>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: mid-afternoon blues
>>Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000

Everyone in my family has left to go someplace or another and I don't have the faintest idea where any of them are. I've had the house to myself all afternoon, and it's been kind of nice. I was just listening to some music, playing one of my dad's guitars, writing more songs for the band I'll never be in, and then I started going through all the old shit in my room to see if I could find anything cool. What I found was this old box that was full of birthday cards from my first three birthdays and a lot of welcome to the world cards from when I was born. God, how depressing. It's the type of thing I'm sure my parents saved so that when I was older I could read them and see how happy everyone was that I was born, but reading them, I was struck by this enormous sense of irony. All my relatives were so anxious to see me for the first time, and in their little notes, they were so happy that I was born and that I was a new part of their family, and I think about how they feel when they think about me now, and it's just terrible. When I was a harmless infant, everyone was so happy I was alive and they couldn't wait to see me, and now that I'm older, I'm sure they all dread having to be around me because of the way I make them feel when they're in my presence...all those hopes they had for me before I developed into a person, and the wake of disappointment I've left behind me as I've grown older.

A few minutes ago, my grandmother called. She’s the only person in my family who even remotely seems to think I'm worth anything, and she thought I was my brother. That happens all the time. I was too depressed to correct her. People would rather that I was my brother and that I was more outgoing and personable and happy and stupid. It would be one thing if it only happened on the phone, but people call me by my brother’s name to my face, and most of the time I'm too aggravated to try and correct them. My mother is talking to her now. She just got home and called her back, and she's telling my grandmother I left for a night, but she isn't telling her why. She's too ashamed that I'm fucked up and on medication and need to see doctors over Christmas break just to try and stay sane.

I went outside to smoke a cigarette after I looked through that box and I stood under my old basketball hoop, and tried to see the ghost of my childhood again. I just wanted to see my life before I cared about anything, to try and capture a second of that again, and I felt too heavy to even trudge after that vision. I'm a cracked and fragmented person now, and all those hopes that everyone had for me when I was born have shriveled up and withered away as I moved into adulthood and misery. I have a feeling that my funeral will be an affair of relief rather than sorrow at the unfulfilled promise of my life. I can see them breathing a sigh of relief as they slam the casket shut and toss the last shovelful of dirt on me because they can finally walk away and not have to concern themselves with me any longer.

Antidepressants...right. My head has stopped spinning, but I feel more awful now than before I took the medicine. I'm in the way around here and there's nothing I can do to get around that. I'm a cannonball shackled to everyone else's ankle, but they don't have the heart to saw through the chains and leave me to roll around helplessly on my own. Taking the medication again reminded exactly how helpless I really am and much trouble I am to everyone. My own parents are personally embarrassed by everything about me except my grades, and that is really starting to hurt. The anger is wearing off and the sadness is setting in.

You know, I got more valentines on my first Valentine's Day than I've gotten in the other eighteen years' worth combined. Everything has cascaded downhill since the moment I took my first breath in this world. God, what a terrible thought. I was most content and most loved the first year I was alive and both of those have been slipping away ever since. My family has nothing left for me but obligation, and I know that if and/or when I finish school, I may hear from them once a year or something like that, but they aren't going to want to have anything to do with me for the rest of my life...blood shedding blood.

I love you so much, Perdita.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: mid-afternoon blues
>Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

Well, I know someone's gonna come home here before I get a chance to say everything I want to say, but I had to respond to a few things very quickly. First off, regardless of the fact that I found it quite intriguing that you were trying to go without the medication, I'm now more relieved to hear that you've decided to go back on them. Just knowing how shitty I felt when I went about a day without meds, I can't even fathom how difficult it must've been for you to cut out more medications more abruptly, and that thought just didn't want to sit in my brain. I couldn't conceive of how your brain would react to such a sudden change, and I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who can't live without the meds.

Secondly, I simply don't believe that you were most loved your first year on this planet. I hate to say anything even remotely negative about someone's family if I haven't met them personally, but if your family thinks you've become some huge disappointment or something, they're obviously just incapable of seeing what a torturous but wonderful gift you have to be able to see the world for what it actually is. And given that, I find it hard to believe that they would even have the capacity to love you as much as I know I can, so fuck them and their stupid-ass world and be content to know that I love you unconditionally for everything that they can't even begin to accept.

I'll write more tomorrow, but I needed to get that out. I hope you were able to find a few moments of solitude or calm or something worthwhile tonight. We're down to days now instead of weeks. I can't wait to see you.

I love you so much.
Perdita