Dear Kate

Context: I attended Roch Lazarte's relaunch for her book Matty's Mixtape for Moving On last Saturday (More on this event in a later blog post). Days before the event, she asked if people would be willing to read their letters to the Kates of their lives during the relaunch and I was lucky enough to be given a slot. This was the letter to my Kate that I read during the relaunch.


Dear Kate,

Even after dozens and dozens of sent letters, believe it or not, there are still things I never got to say. Some I should've said when you left, some I should've said while you haven't yet, some I should've said more, some sweet, some bitter. Here is, hopefully, all of them.

In a numbered list, since you were always a lazy reader.

1. The day you tried on a new hairstyle and I just laughed and didn't say anything? It wasn't because you looked funny, nor was it because your new hair didn't suit you. It was because you looked so good, I didn't know what to say.

2. Ever since you played the violin for me, I have loved everything about that wooden string instrument. You made Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso mean more.

3. Most, if not all, happy One Direction songs are about you.

4. I treasure everything you've ever given me - from that match stick on Valentine's Day para "match" tayo - to the very first original composition you wrote with your guitar.

5. You make me happier than when Tom met Autumn on the 500th day in 500 Days of Summer. Wait, no. You make me happier than the day I got my dog. And I think that says a lot.

6. After we had our biggest fight, you told me that you loved me just the same. I never got to say me too. So, me too.

7. The first time you told me you loved me, the world stopped moving. To me, anyway.

8. I loved our own little version of scavenger hunt. You would recommend a song, a TV show, a movie, a book, and I would find the message that you wanted me to see, a piece of your heart you wanted to share with me.

9. I thought we could never be really sad if we were sad together.

10. You made the pronoun us mean so much more.

11. I have tried to rewrite the day you left so many times in the hopes that for some miraculous reason, I would be able to blur the lines between what happened and what I wish happened.

12. Every single time a song come on and there's a violin in it is like an entirely different heartbreak.

13. Most, if not all, sad One Direction songs are about you.

14. I was so afraid of losing you because I honestly have no idea how people could get to know you and not fall in love with you.

15. You make me sadder than when Tom realized the difference between reality and expectation, and that the Summer that would choose him and stay will always be just in the expectation, never the reality.

16. The day we broke up and I told you I loved you and still wished we could work things out, what broke my heart the most was that you didn't say me too.

17. The last time you told me you loved me, the world stopped moving. To me, anyway.

18. I'm supposed to be the faster reader, and yet you seemed to have reached the ending way before I even saw it coming. If there was anything all my books have prepared me for, it should have been heartbreak.

19. I still miss you. You'd think it would be less by now, but there are days when missing you is all I do.


I love you. Perhaps, I always will.

Always,
Matty