Hi there Roxanne!
It's the first time I thought of mustering enough courage to write to you, but honestly? I should have wrote you sooner instead of just frantically letting all my twenties anxiety take over everything. But I am writing this letter by the sea, hoping to get some clarity, at least for a while.
How are you by the way? Were you able to build that farm you have always dreamed of? I bet your grandkids love you and are annoyed by you at the same time. I hope you talk to your grandchildren of angels and demons, magic, sword fights, heroes and monsters, especially the ones we fought together. I hope you talk to them about the places we've been, the cultures we've seen, the interesting conversations we had with people, the love we fought and the love we lost.
We have always been way too talkative and expressive for our own good, but I hope by then along the way, you somehow managed to achieve that balance.
Do you still listen to your body? I hope it is still mobile and in good shape. I don't know if you remember, but lola used to annoy the hell out of us because of her complaints about her body (and about everything, really). I hope you managed to break that cycle. I hope you had already managed to forgive her and everyone who loved us but didn't know how to when they had the chance.
I don't know if you still pole, but I would understand if you don't anymore, but I want to remind you (in case you forgotten) that you used to be sizzling hot:
I don't want to underestimate old age, or underestimate anything, really. I am trying to keep myself from sounding too entitled because right where I am, it seemed like every time my identity wraps itself around getting good at something, life always has something in store to rock the boat and humble me. But I do hope you still talk about it.
I hope you still talk about your pole adventures to your grandchildren even if they have heard the stories a million times. I hope you still talk about the wonderful friends you met along the way, about the V-radar team-- Anne, Gail and Juli-- and the screams and shrieks and all the twerking in Nay Juli's studio that drowned out all life's problems.
Say hi to the old ladies for me. With Nanay Juli's business still booming on your end, who knew her costume business she started after her mastectomy would grow to be an empire? The smallest decisions we make really compound to something huge and significant with time, and I'm glad she saw it through.
I hope you taught your children the importance of quality friends-- in looking for them, identifying them, sticking with them, and in letting them go when needed-- because they really are your saving grace when life throws a curve ball towards where you hurt. I hope that even in their prime, they still get friends who will introduce different perspectives on how life ought to be lived.
I hope our brothers are more gentle now, to themselves, and to their own legacies. Both of us will never understand the perspective of men and the burden of being socialized to be dominant, unexpressive and emotionally distant because we have always been women but, we have always been their eldest sisters. I hope Alphonse by this time, smiles more, laughs more, spends his time under the sun more, spends time with children, people and have already let go of the idea of how a man should behave. I hope Rjek listens to his partner more especially whenever she exhibits leadership, and be the emotional rock that complements the areas where he still needs help with. I hope both of them learn how to ask for help. I hope they both end up with partners who push them to become better men.
I know you miss our parents. Do know that on my end, I am trying my very best to love them where I am, with what I have. They are imperfect parents, but they both love/d us fiercely. I for one think they deserve more than what I could offer at the moment, but I am trying hard not to condemn myself for that.
You may not remember the experience that much, but I do, even from a distance, even at my current age of 25 and my current state of "sink or swim". I'm pretty sure they didn't regret watching you live your life, even if it was a bit different from their expectations. I hope you are not taking the burden of regret with you right now, of "should've been's", "would've been's" and "could've been's" or talk of the many times you were insulted in your youth.
Believe me, at my age, those words are already unbearable, how much more when I'll be as frail as you at 85 and have almost four times my current life experiences? At least by then though, hopefully, I would already have stopped having the knee jerk reflexes of bombing myself with "What if's"-- the bane of being young and having way too many options.
But do tell me you're doing well with the former? Even with all the heartbreaks you dealt with, the many times you picked up the pieces and glued them back together, again and again and again, six times or seventy times-- please do tell me that you didn't regret any of it, even if the many lovers you danced with disappointed you, even if you disappointed them, and even if you disappointed yourself by losing yourself time and time again along the way.
I'm pretty sure you are not as hard on yourself as I am on myself at the moment. Everyone you love will disappoint you one way or another, right? And we chose to love again and again.
Please tell me that you mastered the art of loving ferociously and quietly at the same time, and channeled it to the people who could mirror it back to you and return it multiple times when you can't. Because you deserve it.
You deserve a love that fights for you, even in your old age, even when you can't pour out from your cup anymore.
You deserve a love that won't easily let you go especially when you're tired, or set traps for you especially when you have so much on your plate, or is intimated your strength, but instead, loves you all the more when you are fatigued from holding on to so much.
You deserve a love who could not only harvest the best parts of you, but help in cultivating the soil, pulling the plow, and watering the plants every single day-- a love that accepts and stays through, not only the best parts of you but also the worst and difficult parts of you as well.
I hope you're proud of me as I am beginning to actively realize at 25, that I don't have to carry the whole world with me, that I don't have to take care of everyone, and be the best at everything, that I am learning how to be cared for as well.
You deserve a love that quiets your fears, that pulls you to the ground, because I'm pretty sure you remember my current tendency to get so caught up with my highfalutin, naïve expectations of life, but I'm still learning to ready myself for that kind of love, as often, "we accept the love we think we deserve", right?
I hope by 85, you already have found that and I hope by 85, that love is still around.
Love,
25-year old, ever-confused Roxanne
Roxanne Marie is the twenty-year-old something who calls herself the Protean Creator.
She is a chemical engineer by profession, pole-dancer and blogger by passion and frustration, and lastly, a life enthusiast. She is on a mission to rediscover her truth through the messy iterative process of learning, relearning and unlearning. Currently, she works as a science and research instructor in her hometown, Tagbilaran City, all the while documenting her misadventures, reflections and shenanigans as a working-class millennial here on Hive.
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