How Your Letter Would Have Read.

Names have been changed/omitted to protect the innocent. If you think this applies specifically to you, if you read this, then you're probably right. If you're not sure, then its not you.

Dear,

This is to say thank you. You've been more to me than I can ever imagine, since I met you, I've loved you. I've hated you. I've been everywhere in between... You were my world, as cliche as it is to say, and now you aren't, but I thought I would write you this anyway, since I didn't when I was supposed to... because, frankly, I didn't know about it. So, this is your letter. The one I told you I would write a few months ago, and you would get it when you needed it. I think you need it now. Spring is the time for growth, for life, which is why you need it now, that you're about to grow up in the eyes of all the people around you. You're about to be an adult, and so this is my advice to you for the coming years of your life, regardless of how involved I am in them.

Wear sunscreen.

Okay, joke, sorry. You know, it wouldn't be me without a sunburn joke/ obscure pop-culture reference (props to who can figure that one out and leave a comment).

My real advice is to stay vulnerable.

I realize that I may have hardened you to a lot, with the mistakes I made, which were many, and too often, but you can't let them change you. When I met you, you had everything to give. And you did. You gave yourself without reserve, without care. And I hurt you, but you went on loving me anyway, and that's the kind of love this world doesn't have. A love that forgives. A love that knows the good in someone, no matter how much bad they show.

You will get hurt, we all will, if we love the way we should. We don't deserve it... but we grow through it. But we can't be afraid to love others because someone hurt us.

I would give the world to take back the things I did, but I can't. I can't change the past, but I can hopefully change the future. I did a lot of growing through you, and I've done more since. I think this letter is as much to me as it is to you.

Keep growing up, but stay willing to love, to take chances, to live life to the fullest. I think I could give lessons on wasting potential, so I would hate to see you waste yours. Love with everything you had, the way you loved me once. Love everyone that way. Whether its me, or someone else, just love the way you did once... without care or abandon.

You're beautiful... you gave me more than I could ever hope.

This is your letter,


Zachary Warren Newton.



There's a feeling that's sweeping over me, right now, that I can't really describe. I've had that on my chest for almost three months... Maybe, this is closure, I don't know. Truthfully, I've never felt it before.

"It kills me not to know this, but I've all but just forgetten,
What the color of her eyes were, and her scars and how she got them,
As the telling signs of age rain down, a single tear is dropping,
Down the valleys of an aging face, that this world has forgotten."

-'Savior,' Rise Against.