Dear World

Dear World,

Your birthday was three days ago, and I completely forgot about it. Sorry, I was working. I feel extremely guilty about this fact, so although it is not much, I decided to write you a letter. So you are about 4.55 billion years old now…geez, Cryptkeeper! I’ve only known you for about 20 years, which seems quite long to me, but in retrospect means I’m just another one of those measly organisms crawling on your surface, a life that wisps past your conscious in a futile effort to grab your attention. I have to say, you are the most efficient multi-tasker that I have ever known; how you manage to sustain life whilst surviving the life that wars against itself is beyond the comprehension of my little brain. I do love to consider the idea that any small action of mine, like writing a nice belated birthday letter to you, may in eventuality come to, in some strange round-about manner, save your life someday far in the future when our ways have parted; Chaos Theory has always been a good friend of mine as well, but his birthday was last month, and I didn’t forget it. Sorry.

What have you allowed me to experience up until now? I have known what it feels to be in an alien world, where the way of life is so very different from your own, and all the wonderment and fascination behind seeing a piece of your Earth that you have never experienced before. I have known what it feels like to stand in a place where history has happened. I have always had the wonderful opportunity of travel, and mixed with an intuitive need for adventure, my life has been permeated with only European culture so far. France, Belgium, Wales, England, Holland, Ireland… this is only just the tip of the iceberg. I pray that you allow me to see more, and to much further expand my understanding.

I have been loved from the very day I was born, a feat that many on this planet may never accomplish, which is a very sad and sobering thought. Why do you do that? Why do you give others what others have not? It’s pretty pointless to ask questions like that, I guess. But I do recognize the value in my family, however small it is; I realize that however many people walk in and out of my life with ease, there are at least four pieces on the board that will remain steadfast for my sake and for each other’s, and that is a very rare and beautiful thing when dealing with a World like you.

I have known the feeling of reuniting with an old friend, someone who reconnects your dots and makes you feel whole again. They say living in the past is not healthy, but I prefer to think that remembering where you began and who you knew first in your World is the best kind of therapy that life has to offer us. Give me a kindred soul, a pleasant path to walk down, a few hours to talk, and I can last another year.

I have known the incredible swell of euphoria that builds up in your chest when you are engulfed in the heat of a spotlight, and a sea of faces is staring at you, waiting for you, nervous for you. I have known the weird mix of excitement and sadness when it is over, when that fleeting moment of your life has blown away, never to return, and it leaves you on the stage alone, the audience hooting and clapping and hollering, celebrating your performance whilst never knowing the enormity of that split second before it’s done.

I have known the feeling of reading an incredible book for the first time, one that changes your whole outlook and being forever, one that consumes your old beliefs and replaces them with new ones, and the need to re-experience that story once more, and knowing that you can never read that book for the first time ever again.

I have known the feeling of acing an exam you were so scared of and nervous about, in a subject that terrifies you. I have known the feeling of receiving a disappointing grade on a test that you felt well-prepared for. I have known the feeling of going to a class every day that you knew your brain wasn’t “programmed” for, and would eventually fail. I have known the feeling of being recognized for your hard work.

I have even known that age-old, timeless feeling of heartbreak when a person leaves you for another, and (literally) leaves you at the train station; the crossroads of life. You leave many paths to go down, and I want to travel them all. You are a vast, complex, and unyielding World, and I only have time to experience a little more of you. So on your birthday, I selfishly ask you to celebrate it like any good Hobbit would, and give back to your friends; give back to all the little parasites living on your surface, waging wars on your surface, tending to your surface, and bless us all, and yourself, with another year of experiences.

I won’t forget your birthday next year. Sincerely,

D.C. Haddock