Day 4 — Your sibling (or closest relative)

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Dear Stone,

It is similarly not easy being my little brother. You had to kind of live in my shadow for a while, and I know that. Although I give you grief about doing soccer when I was the person who asked to do it, I’m glad you have soccer. It was the first thing that was all yours where not only were you no longer “Starr’s brother”, but I became “Stone’s sister”. I remember seeing you relish the first time someone called me that.

I’m glad you’re so popular at school. You deserve that. I tried to force nerd-dom onto you, but you deserve friends and popularity. I just hope you continue to make good choices. I can’t tell you how proud I was when you told me (after I pestered you about it for weeks) that you didn’t attend prom your junior year because you didn’t want to drink but you knew that your friends who had invited you to prom would be drinking. (I hope there was no drinking at prom this year.) (Also, no drinking while you’re at Senior Week, k?)

I hope that you push yourself to be the best possible version of yourself. That’s why I pushed you into nerd-dom. It’s hard to jump higher when the bar isn’t constantly being set higher, and I know that you’re sometimes very influenced by your peers. I wanted you to value people who value their educations.

I am so proud of you and I know you’ll keep making me proud. I’ll try really hard not to be doing embarrassing around your friends but sometimes I just can’t help it, you know? 😛

Love,
姐姐, which I haven’t heard you call me in years

Stone and I on graduation day
Stone and I on graduation day

P.S. Maybe think about changing your Twitter handle. It’s embarrassing for me, I don’t understand how it’s not similarly or more embarrassing for you.

Day 3 – Your Parents

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Dear Mom and Dad,

I know being my parents hasn’t been easy since I hit my pre-teen days and kind of never looked back. It’s been strange accepting that, not only was I imperfect contrary to what you had told me, but you were imperfect, too.

Coming to terms with your flaws has been maybe more difficult than coming to terms with my own. Because I can always try to change mine, but I can’t change you.

I love you both. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, at the very least the intention behind it.

I don’t know why I get so angry when we have our “discussions”. Maybe it’s because I put these expectations on you to say what I wanted to hear or to understand me.

I am really sorry that we aren’t closer. Our relationship isn’t ideal but I’m happy to have you both as my parents, and I look forward to repairing what I’ve broken.

Love,
Your daughter, 思思

Mom and I on graduation day
Mom and I on graduation day
Dad and I on graduation day
Dad and I on graduation day

Graduating Without Tears

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I graduated from college a few weeks ago. Yay!

I’m glad to be done with college. I cherished my undergrad years, I really did, but I felt ready to graduate. People would ask me, “How do you feel about graduating? I’m so sad!”

“I’m ready to leave.” I was. I was starting to feel a bit old for it. I was feeling the way I felt when I graduated high school – done. If I stayed any longer, I would not have gleaned anything further from it.

Surprisingly, both to myself and to others, I get very uncharacteristically cold when it comes to graduation. Bear in mind that I am the kind of person who cries at most movies, including Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland (poor Tink!) and I even felt my eyes watering during You, Me, and Dupree. That film is a comedy. A comedy starring Owen Wilson, for goodness sake. I was a blubbering mess when I moved to Maryland, and I have many photos of my unattractive crying face to attest to how sad I was on the last day of summer camp 5 years in a row.

So why haven’t I cried at all about high school or college graduation? Why don’t I feel sad about it? I know I miss college already, even though I think I’ll be working at my school next year for a bit. I miss it but I am not sad.

I am so cold. And I am never cold.

I do have a confession to make, though.
I relish being this frigid around graduation because graduation reminds me of how lonely I feel on those multiple weekends I spend alone. Everyone seeks out their closest friends for one last hurrah and I am left with this sad lesson:
When you know everybody, but only know them casually, you are close to nobody.

I get sad when people tease me about knowing everyone, because I know that I’m no one’s first pick to go out and do things. It’s nice to recognize a lot of people, but it’s a gift and a curse. Everyone’s an acquaintance and no one is your best friend.

I guess the moral of the story is this:
I become numb to graduation in order to avoid feeling too lonely, because I realize I’ve spent the past 4 years making acquaintances rather than friends.

Happier graduation post will come soon, and I’ll complete my letter challenge, honest! But there are some more pressing issues to address first. 🙂

Day 2 — Your crush

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(For the sake of making this a little interesting and not dedicating half my letters to my boyfriend, this will be someone else.)
(For the sake of making this extra fun… well, you’ll see.)

Dear Colin,

I don’t know which came first – my overinvestment in Once Upon a Time or the first promotional photos of Killian Jones, but I miss seeing you on Sunday evenings.
And on Hulu when I felt like rewatching/catching up on an episode.
And on the #ouat tag on Tumblr that is getting a bit annoying so I’ve stopped checking in on that.
And also on the #killianjones tag.

It is embarrassing how much I loved seeing you with Sara Bolger in that one episode of The Tudors, specifically the clip on Youtube that I can’t watch at work because I dissolve into a sad mess when I do.

In typical teen girl fashion, I like that you’re in a band. I don’t know, I like it. I don’t think I need to justify this.

In any case, please continue to be great. If you ever reply to one of my tweets, please know that I’d be giddy all day as a result.

xoxo,
Starr