PEOPLE WHO WERE GOOD TO ME

Letter 014

You Probably Don’t Remember This, but I’ll Never Forget It.

You probably don’t remember this.

That’s kind of the point.

You probably don’t remember staying up until midnight because an album was dropping and you knew I cared about it.

You probably don’t remember filling out a March Madness bracket just for me.

Maybe you didn’t care who won.

You cared that I cared.

You probably don’t remember the time I asked if you’d take me somewhere and you just said yes.

No making me feel difficult.

No making me explain why it mattered.

Just yes.

You probably don’t remember telling me I looked beautiful.

Or telling me I looked healthy.

I do.

You probably don’t think it’s particularly remarkable that I can disappear into my own life for four months, randomly call you, and you answer like we talked yesterday.

I think it is.

And you probably don’t remember the song.

Or how we felt when it came on.

Or the look that said, without either of us having to say it:

This is a moment.

Maybe you’ve heard it a hundred times since and never thought twice about it.

I have.

Because every once in a while, it comes on somewhere unexpected.

A car.

A store.

Someone else’s playlist.

And suddenly I’m not there anymore.

I’m back there.

Same place.

Same people.

Same feeling.

For a few minutes, I remember exactly what it felt like to be me in that moment.

That’s the strange thing about the moments we don’t know are becoming memories.

Nobody tells you to pay attention.

There are more.

So many more.

Tiny things you probably forgot because, to you, they weren’t events.

They were just Tuesday.

And maybe I’ve spent too much time remembering the other kind.

The big things.

The terrible things.

The moments that changed everything because somebody hurt me.

I’ve written a lot about those people.

I’ve remembered them loudly.

But they aren’t the only people who left marks on my life.

Some people learned what mattered to me and used it against me.

You learned what mattered to me and joined me there.

You stayed up.

You filled out the bracket.

You said yes.

You answered the phone.

You told me I was beautiful.

You noticed when I looked healthy.

You stood beside me during moments neither of us knew I would someday miss.

And none of you were standing there thinking,

She’s going to remember this.

That’s why I do.

You weren’t trying to teach me anything.

But you did.

You taught me that being remembered can feel like love.

That being included can feel like love.

That someone participating in something completely stupid just because it matters to you can feel like love.

That sometimes love is simply someone answering the phone.

I want to start remembering these things as loudly as I remember everything else.

Because the people who hurt me aren’t the only people who left fingerprints on my life.

You did too.

And yours are the ones I’m glad stayed.

You probably don’t remember this.

But I’ll never forget it.

Did something here feel familiar?

Mine does.

Anonymous. No account. Just a small way to say: I recognized something here.