwork and my involvement in the radio. I have tried to love others but it hasn’t worked. I even hooked up with a gay friend of mine after snorting cocaine and convincing myself that it was women in general that make me feel this way. But I know it’s not true, it’s just the shitty experiences I’ve has – that we’ve all had – that make me – us – feel this way.

I feel I should stop talking now; this is becoming a real mouthful. I might continue later and when I do I will ask you to listen again. And if you have listened I ask you to please keep it to yourself. I trust you with this because I just need to trust someone with it.

Thank you