to whom it may concern,

It's been a cold winter here, but things are warming up at last. It's been so with my heart as well. I hate to bring up such trivial things with you, things that a year from now will mean nothing at all, but in an effort to be as honest as possible I ask that you bear with me.

It seems that no matter what, I can't seem to get her out of my head.  First of all, I wake up thinking about her because she's always in my dreams as of late. Today I drove to Jerry's Artarama in Austin to return something for my sister. The last time I went there was with L, and we missed the exit because we were both convinced that it was the next one. As I left there today, I saw a concrete mixer truck with her name written on the back, just spinning around. It's quite an odd name for a concrete business. On my way back home I stopped at my brother's to get her melodica, which she let me borrow and I mistakenly left there. Of course that is now a constant reminder, sitting in my room staring at me until she returns from her vacation and I can give it back to her. Then there is the fact that no matter how many text messages I don't send her, her name still shows up in my "recently messaged" list. (I'm not sure what this list is actually called, but it's there every time I send a new text.)

On to more important things. Before we go any further, however, let me say that I know this is a really heavy first letter. I apologize for that and hope you will understand and not give up on me.

I've been worried a bit lately. The other night while I was doing some grocery shopping, I had a sudden wave of anxiety hit me. I had a basket full of food and other items (most of which I could certainly defend as necessities), but all of a sudden I just wanted to leave, with or without these things. This has happened to me before, and I just blamed it on me being ready to leave after taking an hour to shop. The reason this time got me worried is because of my mother. She's been in and out of a slight depression for a while now, and a few weeks ago she told me how she would go shopping and all of a sudden just feel like she needed to leave, and would put everything back and just go. When I remembered this, I began to wonder if this was my fate as well, if this was part of the depression that was so destructive in her life and if said depression was genetic. Do you know much about depression? Maybe there is something you know that will help me with this. I'm determined to not become a victim to something so silly (no offense to anyone who suffers from depression).

It's wonderful to be writing you this late. I am on my spring break from school, and I have no assignments to work on, so I'm staying up late again (at least for the weekend). Old habits die hard, right? The weather, as I said, is warming up. I wore shorts today, shorts and a tie-dye v-neck (which my friend Z made for me). I'm hoping to go surfing around the end of this week. I started reading Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. I think it's wonderful so far, in a very quirky way. It seems like he pulled things out of nowhere and just force fit them, but in the same way it seems so honest, so unaffected. He had quite an imagination. The book also includes Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the book that introduces Peter, which I am looking forward to reading.

A lot of my friends are gone this week, it being spring break. You may be gone as well. I've opted to stay in town, in order to work and save money by not going on a trip. It's going to be a tough week if I have to spend it alone, but I think I have enough friends who are still in town who can keep me company.

I'm trying to be optimistic about the future, and about life in general. The other night I took upon myself a mantra, "esta noche será mia". With this in mind, I worked up the courage to talk to L, just to tell her how I felt about things. In hindsight, I feel really silly about telling her, but at the same time it made me feel better. So today, I leave you with this quote by Emerson:

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

sincerely,

vm