Chapter 202 Keep living

Chapter 202 Keep living
Michael.
If you're reading this, then two things have happened. First, we successfully resisted the urge to dig this up early. I'm choosing to be impressed by us.
Second, it's been two years. Which means that either we're very good at following instructions, or we'd just completely forgotten where we'd buried this thing.
I'm hoping for the first one.
I suppose I should start by saying that I hope you're reading this beside me. That's what I pictured when I wrote it. You sitting there, probably complaining that the ground is cold. Me telling you that you were the one who insisted on burying it in the woods. You reminding me that I chose that particular spot.
I'd like that version. I'd like very much to be sitting beside you right now. But if I'm not, then I suppose I should be honest about why this letter exists in the first place. There are some things you know without anyone saying them.
I know that. I've spent enough time being sick to understand that hope and certainty aren't the same thing. I don't know where I'll be when you read this. I don't know what I'll look like. I don't know if my hair will still be terrible.
Actually, that's a lie. My hair has never really been terrible.
I don't know if you've finished your book, I hope you have. And I hope you didn't dedicate the entire thing to me because that would be embarrassing. One page is acceptable, two's a bit excessive.
If you haven't finished it yet, finish it. You once told me that writing was the only thing you could do that made the rest of the world quiet. Don't stop doing the things that make the world quiet, especially when the world gets loud.
I hope you've travelled. I hope you've gone somewhere you've never been. I hope you've stood in front of something enormous and beautiful and thought, “Ryan would have liked this.” And then I hope you kept looking at it anyway. I hope you didn't spend the entire time wishing I were there. Although, selfishly, I hope you thought about me a little...Maybe often.
I'm allowed that.
I hope you've gone to the real Hawaii. You owe me that one. And if you haven't, I'll be deeply disappointed in you. I hope you've taken photographs, not because you're particularly good at it, you honestly aren't. But because you look at things differently when you know you're going to remember them. I think that's something I want you to keep doing.
Remembering.
That's probably the thing I'm most afraid of. Not death, just being erased. I don't want to become a photograph you eventually stop looking at. I don't want my voice to become something you can almost remember but can't quite hear anymore. I want you to remember way you looked at me the first time you realized you were in love with me. I want you to remember those things, but I don't want you to live inside them.
If I'm not there when you open this, you're allowed to be sad. You're allowed to miss me and to have terrible days. You're allowed to be angry. You don't have to turn me into some beautiful tragedy and pretend that losing me was meaningful enough to make it bearable. It wasn't. Sometimes terrible things just happen. I think you know that better than anyone.
I want you to keep living. Not perfectly, just honestly. Go to work. Buy books you don't need. Make terrible coffee. Forget to water the plants. Laugh too loudly and fall in love with things.
Maybe, eventually, fall in love with someone.
I know....I know.
You're probably making that face, so am I. But listen, if you ever love someone else, it doesn't make what we had smaller. It doesn't replace me. It doesn't mean you loved me less. Love isn't a house with one room. So don't make your life into a museum because I died. I don't want to be preserved at the expense of everything else. I want to be part of the life you keep living. A book on the shelf, a song that catches you off guard. A stupid story you tell someone who never even met me. That's enough, Michael. It's more than enough.
And if I'm there when you're reading this,
Then stop being so dramatic and give me a kiss. I'll probably have already made fun of you for crying. Although I'll probably be crying too.
And if I'm not there, well....I'm sorry.
I wish I could make that sentence less cruel. I wish I could write something here that would guarantee everything turns out exactly the way we want it to, but I can't.
But I can tell you what I believe. I believe there are things worth being afraid of. And there are things worth being afraid for. You were one of those things for me.
You still are. So if you get the choice, choose the frightening thing sometimes. Choose the trip. Choose the stupid little adventure. Choose the life that makes your heart beat too hard. Choose the person.
I did, I chose you. And I would still choose you, every single time. No regrets.
So, If I'm sitting beside you right now, take my hand. If I'm not, then take a breath and look around. Tell me something beautiful you can see and keep going. Not because I need you to but because you deserve to. And because somewhere along the way, you taught me that a life doesn't have to be long to be full. Mine is full because you were in it. Because you are in it. And love keeps going. So I suppose that's what I want you to do too.
Keep going, keep loving, keep remembering. And if you ever forget anything else, remember this...You were the best thing that ever happened to me. And, unfortunately for you, I was the best thing that ever happened to you.
I love you, I always will.