To a once close friend and a loved sister,
I feel like I should miss you more than I do at this point in my life. I suppose after the year of drinking I have put us through, the 'us' I knew so well caught on fire and is now a pile of ash. I've managed to collect as much of it as I could before it was swept away, and I keep that in a safe place buried deep in the center of my heart.
In those ashes are some of our fondest memories we spent together, almost always laughing and having a grand o' time, but now that all feels so distant, like it was many years ago. Sometimes it even feels as though I am remembering a great dream I had, or someone else told me a vivid memory that they shared with someone they called their best-friend, and I wanted a bond like that so much my mind convinced me it was really something I once had.
It kills me inside to even think about how much I pushed you away but i'm doing what I can now to earn the right to even call you a friend. I know most of the time after this disease consumed my thoughts daily, and I moved out, it seemed as though I stopped caring about you and the friendship we spent our entire life building didn't matter anymore, but thats not the case. I can promise you that much. I understand if you chose not to believe me, because I am a liar, a thief, a cheat, an *******, but most of all an alcoholic. I'm in AA now to learn to change my ways of thinking and to learn what truly caused me to make the decisions I did. I know I need mental help, that much is obvious, and I did choose on my own to get sober and find the help I needed all along.
My drinking after Chris left me increased drastically, to the point that I couldn't even get out of bed without being in morbid pain and shaking violently, unless I had alcohol to chase down my throbbing throat. At that point I had lost complete control of myself and I didn't really care about anybody but myself. At the same time though, from my understanding at least, you could've forced me to get sober and I would've received the help I needed and shown why what I doing was wrong, yet you deliberated chose not to. That says a lot to me, probably more than you realize. For I know if it had been you in the shoes I was walking around in, I would've used casey's law. You could tell just by looking at me that I was sick, and unable to change on my own. I literally was skin and bones and puked six or seven times a day, I know there is no way you didn't see that at least a couple of times.
Knowing all of this brings tears to my eyes. It is the reason now why I still don't talk to you much, or really even attempt to keep you up to date with whats going on with me. Yet, at the same time, maybe thats just me being spiteful, I truly can't tell at this point. I do know I miss you quite a lot, but i'm not sure if i'm ready to look you in the eyes after all that has happened, at this point in time. I don't deserve your forgiveness but that doesn't mean I don't want to make amends. Maybe, someday in the future, we will call each other the best of friends, like we did when we were younger, and make more time for each other.
Until then, I will carry those precious ashes in an air-tight jar,
with my chin up, proud of what they stand for.
-love your sister, the daydream girl
I've been carrying around this letter for almost a month now, never quite able to finish it until now. It brings tears to my eyes every time i read it but it keeps me strong at the same time. For it will always be my unsent letter to a once so very close friend, my older sister. I don't say it enough or express it hardly ever, but I love and miss her so very much.
