The Dying Tree

"Would it feel my touch ?", i thought while pressing my palm against the coarse bark of the tree under which we took shelter from the rain that night. It felt so dry and wrinkled with age...I don't remember what we were talking about ; two human beings have so much to share while waiting for the rain to stop.
How does it feel, i wondered, to be in the place of this poor, wrinkled creature in such a cold night, forgotten in a secluded corner where no one looks ,shivering in the cold, drenched in the rain, alone.
Yet it warmly embraced the two of us, as though it was happy to have the consolation of a company at last.

There are moments you would like to carve into your memory forever, and this was one of these moments. I feel livelier than ever when it rains. I'm the happiest when the rain drops land on my face and slide along my temples, because it reminds me that i'm still loved by God, and is still included in his mercy. if you could imagine, dear batushka, a torch burning even more zealously when it is showered by a heavenly hail, that is exactly what happens to my soul when it rains.
It wasn't November yet, but my soul was wide awake and could hear the feeble sounds usually smothered by the mighty noise of the living. I could hear the loneliness of this dying creature. It seemed that none of this blissful shower could seep through to enliven the poor thing amid its seclusion. It was dying slowly, horridly unnoticed.
I pressed my palm against its bark because i wanted to remember the miniature humps and dips engraved on it. I pressed my palm against its bark, and closed my eyes, hoping that i can convey a bit of the warmth i felt that night, standing next to a dear friend, talking about everything, talking about nothing, i wished to transfer this warmth somehow to its mortified core, hoping that it might revive it a little.

For You In Full Blossom IV

The Iron Lady

To the girl that walked about greeted like a queen, but flung by rotten tomatoes when she turned her back.

Quite honestly I've heard a lot about you before actually getting to know you. And trust me; you don't want me to repeat what I heard. Lucky for you, I made it my golden rule to never judge any individual based on anyone's opinion of them , and thanks to that i was able to know many great people throughout my life, people that were great in their own ways.

Females always have something to say about each other and they always make it their sport to find faults with every girl that is the center of attention.

And ,well, you were the Queen Bee among your friends.

I thought at some point that it's impressive to be so sociable and popular, having people to chat with at every table you sit at, until I heard what these same people say about you when you left.
That was horrifying in every way. It was (honestly) the first time I witnessed such a gruesome social behavior :
If you don't like a certain individual ,wouldn't it be the logical attitude to stay away from them ? you don't have to deal with someone you dislike. End of story. Why girls feel the need to pretend to be friends with someone they evidently can't bear with was confusingly beyond me.
I understand that in the real world there are hierarchical positions to abide by and connections to keep in order to survive; but in an social environment where there aren't any material benefits to gain from keeping good relations with a peer whatsoever, what would make anyone fake their feelings towards someone ?

It's because people need a place to fit in, and they need a person that gives them attention and make them feel accepted. 

Maybe your strong character made some girls feel the need to get along with you, to get your "approval" despite having issues with your attitude. I don't really know nor did i care honestly. It's because I was the neutral side in all this that I could see the ugliness of the entire scene : People smiling at your face ,then devouring your rotten flesh behind your back. I reached a point where I started to avoid most of the people in your circle whenever i could and I believe I showed it too much, more like in an a hateful way. i'm sorry about that but i was just too disgusted and done with your dramatic life and all the "rumors" and "plots" and the constant shocks in people and the crumbling of every meaning of the word "friendship" i learnt throughout my life.

Watching this soap opera reminded me that we are not in high school anymore ; the female population isn't gonna shun a girl because she's mean and conceited and a bully, she will be hated if she's pretty, attractive and charismatic and especially if she is opinionated and strikingly honest, even is she is a good person at heart. I think that's why you were disliked ,but no one came forward and told you that to your face because they know they had no right to hate you. Honesty should never be a vice. Never. You say the truth aggressively but regardless, truth is already ugly for those who don't want to hear it.

I'm really glad i didn't mind your rude attitude while dealing with you alone, though, because i realized that you have a really pure heart after getting to know you better. I was especially glad that you don't get offended when i treat you the same way, being honest with you and all, not bothering to choose my words. I just feel so comfortable while dealing with a straight-forward person because they would rather shoot a rude comment at me than trash me behind my back.

I must tell you that I'm able to be honest with people because I taught myself to be a self-reliant person; I need no one to provide moral support for me and make me feel "accepted". And because I don't need anyone I'm consequently not afraid of losing anyone by declaring my real views and feelings. I think people become able to bond better with each others when every one of them acts as a single atom that has the option of breaking on its own and joining different orbits at its free will. 

What I'm getting at is that the way you dealt with all that hatred was an interesting example.

What was special about you is that you knew the people around  you were two-faced, yet you held your chin high and walked about with confidence, receiving their poisonous arrows on your back proudly. You didn't surrender.

I used to act passively when I couldn't fit into a group; I had a few friends i could hang out with of course, but i didn't care to enforce my social presence and be part of any social entity...I just didn't care enough to be part of something, i guess, because I've always got my own thing going on, my own interests, my own sense of humor, my own values , my own meditations that not many people understood anyway.. And i didn't have to change for any one's sake...I thought it  Though I never thought of it this way : that I am being my own group, I'm being an atom, and atoms attract other atoms sooner or later. I've always thought I needed to work on that, but after meeting you, I came to believe that it is okay not to fit in.
It is okay not be liked. If you like yourself enough.

The Rise

Before I entered that place, I was bored with life..disinterested...tired is the right word, actually. One reaches a point where it gets really tiresome to carry on, strife, meet people, bond with them, plan your future and set out to make it happen...just waking up in the morning and thinking that you have to go through all that is enough to put you down.. Life itself drains you sometimes and one keeps thinking that the strings attaching them to this world aren't enough to make them want to carry on.
At least i did.

But I wasn't exactly suicidal nor particularly contemplating the idea of killing myself before coming here...I'm not that stupid as to commit a great sin as letting go of my precious life. I wasn't that cynical anyway..You know, the strings connecting me to this world might not be very strong (I'm not going to say they are weak), but still, they exist, and the people to which they are connected are bound to suffer if i disappear and I don't want them to go through that...of that I'm sure. Plus who would think of committing such a horrible crime in a holly place like this.

I was just surprised at how easy it was for me to just accidentally fall from the crooked railings and break my neck. The sudden proximity of death was what alarmed me and instigated this whole train of thoughts. Strange isn't it ? you think you've already made up your mind about something, deciding it's out of the question, but when an opportunity to achieve it so readily presents itself, you suddenly start to doubt yourself all over again.

"Suppose i let myself fall from here "accidentally", what do you think will happen ?", i asked myself, rhetoricallly of course.

I sank to the depths of reverie as usual, with my eyes closed, while i was trying to imagine all the possible outcomes of such a small, single step... And i think i came back to my senses after i descended the stairs and noticed that I was staring emptily at the inner dome, and the luminous chandelier.
I felt strangely at peace..Masajed are so peaceful and have a purifying effect indeed..
Nobody was there, it was night time...The full moon outside and a starry, clear sky were visible from the enormous windows...and then there was the grand chandelier pouring a stream of light all over the place.

An excess of light engulfed me, engulfed my mind and heart and soul and entire entity..Being there alone, surrounded with all this bewitching illumination made me almost believe that i transferred into another universe. This is the magical wedding of time and place I was talking about.

Did you know that when you are present when such a fortuity is happening, 9 out of 10 times you will reach at a big realization that will change your life?

I felt great and small, because I realized a very profound ,yet obvious truth I was too stupid to grasp before with all my ,supposedly, academic and cultural finery.

When I was contemplating the dome of the masjed and the majestic chandelier, it suddenly hit me : i didn't realize, before that night, that i don't actually need the love of a mortal, and I don't need to love any mortal back, I only need to love God ,with all my might, and only then my life would have a wonderful meaning !

Do you understand what it means to love God, dear batushka ? to love Him ,entirely, submissively, purely, to just love Him, because He put you on this earth and granted you the option of living your life and wander around ,free-willed and clueless as you are, to discover that believing in and loving Him is the ultimate conclusion ?

No, LOOK ME IN THE EYES and tell me, sir, that you understand what it means to be a muslim by CHOICE ,not because you were born to muslim parents in a muslim country, not having to go through all that process of "self-discovery" and "spiritual endeavor" that non-believers have to go through, which makes their faith unshakable when they finally find their way back to God.

Do you understand what it means to fill your empty heart and heal your sick soul, tired and poisoned with all this darkness infesting it, with the pure and beautiful love you hold for God ? to worship Allah, not only because you fear Him, but because He is the only one that unconditionally loves you for who you are, because He knows you more than you know yourself, and knows all your unbearable pain and suffering, and because He loves you infinitely ?

Don't get me wrong, I used to pray and do all my duties as a muslim as best as i could. I knew my religion and i never questioned my faith; what I failed to understand this whole time was that I was looking for fulfillment in the wrong place, I was looking for happiness in the realm of mortals, I thought I would find it if I find my place among other human beings and continuously receive love from them trying to fill the void inside of me....But I failed to realize that darkness and emptiness are intertwined, they are an evil malady and they originate from one source : absence of inner light.

It doesn't matter how much love i receive if I have a black hole for a heart that absorbs everything and returns nothing, that never gets enough love. It doesn't matter how much effort and time were consumed in vain trying to fill that hole. Nothing can counter emptiness like infinity, for the love of God bestowed upon us knows no limits. 

Light replaces darkness in your soul. It fills the fathomless hollow within you, patches up the cracks time left on your weary heart, and then it overflows and spreads to everyone around you creating a bright aura that matches the sun's. And that is the kind of light i felt torching inside my chest when i was engulfed by physical and spiritual illumination.

You have no idea how free i felt when i walked out of that place. My entire attitude towards life was changed. I got there dead and came back alive and wanting to live even more.

Whenever i feel lonely, sad, empty in the inside, i know immediately that the stock of light in my heart is running out and that I'm doing something wrong.

I swear, batushka, it's true that all the tranquility and peace of mind is achieved if you fix your connection with God. I just didn't realize how true it was....I guess such conclusions can't be perceived through reading books and listening to lectures; you just have to go through the entire experience to formulate and carve them into your consciousness.

I feel okay now, I feel happy, and I want to live as much as i can ,trying to be a better person everyday...I only pray that this torch keeps burning stronger and stronger inside of me.

The Fall

How I got to that place isn't important.

For all i remember was one thing anyway : I looked at the bottom of the helical stairs, and i was struck at how far above the ground floor i was.

After a while one gets oblivious of space and dimensions when staring at one point from above. The bottom kept going deeper and deeper..or maybe I was the one soaring higher.
Imagine with me, dear Batushka, storming your way into the still center of a hurricane, despite the ridiculous difficulty of penetrating the savage barricade protecting the solemn throne of serenity that is the core ,and looking up to the sky through that narrow tunnel upon your magnificent conquest.

Wouldn't you feel great and small at the same time ? Great above your achievement, small before what you can't conquer.

At that moment, I heard the sounds of ancient gears, as tired and rusty as they were, starting to turn again. Something big was about to begin. And I felt great and small at the same time. Because there was one step, and one step only, that would decide whether I was worthy of conquering the hurricane.
One step, was the key to my long sought-after salvation. I was right at the threshold of the unknown, were all the answers I've been seeking ,as long as I could remember, are kept hidden.

I stood there, butterflies in my tummy, pondering whether i should step forward to my death.

Isn't death such a curious concept ?
It is sad to think that most Toskliviy seek salvation in leaving their sorrows behind to enjoy eternal serenity, not knowing that maybe it's not serenity that they seek, and it's not serenity that they might find, and that death is the point of no return, an irrevocable, final step you don't get to retrace. As a muslim I could never separate my idea of death as an end and death as a beginning because I believe in the after life, and I fear the after life. Because I haven't prepared for it yet.

But sometimes i meditate; If it wasn't prohibited to take one's life, could I come up with one good reason not to take that single step; the only separation between me and the so-called "salvation"? If I haven't learnt that there is life after death, would i still think I could find happiness on the other side of the border ? The unknown is fearsome, because you don't know what to expect, but "whatever it is that is on the other side isn't going to be any worse than this" is a valid conclusion i believe all the people that took away their lives have reached at before committing the act.

Countless thoughts mingled in my head...but one thought kept surfacing more often than the rest : I'm pretty sure I was here before, I can almost remember when I've seen this place and looked at the bottom of an enormous helical staircase from above..
Except that I haven't. It was another pang of Deja vo.

But don't we all yearn for places we haven't been to ? Nay, don't we all remember idylls that we never witnessed before ? Was I caught in a Mobius loop at some point in the future and kept returning to this place, because ,perhaps, it's were I began ?

I closed my eyes..
And i took that step, metaphorically.
And then I blanked out.

Time froze.

Next thing I know, I was looking at the chandelier while laying on my back on the floor...it looked so majestic.
I closed my eyes again and felt the golden particles landing on my eyelids and bathing my entire being in light. I have already entered the core of the hurricane, sir, and what do you know, I have survived.

And when i looked towards heaven while trapped in that whirling tube I felt infinite.

What did I see when I was laying on my back, staring at the grand chandelier, showering the ground with golden hail, and the dome and the starry sky through the glass ceiling ?
In that luminous scene, in that magical setting, where time was frozen and light was immersing the hall, where no other human could penetrate this invisible barrier, what did I see ?

I saw my life, my sorry life, running in front of my eyes.
And I saw the truth crystal clear.

"Where is it?" thought Raskolnikov. 

"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once ! 
Only to live, to live and live ! 
Life, whatever it may be !...How true it is ! Good God, how true ! Man is a vile creature !...And vile is he who calls him vile for that,"

How is it possible for me to waste a life time until that point searching, desperately, for an answer that was right there within my reach, not hidden, not camouflaged , not shifty in any way ?
It was there the entire time, only i couldn't see it.
But of course I couldn't find the answer; it was stuck to the edge of my clothes and I was carrying it all along, during the long journey of self-discovery. How satirical life is.

I don't know if you are familiar with Debussy's pieces, Batushka, but If you ever listen to his Claire De Lune, you might get a glimpse of the scene I witnessed. For it tells the story of my life, my fall, my death ,and my rebirth with a mysterious accuracy. In fact, the only reason I can remember that night although it was more than a year ago, is because this piece fully incarnates that dim experience with all its details...it's the power of an honest magnum opus, i guess, to be able to tell a story over and over again without losing its charm.

On my way home, the crunching of fallen leaves on the walkway tickled my heart instead of scratching it.
The sound of the water in the fountain was music to my ears.
The chatters of the passers-by, distant and chaotic and noisy as it was to me before , became gay and amusing.
And the full moon, so hideous and sinister, watching me all over and peering through my clothes, , came out of its hiding place a new friend, and I felt it was addressing me with an adorable timidity :

"How was it ? How do you feel after coming back ?".

Why, I felt incredible ; I felt livelier than I've ever been in my entire life.
Is this how it feels to be alive ? Wasn't I breathing just fine before, though ?
I think I wasted 21 years playing dead when I could have lived, and lived and lived till my breaths couldn't keep up.

It was a feeling I've never experienced before, probably the feeling of a person that was born and have lived for decades chained at the bottom of a deep, dark ocean, only to be released when he had not the slightest intention of breaking away...and upward he floats towards the surface, towards the sunshine, towards freedom, towards his new life,not knowing what to expect, but knowing for sure that anything at the surface is definitely going to be better than the bottom.

On that day I decided to start writing my life story...i know I still wouldn't be able to entirely pour my heart out...But i think I've released enough of the venom consuming me from inside out in the course of the past year. This venom in my soul made me start this blog, to relieve myself from the coercive darkness that stole the colors away from my life, and return to myself again.

موكب الجنازة

في الطريق الى ابوظبي و عند الاقتراب من حدود المدينة ، يتخذ الطريق السريع انحناءة الى اليمين ممكّناً من ينظر إليه من بعيد من رؤية جميع مصابيح الإنارة و هي تستيقظ من غفوتها بعد المغيب.

كنت استمع الى اغنية قديمة عندما شدت انتباهي هذه القافلة الحزينة في عتمة الأفق ، إذ بدت لي سلسلة المصابيح من مكاني كمسيرة من حاملي الشموع ، في طريقهم بتؤدة وسكينة نحو جنازة ملحمية.
عندها انتبهت الى ان كلمات الأغنية تناسب المشهد الذي أراه لدرجة مرعبة...

"Dominus, miserere" 

"Sanctus, gloria"

و تملكتني رهبة المشهد ، كمن تسلق أعلى قمة على وجه البسيطة و التفت لرؤية العالم المترامي الأطراف في الوقت الذي بدأت تشرق فيه الشمس. إنها لرهبة نادرة لا يشعر بوخزتها إلا من كان حاضراً في عرس الزمان و المكان عندما تعقد الفكرة قرانهما.

علام تأسى تلك الكائنات اللامرئية يا ترى وهي حاملة شموع الفجيعة ؟ هل يندبون الجمال ، جمال الحياة وجمال الروح البشرية،  الذي تم قتله وتشويهه بكل بشاعة على مر العصور حتى وصلنا الى هذه الحال المتردية ، حيث لم نعد نتذكر متى كانت الحياة جميلة ؟

لسبب ما تذكرت عبارة قرأتها في رائعة أنطون تشيكوف "النورس L'Albatross" : " انا في حداد على حياتي" .

و ظللت اتساءل بينما احدق في البعيد محاولة ايجاد قائد موكب الحداد عبثاً :  متى يكون المرء في حداد على حياته ؟ 

متى يجب ان نتوقف فجأة في خضم الصراع الأزلي الذي يسمى "الحياة"  لنقرر اذا ما كانت حيواتنا تستحق الرثاء ؟

هل حدث وأن استيقظت يوماً ، عزيزي القارىء ، و أدركت ان ما أنت عليه الآن بعيد كل البعد عن ما أردت أن تكون ؟

وأن عليك الإختيار بين اثنين : إما ان تعود إلى الوراء لتغتال ذاتك القديمة قبل ان تشكل كل تلك الرؤى الساذجة عما ستكون عليه في المستقبل.
وإما ان تضع ثوب الحداد حالِك السواد ، و ترثي كل ما لن تكونه في المستقبل.

في كلتا الحالتين شيء بدواخلنا يختنق ببطء و يختفي مع الشمس عند الغسق.

The Whispers Of Footprints

When our journey in this life reaches an end ; and we start to fade away from people's memories, isn't it scary to think that our stories won't be told anymore and that we would disappear like the morning dew when the sun rises ? 

One of the greatest wonders that i could never fathom is how would the waves that engulf your bare feet in the coldest of nights by the sea shore feel so warm. Warmer than the water at the surface...How the soft, small sand grains seep between your fingers and replace the memory of the greatest foot-massage you have felt in your entire life...How the waves seem so angry, so sinister when you are standing beyond their reach, yet they suddenly calm down and embrace you with a keen passion the deeper you immerse yourself in the water and become one with the sea...
But the most puzzling enigma of all is how you can often hear, during quite, starry nights when there aren't many wanderers disturbing the peace of the infinite blue, faint whispers coming from the multitude of foot marks imprinted on the white sand.
Yes, I dare say I spent more time by the shore than anywhere else in the world. Wherever I go, I'm drawn to the ocean. To the sea, to the lake, it calms me. That's where I belong.

They whisper in a monotonous, low tone, these footprints. You can't hear them clearly unless you close your eyes and shut up the voices in your head and adapt yourself to the sound of the waves...Close your eyes, for you can listen to the voices swarming in the darkness far better when you can't see, each and every one of them is telling a story : A story of someone we don't know, a story of someone we might have known, a story of someone we might get to know some day.

 "Until the end of times , keep me alive", they implore.

One can almost feel the warmth of the person that left every trail..

How many of these people are still alive ? how many of them remember when they left these footprints ?...how many of them have changed and how many are still the same ?
Every single trail printed on the plane of the earth tells a story of a person, an individual different from everyone else, with a heart like no other, with a character like no other.
And every footstep is a rebellion against time ; against fading away to the gloom of forgetting, against the vicious rising tide that despises history and puts in endless efforts to erase its marks printed on the brow of the shore.

All of us fear the nightmare of fading away , that's why we go out of our ways to force the oblivious world to remember us; some of us wish to remain immortal through the stories people tell about them, and so they spare no effort in connecting with those who might remember..some of us leave physical mementos; books, memoirs, paintings, sculptors that remind the world of their existence, so the next generations would still point out at their legacies and know they were there and alive once upon a time... Some of us leave their footprints by the beach, by the rocky knolls ; in a place where the vindictive waves and the mischievous foots of wanderers can't reach and erase them...and with every deep step they leave a fragment of a wish : "Until the end of times , keep me alive".

For You In Full Blossom III

The Sun And The Shadow

"Typical nerd" , is what I thought the first time i saw you from afar. Messy, quiet, plain-looking, good with studies, timid. There was always one like that in every classroom, i guess..

I think i approached you because i've always been friends with outcasts ever since grade school, not only because I was one myself ,but also because, according to my (let me call it ) experience, delinquents - social pariahs in short, usually turn out to be very interesting when you get to know them....
Plus they are the only type of people that tell you the truth to your face and yet ,as opposed to several people that appreciate honesty in my immediate surroundings, they actually don't get offended when you do the same.
I like that...it puts me at ease..I really think that outcasts are outcasts just because they are honest...
for ,you see, the majority of people don't like the straight-forward, blunt ,almost rude lot that they venture to circle them ,like ants circle the mischievous one ,and then kill them metaphorically by branding them with nicknames they think are demeaning....."nerds", "dorks".. "geeks"

"Nobodies"

It's a sick society we live in..

I have a thing for people with original (sometimes unpopular) perspectives, which they come at by following a logical and authentic process of thoughts, instead of just being mainstream because it's easier, like most of us do.
The mere fact that they think differently makes me want to approach them and observe how they go about things. Learning. It was always such an intriguing activity to try and figure people out, to explore every Pandora box that i find in every stranger i meet.
It's because i feel suffocated every day when i have so much to say, so many points to argue about and so many random ideas that pop up in my head, yet i have no one in my age-range that was equally clueless and curious to learn and discuss and argue and disagree.
Older people usually know the answers to many questions so they usually give advice right away instead of arguing their way through it.
But you get what I'm talking about....there is a limited number of people in this world that make me feel understood; one of them was my dad -my favorite debate partner to which i owe the development of my argumentative skills and bold curiosity...for my dear father never flinched when i bombarded him with the most outrageously irrelevant questions, he took great interest in how i came to ask them...and i think i got that trait from him. This bold curiosity about people and things.
You, though, were the first person of my age that I could talk to about puzzling life questions that made absolutely no sense to anyone else, and probably people thought we are crazy to discuss such topics at the lunch table.
The thing about you is that not only do you think like a scientist, but you also speak like one....which is why you don't get along with people your age, i believe ...therefore, you prefer to keep your brilliance capped under the hood of aloofness.
This is what attracted me to you...we were similar ...in a way. I just learnt to level my head and speech according to the person i'm dealing with..I wouldn't have survived otherwise.
I must tell you that there is no power on earth that would make me succumb to anyone that i deem my "peer"; that's just how i rolled. Although I don't like coming forward and demonstrating my opinion because it brings along major responsibilities, i get irritated when a "nobody" acts all high and mighty and starts giving me instructions on a matter i probably know more about. Or could learn more about in no time.
"The one that has the right to boss me around must know better", is what I always thought..But you, my friend, I would gladly work for you anytime, if you ever become my superior at work...you make me feel like helping you to shine and become something big,  like helping a fully-developed butterfly coming out of a cocoon...I would actually feel accomplished if i helped you rise, because you are a person of a vision, "you are meant for great things", you are just too naive to try and listen to your inner "Ess Mussein !"..maybe because no one told you to listen to it like this old man did when i was young..
I chose to believe him and worked my way up to what I believe is greatness. It bums me that nobody seems to have told you that as a kid, that you wouldn't believe it now that you are old and capable.

Therefore here i am telling you :

You have so much to brag about, yet you don't. Your mind is a rare jewel ; it's not exactly a jewel in the mud , for the people who are meant to notice it did, in fact, appreciate your brains...professors noticed it, I noticed it, journal editors did. YOU didn't, alas.

I was at some point positively mad at you, for having such low self-esteem that you would actually allow anyone to look down on you..And the way you would tell me that I'm "overrating you", and that you are not that wise ; that used to piss me off beyond limits.
You should know that i never "overrate" people at all ; in fact , not many people strike me as interesting even after years of interaction and probing as to want to stick around and voluntarily share with them my views of their characters; i don't give complements right and left...and i'm especially not the type of person that gives false compliments...never. Not me; I would rather stay quiet than deliberately lie to someone like that..therefore it pained that you didn't believe me when i told you how great you are, how great you could be.
I dedicated this letter to you because you taught me how to suppress my vanity for the right reasons
, because you were the first rival I didn't try, nay, didn't want, to overcome, and because you were my first peer role-model. We shall meet again, plenty a times, I promise, and I will tell you all of this when we do. I just had to leave this message here for myself.

I hope many a great things happen to you.