letter 25 – the person you know who’s going through the worst time

via weheartit.com

Dear Ness,

While driving on a desolate highway, sometime around 6:30 this morning, I realized that I was lucky. To be driving in a fourteen-year-old car with more than 200,000 miles on it. A car that I’d scraped more than 6 inches of snow from on Friday morning. A car that I almost always refuse to fill with premium gas, despite my dad’s insistence. I was lucky enough to watch the sun rise, the bright rays breaking through a line of trees to my left. I couldn’t figure out what that feeling was — not initially, at least — but I know now that it’s freedom.

Freedom to drive on that road so early in the morning in a car I can call my own. Freedom not just to be where I want to be, but freedom to travel. To physically get where I want to go. And it broke my heart, realizing that, because I knew then what kills me is your lack of freedom.

In a country founded on that simple principle, you and so many other people are held down. Oppressed by outside circumstances. It’s like someone’s got you on a string and you want to cut it loose but you don’t own a pair of scissors. It sucks. And I wish I knew how to make it better.

Because for some reason, I have this really awful problem where I feel like I have to save people from whatever is pulling them down. I wish I owned a one-size-fits-all life jacket or a universal life preserver. I wish I wasn’t just another college student who didn’t have a whole lot of money either. Because when you’re young and you want to change the world, you want to start by changing your world. You want to save the lives of the people you love.

What I want for you is simple: to go to California and draw up a story. Animate the lives of fictional characters. Be a part of Disney’s next big project. I want plane tickets to be free and housing to be complimentary. Sort of an all-inclusive flat rate of zero dollars for the young, the talented, the ambitious.

I want all your dreams to come true, because that’s what friends want. That’s what happens when you care about someone. I hate that I’m sitting back, typing this, feeling like I can’t do anything to help.

Love,
K

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