March 2013, 10:14 am

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm sure I'll get all sorts of well-wishes and well-meaning gifts from people and they'll all be nice but none of them are going to be what I want or need. Only I can give that to myself, I suppose. Just sending this to you is that gift - even if you roll your eyes and delete it without reading, thats cool too. You have that right and that option.

This speech, this email was originally something I had hoped to tell you face to face but I fear that time has passed too far and us living in different states nixes that idea. I may be more eloquent here but I'd be more effusive and probably less long-winded if I said it out loud. Blech.

Anyway, I'll cut to the chase. First, my apologies for sending this seemingly at random. I'm not here to kick up dirt or start your day on the wrong foot. I realize we haven't had the best friendship and I realize that I'm pretty much persona non grata as of a decade ago. Its well earned on my part. But now that I'm older and notice how I'm not in touch with those people from my teens and twenties anymore, I need to strike that iron while I still have a chance at saving my soul.

I did a lot of awful things to you way back when and said a lot more. I hate to say the bad things seem to outweigh the good, now. I pretty much hate myself for it. I am so very sorry for the person I was then. It may be water under the bridge for you and I truthfully have moved on a bit myself - but the effect you had on my formative years deserves more respect than I gave them then and at least some acknowledgement in hindsight. I am truly sorry I did not see you for what you were and that I did not love you like you deserved. And this is all some sort of a "Personal Hell In Hindsight".

But I'm not saying I've turned over a new leaf or that I'm a totally new person - just that I'm a little more seasoned, a little more mellow. And looking back at the angry, young man I had been, I feel very little but shame for it all. Its okay if you don't believe me when I say I'm sorry to you every morning I get up; I do it anyway. And I know no matter how many times I say it, what I did to you won't heal anyone's wounds any better but I'll say it every day in hopes it does heal something. 

Believe me when I say I don't expect or require a reply. Its enough that I got to send this to you after years of running this stuff through my head. I feel a little free after typing it and yet the worst part is that everything I said here is an abject failure because what I feel is so much more than what you're reading. I am so sorry for what I did to you. So very sorry.

If you made it this far in reading, thank you. And if you didn't thats fine too. I really, really honestly and truly hope you're happy with where you are and whom you're with and I suspect the best is yet to come with you and I wish nothing but the best for you too. You have, at the very least in your short life, entirely changed my life in the process and taught me some tough lessons in the process.

I miss you, fidget.

J