Sincerely, Yourself

wisdom: noun - accumulated philosophic or scientific learning, ability to discern inner qualities and relationships
- Webster's Dictionary


"The truth hurts so bad, wouldn't you say? So why tell it? If ignorance is bliss, then I'm in heaven now."

"If I told you that I knew about the sun and the moon, I'd be untrue, The only thing I know for sure is what I wanna do."
- QOTSA

To: John Tegan, May 28th, 2006

Greetings and salutations, I hope this note finds you well. I recently finished reading your latest update and felt compelled to contact you immediately. You see, from time to time, I enjoy reliving the past and find your entries to be very entertaining and insightful. As we speak, you are currently looking ahead to the future; your imminent trips to Virginia and New Hampshire, your last co-op, and a house in the city full of friends.

For all intent and purpose, however, this is not what one would call a jubilant message. Instead, my hope is to prepare you somewhat for the events that are about to happen and, in some way, impart any foreknowledge that you may find to be useful.

That knowledge begins with a sobering truth: the next two years will be the most difficult and, quite frankly, worst years of your life.

Take a second to digest this information.

. . .

Sorry buddy, it's the truth. If you don't believe me, just wait another eight weeks. Over that short period of time, you'll have a close friendship completely severed, lose out on that well-paying job you'd been banking on for months, and become some girl's very temporary rebound guy.

Sounds pretty rough right? It gets worse. There will be more friends, jobs and girls that will slip away. People you rely on the most in life will change, and as they do, the ideals you've built your very character on (integrity and an unwavering refusal to compromise your ideals) will leave on the outside looking in.

The house you live in will destroy itself from the inside. What starts as a collective friendship will splinter, again and again, resulting from a seemingly endless parade of arguments and unspoken resentments. This infighting will reach a crescendo when a close friend simply can't take it anymore and leaves, followed soon after by others longing for the lease to terminate months before it actually will.

The very landscape of your life will change dramatically. You will be broke, and not just "I'm-in-college" broke, but truly without money. Things will become so tight for you that at one point you will unemployed with less than $100 to your name and a growing stack of bills. The emotions you are going to experience during this phase will be magnified by the fact that you have dropped out of Drexel and are no longer pursuing a degree in chemical engineering. It will be very hard for you to make this decision, and while you will find comfort in the knowledge that it is the right decision for your future, it will not make the consequences of that decision any less difficult.

And then there is this: you will find love. It'll show up in the most unexpected of places under the strangest of circumstances, but it's existence will be undeniable. With it, you will experience some of the greatest joys of your life and learn some of its most crucial lessons. You will succeed far better than you though you could; you will show yourself completely to someone, put their needs ahead of your own, show compassion and understanding, make thoughtful comments and gestures, trust completely and commit fully.

Yet your faith in this love, just like your faith in friendships before it, will make its demise even more painful. She will break up with you and you will be unable to understand why, and I can't honestly say that you ever will. Others will say that she met someone else, she'll say she didn't, and you'll believe her. Others will say she didn't really love you, she'll say she does, and you'll believe her. In the weeks that follow, your mind will grapple with all that has happened and every fiber of your being will tell you that what you believe is true, but something as scandalous as "another man" would tragically be easier for you to understand. Your inability to comprehend the why will drive you mad.

Sorry kid, I wish I had better things to tell you. I wish I could say that you'll get that job you want, that you'll eventually warm up to engineering, that every friendship you make will last forever or that the girl you love won't rip your heart out. I warned you, this wasn't going to be a happy message.

Instead, this is a message of hope. In spite of all the hardships you will face, you will survive them all, and the lessons you'll learn will be important ones. You'll learn about yourself and, more importantly, finally gain confidence in what you see. You'll learn that money isn't the most important thing in life and act accordingly to achieve eventual happiness. You'll rediscover the importance of your family. You'll "have loved and lost", and evolved as a result.

You'll be better off...

We'll be better off...

We hope we'll be better off.

Sincerely,
Yourself