忘れても君へ

To You, Even If You Forget

To you—

I thought about that winter afternoon today.

It was that time of year when the sun had begun setting much too early. You used to laugh at almost everything I said. Sometimes I wasn't even trying to be funny, and you'd laugh anyway, leaving me wondering what I'd said that was so amusing.

But that afternoon, you were the one who told the joke.

It was terrible.

We both admitted later that it was a genuinely stupid joke, and yet we laughed until we couldn't help ourselves. In the fading light, one of us would remember it again, and we'd start laughing all over.

Perhaps you don't remember that afternoon anymore.

That's all right.
I remember enough for both of us.

We were just out of school then, worrying far too much about the life that was supposed to come next. We had to decide something. We had to be going somewhere. We had to hurry up and become adults. It felt as though the future itself were rushing us.

And then the future came.

It really wasn't such a big deal.

It was new for a while.

Eventually life became like a pair of jeans washed so many times they simply fit. When they come through the laundry, you reach for them without thinking, put them on, and get on with your day. You forget when they became so comfortable. You hardly remember what you wore before them.

I suspect I've changed in much the same way.

I never felt myself becoming someone different.

But today, instead of quietly waiting for the chance that our paths might cross again, I'm writing this letter.

Maybe that's enough to tell me I'm no longer the person I was.

Life is good.

It looks almost nothing like the future I imagined back then.

Sometimes we get the things we ask for.
And sometimes we quietly let go of the things we once wanted most.

So I'm not writing because I need you to remember anything.

I only wanted to put this down somewhere:

This happened.
You mattered to me.
And I was grateful.

You don't have to remember.

When I finish this letter, I'll tuck the memory away with the rest of the past. Perhaps, in time, even I will stop remembering some of it.

But right now it is as fresh as the ink, and there is something warm in remembering it once more, perhaps for the last time.

I won't write goodbye.

Just—

Be well.

And thank you.