STOP! Hey Hey Wait a Minute Mr Postman

The night before my big operation last November I was so petrified of being cut open that I couldn't get to sleep. I was emotionally all over the place. I had been dreading this day for months and despite trying my hardest to think positive, my stomach was doing somersaults. It sounds dramatic but I had a deep fear that I might not make it through the procedure. I have had a few operations over the past couple of years but the thought of a four hour one was more than a bit daunting. I kept thinking about my past and the things that I wish I had done or said because I have always believed that it is the things we don't do or say that we regret in life. My previous counsellor had suggested writing letters to the people in my past who had been significant to me either in a positive or a negative way, not necessarily with the intention of sending them but just to release my feelings during times of stress. Four hours is a bloody long time to be under a general anaesthetic and I was having abdominal surgery which carries one of the highest risks for blood clots. Ridiculous as it sounds I wanted to do what my counsellor had suggested in case I never got the chance to. There were certain people I felt had been really influential in my life and I wanted more than anything to tell them and thank them for helping me. So, in the hours before I left for Birmingham I sat in bed scribbling down words, thoughts and feelings in the worst handwriting imaginable and at 3am I put several of what I would loosely call 'letters' into envelopes, morbidly thinking that if anything happened to me someone would send them. I wrote addresses on two of them but left the others plain as I had no idea where the people they were written to worked or lived. I also wrote a lot down in my notebook in a rough non letter format before falling asleep pen in hand. I hoped that my letters would never have to be sent because I would recover and be ok but it felt good just to write it all down before facing my worst nightmare.

The operation went well. I had my boyfriend and my Dad there to support me but not my Mum as I had asked her to stay home and look after my beautiful doggy. Well, imagine my shock horror when laying in a hospital bed unable to move a text came through from my Mum saying 'I posted your letters for you'. I felt my heart hit my mouth and my stomach drop reading those words on my mobile screen. I felt like I had fallen a hundred feet and I couldn't get up. My head was suddenly a hive of buzzing questions. How could I have been so stupid? What the hell was I going to do now? What would these people think of me? Could someone give me a time machine? One letter wasn't too bad and I probably would have sent it when I got home but the other was never under any circumstances going to be posted while I walked the earth. If you want to imagine how I was feeling then imagine writing down your innermost feelings in your diary, being totally open and thinking that nobody would ever read what you had written. Now imagine someone ripping out the pages and printing them in the local newspaper for the whole town to read. There I was miles from home and powerless to do anything, in fact the recipient was probably reading it right then in that moment as I freaked out.

Basically, like many other teenagers I had a crush on a teacher at school. I was vulnerable and lonely and I used this crush as a form of escapism because my life was difficult. There was nothing sinister about it and there was certainly no encouragement from the other side. I was just a seventeen year old girl with my hormones and emotions flying about and in desperate need of a positive role model in my life. This person was everything I aspired to be and they were the only person I could open up to and be truly honest with. I was fake with everyone my own age because I was scared of being bullied again. This person was attractive, intelligent, honest and most importantly, confident. I wanted to be all of those things but my self esteem had been battered so badly by bullying that I just hid behind a false, gregarious persona, wanting so desperately to be accepted but fearing that I never would be. I was frightened by people my own age and that school had been a scary place for a number of years. I turned to this person and they listened and I felt that they understood.

The worst thing about it is that the content of the letter is really sketchy in my memory. I wrote it in horrible, rushed, scribbly handwriting and oh my god I wrote it on notebook paper that had cartoon minions all over the bottom! It was 2am and I was exhausted and rambling on. I can never keep things short. It could have said anything. I didnt even have a copy to analyse and ask my closest friends opinion of, just a rough idea in my mind of what I had written. Unfortunately the one thing I do know is that I admitted my crush to this person. The letter was originally just going to be a 'thank you' letter but a few years ago I was friends with someone who was a 'shit stirrer'. I was trying to think of a more eloquent term for it but 'shit stirrer' is the perfect description of her. We told each other things we hadn't told anyone else because at the time I trusted her but sadly I have since found out that my trust was broken. Basically she is a storyteller and I guess my worry was that she had somehow spilled this particular secret out and inflated it to make me look like a weirdo because that's what she does. I've been told things about her that made me realise I should never have trusted her so I thought that slipping the truth in casually would make it look less intense and light hearted whilst giving my side of the story. Now I realise this bizarre admission would have looked just that, bizarre. The poor recipient probably thought I was crazy and was after something romantic in return for my declaration! I just hope that I explained why I was writing, that this person was a positive role model in my life when I needed one the most and how very much it meant to me to have that.

I don't claim to be 'normal'. In fact I don't think there is such a thing and if there was I would hate to be described in such a way. It's a word that I associate with boring or dull. I like to think I am unique. I refuse to grow up, I can be silly at times and I think that life would be yawn inducing if we all acted like 'mature adults'. The people who know me would never describe me as creepy, stalkerish or strange but given the fact that some of the worlds most notorious psychopaths were described by their loved ones as kind, 'normal' and caring I can understand how that in itself may not be reassuring. Seriously though I am too honest for my own good and I hate people who have a hidden agenda. Aside from spending a few years in the same school this person is essentially a stranger so I can imagine a letter of this kind arriving out of the blue from someone who you last saw over a decade ago would be confusing and extremely weird. During my recovery I watched the film 'Single White Female' for the first time and I thought 'holy shitballs...what if the recipient of my letter thinks I am like the main character?'.  I considered writing again to explain that the letter was never meant to reach them but I couldn't decide if it would make matters worse. I was so worried a reply might come through the door telling me to politely to leave them alone but I never got a reply....and in some ways the silence was worse!

Its over six months ago now but because it was such a mistake it still plays on my mind. Nobody wants the person that they used to idolise to think bad things about them and I haven't a clue how my letter received. It is a small world and there is a strong possibility that one day I could bump into this person in town and if that happened I think I would die on the spot. It's not the fact that they now know I had a crush on them. That doesn't bother me. I'm quite open about things like that and I would hope that my young self could be excused for having those feelings. It's the fact that I look like a nutter because what kind of person writes to someone who is already married and tells them how they felt 15 years ago?!  I guess that there is a high chance that this person might not even remember me which would be a bonus. However, you only need to type in my name on social media and up pops a photo of me with my bright red hair, hair that makes me far more recognisable in the flesh. Oh the joys of the 21st century! Seriously though, so many teenagers pass through that school each year, what makes me so memorable? I am in contact with another former teacher and she too suggested writing another letter to explain and apologise for my Mum's error. She is such a wise owl and I fully trust her judgement but I just don't know what I would say. I couldn't exactly write a letter just saying 'hi again. Just so you know I'm not crazy' and I don't want to risk making the situation even worse. Like I said at the beginning, I think that the things we regret in life are the things we don't say or do. This however is definitely an exception. My Mum's innocent act of kindness has definitely left me with a regret and jeez I wish someone had invented that time machine .....