140 Leland Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025 9-15-09

Happy Birthday Jen!

I think enough things have coincided to make these, officially, a coincidence.   

Seeing you in VT in August for the first time in 6(?) yrs and second time in 13(?) years.  

Listening to ‘Walking on Broken Glass’ on my Ipod totally by random when I have been running all summer.

Getting a bunch of old letters and stuff from my mom in early September in a moving truck she drove across the country with my brother.

Getting Seth’s request for a memory for your 30th (?) birthday.

In a big box of letters my mom brought me that I only read through by chance and prior to Seth’s note but after having listened to a lot of one song from Annie Lennox, I found a letter from you.  It’s not a very happy letter from you but you asked me to remind you of it, and maybe it holds a lesson and a birthday wish.

2/28/94 1801 Clydesdale pl NW 616 WDC 20009

dear jeremy –

this morning, i nearly lost my cool at work.  more accurately, i almost announced my fate of late to the whole staff [I honestly can’t remember what you were going through], as if to say ‘lay the fuck off!! this is what I am going through’  alas, instead I took an earlier lunch, grabbed my walkman, bought a pack of smokes, and went on a long walk, ending up somewhere near the mall beside a statue i’ve never seen before.  despite the incredible wind chill [in DC?] it’s a beautiful day , so i sat for a bit, think actually, that this must be what it feels like to have a nervous breakdown --- all of this, the crying, the ‘slushie’ factor, the lack of concentration, no appetite, nightmares. . .  your average breakdown.   Just when i thought I’d start crying (really hard, the kind that takes your face a whole day to recover, the kind that makes your heart hurt)  -- annie lenox’s song – ‘walking on broken glass’ came on.  and i smiled.  it made me think of jenny and me and you dancing around her apartment before a night of good food, wine and conversation and it reminded me – even for just a moment – of what happy feels like.  (i would’ve started dancing, in fact, if it weren’t for my cigarette! who knows maybe whimsy is part of this breakdown thing. . . .?)  so i sat there, happy for a bit, listening to the song, to the words.  And you know what?  IT’S THE MOST DEPRESSING SONG!!!  The ironu made me laugh out loud.  i couldn’t believe that such gloom could make me feel good.  i’m so silly.  that’s when i realized i’ll probably be okay.  someday. . . 

just wanted you to know.

with love,

jen

hey, if you should save this letter, show it to me sometime. . . it’ll remind me that i made it though this shit-----------*

I laughed out loud when I read it a couple of weeks ago – ‘walking on broken glass’ OF COURSE it’s depressing.  You were so disturbed but still so upbeat.  I don’t remember you ever being really down, even if your work world was driving you nuts.  In retrospect it seems like a fundamentally healthy happy person trying ‘nervous breakdown’ on for a few months.  Anyway I am glad you recovered and if you remember what it was, know that you overcame it.  And you seem, and have always seemed, so well and strong.  And 40 years is nothing and the good days are here and waiting!   I know you’ll keep enjoying them.

Hope to see you again before too long.  Till then I will laugh at your insane Facebook status posts. 

hey, do me a favor.  if you save this, show it to me sometime just to remind me of how good it can be.