Open Letters (Katie)

This is a piece I wrote for the webzine Open Letters which was rejected. I thought I'd post it here instead.

Dear Katie:

Hi there. My name is Jason. We don't know each other - or, I mean, I don't think you know me. We were in Trig class together last year but we never really talked to each other and we don't have any mutual friends that I know of. Anyway, I wasn't so sure how to give you this letter so I slipped it into the slots of your locker and hopefully you'll find it the next time you open it. Hopefully it won't fall on the ground and get kicked away without you noticing it.

I just wanted to tell you that I think it's a completely shitty thing what everyone is doing to you right now. I thought maybe that you were feeling like you don't have any friends or there wasn't anyone out there who knew how you felt, and I thought, as nervous as it makes me to write this letter, it was important for you to know that someone out there knows what you're going through.

I tried to kill myself, too. It was about a year and a half ago. I didn't cut myself like you - I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. And I got caught by my parents too. It was a real mess around my house that night, let me tell you. (Like you'd know nothing about that, ha-ha.) Why did I do it? To tell you the absolute truth, I'm not exactly sure anymore. I mean, I remember what was going on in my life when it happened, what was getting me so stressed out. There was this girl I really liked, for example. I would dream about her at night, you know? I mean, not really, but that's how I felt about her. I thought about her so much that it felt like I was dreaming about her. But I just couldn't get up the courage to talk to her. (If you haven't figured out by this letter, I have this pretty bad problem with shyness, but that's not my point so I won't go into it here.) Anyway, it was just getting me crazy. I convinced myself that I was going to be this way for the rest of my life, never have the courage to talk to girls I liked, that I was doomed to be alone no matter how old I got, and it just got me in this really twisted frame of mind, like what's the point of living if I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone?

I mean, there was other stuff going on too. That was the year I was going to get my first F in a class. It was a given, something that couldn't be changed. It was four weeks until the end of the year and I had screwed myself so badly that there was no way to get around the F, you know, no matter how hard I might have worked in that last month. American Lit, which stupidly enough was my favorite class all year. I mean, the weird part is that I kind of flunked the class on purpose, just to see what it would feel like to be a normal person, just some kid that flunked classes like everyone else. But then when it actually became too late to do anything about it I really panicked. I realized how my parents were going to kill me, and I started getting really scared about whether I had screwed up my chance to go to college, all that stuff.

Plus, at the same time, I was going through other stuff that seems stupid now, like (and I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself) like maybe I was gay, because I'd think about my male friends in sexual ways sometimes, and I started thinking more and more about how God can't really exist. I mean, if you look at the world in a rational way it just doesn't add up, you know? So there I am, and I'm like, "Great, I'm a gay atheist flunky who's going to be alone the rest of his life." And it just all became so overwhelming, you know? It just all kept building and building until one night when I just couldn't stand it anymore.

Anyway, none of this is my point. (I sure am doing a good job of cheering you up, aren't I, ha-ha.) My point is that now that the whole thing is over, it's hard for me to realize anymore what seemed so terrible that I would want to kill myself over it. I mean, like, the report card came and there was the F, and my parents were pissed, alright, I got chewed out for two straight hours, but the world certainly didn't end. I went to bed and woke up the next morning and my crappy job at Target was still waiting for me. The world just kept ticking along.

I'll tell you something I've never told anyone else, not even my best friend Michelle. Sometimes I think trying to kill myself was actually a good thing. Sometimes I wake up and it feels like I've been given this superpower that other people don't have, this ability to realize what's actually serious things to worry about and what's essentially bullshit. Like, ever since that night, whether or not I'm an atheist just no longer even matters to me. I mean, either God exists or he doesn't, right, and there's not a whole lot I can do about it so why was I so upset? If I'm gay, I'm gay (and by the way, I've decided that I'm not) (and also by the way, like I said, I know you might want to talk to your friends about this letter but I'd appreciate it if you kept that part to yourself) but if I WAS gay, that'd just be how it was, and I'd learn how to deal with it.

I don't know. I just see everybody around me worrying about the stupidest things known to mankind, and it feels sometimes that I've been blessed with this power to recognize them for the stupid things they are. When you're laying in a hospital bed watching them feed this tube down your throat so they can pump your stomach, suddenly it just doesn't matter much anymore whether the Senior shirt's going to be a t-shirt or a sweatshirt.

Which - finally - gets me to the reason why I'm writing, which is that there's basically a difference between you and me and the stuff we went through, which is that my suicide attempt was kept really quiet and not a whole lot of people found out about it, while Cheryl found out about yours and ended up telling the whole school, which as far as I'm concerned is a sin bad enough to earn her a spot in hell forever (that is, if there is a hell, ha-ha. Oh, I slay myself). Plus there's another difference, and I don't mean this as an insult in any way at all, but you know, some of your (former?) friends are just assholes to begin with. I mean, my friends and I are DEFINITELY not the most popular kids in school, and I doubt we'll ever be the most popular people no matter HOW old we get. But in a way I was lucky - when I told my friends about what had happened, they were completely cool and completely supportive. And I just don't see that happening with your friends. I may not hang with that crowd, but I can see what's going on. I can see how you walk from class to class by yourself now, how your so-called "friends" make fun of you when you're not looking. And it just pisses me off, even though maybe it shouldn't, but it does. I mean, everyone's acting like you don't deserve to be depressed because you're a cheerleader, like the only people who are allowed to be sad are the gothers I hang out with.

Anyway, I just thought it was unfair, and I just wanted to write you a letter and tell you that I think it's just fine for you to be depressed. And fuck all those people, because they weren't your friends to begin with if they're acting like that now. And I'm not trying to ask you out or anything. The truth is that I would probably really freak out if you actually came up to me and talked to me in person. But one thing I do know how to do pretty well is write. And I just thought it was important for you to know that you're not alone. There's someone out there who understands what you're going through. And everyone deserves at least that, no matter who they are.

Stay strong. And fuck all of them.

Jason.

Copyright 2000, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved.