Dear Person Who Shall Heretofore Go Unnamed (You Know Who You Are):
1. We crave stories.
Here we go. There are days when I resent waking up and doing the whole shebang of duty and real-life admin work and my job, because you feel like this is the sped-over montage in the movie where people do the mega makeover or someone decides to take the martial arts training seriously or the bida decides, fuck it, I’m not dealing with this sober, while Dido croons in the background as the bottles pile up.
Routine is as deadly as rabies, is the point.
And then there are days when you can’t wait to fall asleep the night before so you can wake up already and do_your_thing, wake up early with the sleep still crusting your eyelids and your blood sluggish but your heart picking up the pace, thump-thump-thump like it knows excitement, too.
Last Saturday is one of those days, and I celebrate the plot twists as much as the next person, i.e. the plot twist of you climbing up a mountain with me — but mostly I celebrate how not one moment of that was worth skimming over, how it stood out with perfect clarity, in 1080p of misty rainforest air and storm-rush sounds, kind of mysterious and surprising and dangerous and just simply /fun/ all in one go. That makes for a good story, is what it does. Lovely.
2. But, you. You make one hell of a storyline, my dear boy. Murakami-esque.
The funny thing with you is, you can be an open book at times, like just churning out self-revelations one after the other, and other times there are things essential to you that you forget to share. I can’t make you tell me those things, nor do I want to squeeze the information out of you.
But from what I can see: a boyman lives his life in the suburbs surrounded by the padding of comfortable wealth, but nothing bruises and breaks him quite so quickly as his heart, the ol’ ticker, the way it flings itself on a pendulum of hope and heartbreak inside his ribcage. The way the women come and go on the upswing. The way he lets himself be led by the gentle calling of potential despite being let down.
He has schools and pedigree to his name, and he has failures and inadequacies dangling from underneath the floorboards. He is not a waste, but some people cluck their tongues and shake their heads. He is not a waste nor is he a failure, because a waste is a dead thing and failure is an event, and he is neither. All he has done since being born was grow, grow, grow. These days, he’s been letting out the heartbreak from his heart. He’s letting it happen to other people instead of protecting them from it. He has learned that he needed to grow beyond his landscape, beyond his constructed life and ideals, to make sense of his plot line again.
(The fractures in the bone are repaired by callus formation, thicker and stronger than unbroken bone. Not as streamlined, not as aligned — slightly lopsided, even — but somehow, sturdier than ever.)
3. Thank you for coming to the mountain with me. First mountain, no less!
The thing is, apart from the logistical aspect of it, I always used to envison the climb as a solitary event. Then I found that in practice, it’s hella fun to grumble to someone about how all the the rocks in the world have_been_dumped_here, ask incessantly “are we there yet?” or trade snacks with them on the traverse. Super fun. And so I always just used to wait to be invited to go climbing, for the safety and the conversation and the snacks that company provides. And now I’m doing the inviting and you indulged the request and you talked and laughed and wailed with me through all of it, and you ooh-ed and ahh-ed in all the right places, and you made all the appropriate Indiana Jones and LOTR and Jurassic Park references. And you talked and you asked and you let me talk and you let me ask, and we shitted each other not, and company like that is precious and a privilege, so. Thank you for coming with me to the mountain, but mostly thank you for coming at all, period.
4. The soundtrack is as essential as the cinematography, the directing, the casting, the acting, the storyboard.
Next time. Next time, we split DJ duties.
5. See you for the end credits! And the Easter Egg scene bit.
We made it to the end! If the actual trek were any less remarkable, I would celebrate all the other bits before and after — squeezing rainwater from our spare clothes outside your car; helping me with my baking alibi; the Magnetic Road debacle and the bit where the road turns dark and perilous and shady AF; mimicking all road traffickers when you asked for directions; marveling at the road trafficker archetype;
insightful conversations outside 7-11 like we’re in a coming-of-age movie; shivering just with the memory of mountain rain; mourning and moaning about past loves; laughing about failures and fear over hot coffee; the bad traffic that makes a cameo in all these movie types; you accusing me of being a regular little heartbreaker, and me accusing you of being a soldier and martyr and gunslinger and grenadier of love, a general and a battalion for love — like that’s really a fault, like that can qualify at all as an accusation;
the thrilling thought of being changed in one day, after 16 miles, over a height of 1000+ MASL; the excitement of climbing and the nagging worry of falling at the back of it. the craziness that inspires people to be uncomfortable, tired, aching, wounded, be-leeched — all because we are younger and older right now than we will ever be, and if that doesn’t say carpe diem I don’t know what does, so —
Maybe a restaurant next time, yes. And then caves after.
Respectfully (for you and your high socks) yours,
Justine
teawill 
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