Score

August 1998

Dear Jean Robert Ambler,

    This year you will have a lot going on. You will be moving countries as well as time zones. You will be be in a new school surrounded by strangers. It is here that you will begin to suffer the price of being different. You will lose just about everything that used to comfort you. You will be the outsider and they will not let you soon  forget it. Kids can be evil so you will become worse just to get by. This will be one of the worst years of your life. Throughout this transitional period you will make a handful of friends. Chief among among them will be a tomboy by the name of Rachael Emily Dickson. She would offer a reprieve in a way that no one else could, did or would.

    You two will attend the same school for merely a year before she transfers out. At some point the kids who used to make fun of you will choose to accept you as one of their own on some level. In turn you will forget or take for granted older friendships. So quickly you will ignore the memories of how they used to treat you and will become no better for it. You will justify the growing rift with the logic of being so vastly different. You will stop looking for the similarities and scoff at the things that drew you to her in the first place. The rift will grow and and you will encourage it. In fact you will even go so far as to initiate fissures that never existed.

    You two will both finish high school. Looking back I’m not sure how you managed to graduate. We will  give sports the credit since you couldn’t participate if you failed classes. College will be attempted until for a slew of reasons it will be better if you left. So you left college with a strange peace in you heart. You would gravitate away from Texas and eventually find yourself in the military. And as much as you would tell yourself you enjoyed the distance in public, the divide reigned supreme over your loneliness in the shadows. You fed it consciously and wondered why you were starved of connections. Again the differences would would serve as the foundation for   

    Through it all she remained. Or at least she remained as much as she could. How does one stay when being pushed so hard? So she stayed at a distance waiting for something to change. I’m not sure if it(the change she wanted) has come to past to be honest with you. After everything you will be left wondering about about her grip on reality as well as her innate sense of self preservation or lack thereof. Time and time again she would fight while you remained apathetic. You would both argue about your friendship. The both of you would discuss its purpose, expectations and its inevitable end.

    For the sake of your sanity as well as for the sake of others you impact you should keep her.  You won't see the possibilities or the opportunities. You will most assuredly try to raze your friendship. And sadly that will be least of the worst that you attempt. I write this in the sincerest hopes that you will heed my warning. Sadly I know that you will most assuredly not as you yourself are one of the most stubborn humans I have ever had the experience of meeting. On further speculation of this matter you are second to none in this scope. I know this and much more because I am you later. I am what you become if you don’t die or kill yourself. Somehow you two will make it two decades as friends. Though at times aforementioned it will be hanging by the most decrepit thread of life. It hangs together because of her will, stubbornness, and courage. And it’s turned down to a thread by your anger, grudges, and expectations. You’re not wrong in realizing that you two have great differences however, you’re blind for not seeing the beauty that remains in-spite of the challenges those differences pose.

    Sometimes when you look at a woman you see more. Sometimes if you're lucky you see a tree. A tree that stands by and at times you swear you see the arms of Daphne. But you’re not sure because your faith is subjected by your doubt. So at the end it's more of a haze than anything else. You come in from the water and as you walk up from the shore you trip over nothing. You stumble and as you ultimately fall you realize there were roots there all along. Before you land and after you give up, the branches are there waiting to catch you. But for  most of the time your stubbornness wins the day over your faith and doubt. This causes you more often than not to ignore the shore all together and to keep floating downstream.

In conclusion I pray you heed my warning. I hope you ignore the screams of doubt and tune in to the whispers of faith. Remember the past and don’t get caught up in the new and fleeting loves that come your way. Don’t forget who you are but also remember what you need. You need people albeit a close and small group of them. People are more resilient than they know but everyone has a limit. Don’t push past them out of stubbornness and callousness. I hope this reaches you before it’s too late. Just know that whatever you decide it seem to me as how it always was. And remember you will survive second grade.

Sincerely,

Mr. Ambler