7OI 80P;. and was planning to give it to you for your birthday.

But I didn't, and decided

to save it, I guess because I really didn't know how to explain why I would be giving it to
you, yet.
It's just, when I came across the script on the shelf, I thought of you immediately.
Maybe because it's one of the very few shows you and I can agree on. We sat together
when I saw it staged for the first time. And when we saw that show, that was when I was
first starting to really feel truly happy for the first time, and everything in front of me
seemed so green and I could really truly start to feel like we were connected and
appreciate our relationship. It was during the beginning of the year when i was
somehow centuries younger and tirelessly naive, during a time when me writing this
now inevitable graduation letter seemed millions of years away and we had all the time
in the world - like our friendship was just a moment caught in a painting, that was going
to stay the same and last forever, frozen from confinements of time.
I really miss that sometimes. That feeling like there is so much time left.
I got back from New York and wrote that paper analyzing this show for English class,
because I was still trying to put my finger on why it's so special to me. Maybe I'm
wrong, but I feel like it must mean something to you too, because it's the only
intellectual drama (my kind of show) that you can stand. It's very special to me because
it reminds me of why I do what I do, since it so heavily focuses on the sacrifices artists
make for their art. More than that, I've come to realize that Dot reminds me a lot of
myself (though I recognize that I in fact am not a floozy model and do not live in 19th
century France). She, like me, is easily led my emotion. She defines herself by how
others treat and value her. She always has to have someone there. She strives to make
everything, every moment, every relationship, special - everything like a work of art that
will last and be immortally perfect forever. She longs for emotional satisfaction and deep
connection with others.
I didn't realize it until I wrote my analysis, but you're a lot like George too (though I
recognize that you, in fact, are not a hot French painter with a beard). But, who he is at
his core - the focus, the often analytical detachment, the perfectionism, the inability to
express - that is you. You, where you are right now, are really just like George. You are
on the cusp of doing something brilliant, you have so much potential and possibility to
become something amazing. Your future is white, a blank canvas. So much possibility,
potential. Your vision, the way you see life through your own special lens is, inspiring
and incredible. And like George, you have a destiny of higher importance, more
important than me or anything else, no matter how much dismay it may bring Dot, or
myself: You have to finish the hat. You may not have to literally finish a painting, but you
do have to finish what you've started over the past 18 years and embark into your
future.. Find out who you really are and who you're going to be, find your place in the
world as an adult, find the person that is going to share that world with you. You have so
much to do.
That is your journey to take. I have one too, Shane. I have to quit stalling and getting
myself into trouble and finally, really truly, let go of all of my past, my failures, my fear,
and apply everything you have taught me and let that take me to greater places. Use all
that strength as glue to put together all of these fragments of myself that have been
grated and shred off of my existence through all the cycles of pain and reprieve that I
have endured. Learn to stand on my own two feet and build some kind of foundation for
a future.
In order for that to happen, we're both going to have to move on. I hate it, but the truth
is that our lives are both going to be different very soon, and we are moving on to the
next act. I am still terrified with every fiber of my being, because I do not know what that
really means for us. But it's not the same as it was before. Before, I felt like your
presence was the single keystone to holding my entire existence together, and that as
soon as that was removed, everything would come toppling down on top of me and
crush me to bits. But lately, I've realized that this is not true, and not what I am really
afraid of. I am really afraid of what comes later, of my life losing its colors. I am afraid of
accepting and adapting to a busy life full of tight schedules and textbooks and scripts
and sheet music, so much colorless black and white paper, and no.. you, no real love or
genuine friendship - no life in my art.
We cannot let ourselves end up like George and Dot at the end of their first act. We can
not grow to be so separate in heart. I never want to have to replace you with a Louis - a
basic place filler "best friend" who will never compare to you (when it comes down to it,
nobody really can), and just learn to be okay with it, lie to myself and say that's okay. I
don't want to accept a basic life sans the color that you have given the life I lead now.
Our friendship fills in my usual monotonous outline of a life with swirling rich color, every
shade and hue one could ever fathom - truly, you make it beautiful. You allow me to
perceive life to be beautiful, even at the darkest, deepest corners. That perception is
what makes life like a piece of art and what takes every little moment and turns it into
something grand, deepens the contrast of the bad and the good, and makes the good
so much more golden. You fill in any flaccid gaps of nothingness in my life with your
existence, your laughter. Honestly, I'm going to miss the trivial things like that the most.
The faces you make whenever the basses were singing in choir, the fact that you can't
sing and stand still, the safety of the way you look at me when you're worried about me,
talking to you at your locker, laughing with you and going to see awful musicals
together, the genuine vibrancy in your eyes when you were happy for me, proud of me.
Each of those little things paints a new color into my existence.
I don't want to forget what that is like, you know? I don't want to forget that color.
..You know, sometimes I feel foolish writing these letters to you, because I know you, and
I know that reading all these words probably doesn't resonate with you because you're
Shane, and Shane doesn't even like reading and doesn't have a deep appreciation for the
intricacy of the English language like yours truly. Allow me to illustrate my fears using
numbers.
ike, okay. So the average life e!pectancy in the "S is #$.% years or something like that.
Assuming we live to be that old, and don't get hit by a bus or mugged and shot in the near
future, that means we have only known each other for about &.'( of our lives, so far.
And for the ne!t ##( of your life, you will not see me every day or be in the same city as
me. )ur relationship's best golden times are likely locked into the confinement of that
&.'(. *ut there will be other people that you will see every day and be in the same city
as, that you will be able to laugh with and speak to and hug and watch movies with and
hold their hand when they are sad and e!perience every day life with. +I'm really ,ealous
of those people. I sincerely hope each and every one reali-es how truly lucky they are..
/hink about how much has happened in your &0( that has already taken place. /hink of
all the different people you've known, things you've e!perienced, places you've been. It
seems like so much, yet you could hypothetically relive your entire life so far 0 more
times before you die. It's not as much as you think it is. 1ust like our &.'( isn't, really 2 in
the time you have left, you could have almost 03 more relationships ,ust like ours
+assuming they wouldn't overlap, which means there could be even more.. 4utting it in
terms of numbers, you begin to reali-e that we get so trapped into the bubble of our own
e!istence that everything seems so grand and so important, when really, we are ,ust a
couple of specks of nothing, one in # billion, and all these moments we e!perience each
day only account for a measly 3506,777,777 or whatever, and will be easily forgotten in
37 years or maybe less.
In 37 years, you probably won't think about me very much because you like to think
about /he 8ow and I won't be a part of /he 8ow, I'll be a part of /hen. *ut still, you'll
probably remember my name, maybe vaguely what I looked like and a few things that
happened. *ut you won't remember what my voice sounds like or what each of my facial
e!pressions mean or the time you sat ne!t to me at Sunday in the 4ark 9ith :eorge, and
this letter will probably get thrown away in a bo! of dumb stuff from high school when
you move into your first apartment with your serious girlfriend at the age of &0.
It makes me sort of melancholy, thinking about that. 8umbers make me melancholy. I
guess that's why I never think about them. In earnest, I detest them. /hey are colorless,
always changing, ticking away to -ero.. "nlike love or art or words, the only things that
are constant, unchanging, dependable in this world; /hey make everything so beautiful.
8umbers make everything seem so minute. I mean, I like to think I am more to a person,
to the world, than ,ust one in # billion. It makes me feel like I have to work ten times
harder to be important to someone, and write % page long letters for their birthdays, and
tell them I love them every day and probably end up coming across as really overly
sentimental and needy, in hopes that in 37 years, you'll still remember me. /hat's why I
do these things. <y overall biggest goal in life is always going to be to impact others, to
touch their lives in some way.. I ,ust want to put some meaning behind all those numbers.
I try to tell myself that I'm going to forget too, ,ust like you and everyone else, because
we as human beings are always ,ust moving on whilst all of those percentages of life and
numbers of times you'll tell someone you love them or smile at them or laugh with them
,ust tick tick away, but it somehow doesn't seem possible in this situation, for me. I can't
imagine not remembering you and all of these moments. If there is anything I want you to
know, is that you, Shane =aney, at the age of 3$, have accomplished my ma,or life goal,
one of the greatest things a person could ever do in my eyes> you have impacted me, and
you have touched my life. You've succeeded at that much. You both gave me and taught
me how to have, see, so much beauty and color and happiness to which before I was
ignorant to, and would never have believed could be reality. I know it's ,ust one of many
successes, but please promise me that you will try your absolute best not to forget that
you succeeded at that.
I will never forget. Whenever I listen to Sunday in The Park, I can't imagine that I won't
at some point think about you. Though it is my biggest regret to have to admit that our
friendship isn't like a painting or a statue that we can make perfect and have it remain
that way, safe from the abuse and risk of time, this show is. Not even just this show, but
all the shows we've talked about or seen together or that we've forced each other to
watch over the past couple of years. Those shows and those scores will always stay
exactly as they are now, and have always been. The memories I have with you are
always going to be etched into them, the sound of our laughter, my tears, and
exchanged words interwoven into the melodies.
I'll never hear Color and Light and not remember you awkwardly watching me put on
my makeup in my room because I was running late the night of my sister's concert. I'll
never be able to hear "Roxie" from Chicago and not remember you singing it with an
asian accent on the bus to Chicago. I'll never hear "I Speak Six Languages" and not
remember us jamming in the car on the way back from lunch during black comedy and
you yelling at me while trying to record you singing it. I'll never hear "Epiphany" from
sweeney todd and not remember all the times we've attempted to sing it even though
we're both as far from being a bass as we possibly could be. I'll never hear "Not While
I'm Around" and not remember that time I was really upset and you had to be literally
the corniest person ever and quote the lyrics to me. I'll never listen to Les Mis and not
think of your Amanda Seyfried impression. I can never listen to basically any song from
Fiddler and not remember how much you embarrassed yourself in public when we saw
it at Darby. In the chance event that I happen to listen to Avenue Q by choice in my
future, I'll never be able to forget that you really taught me that everything in life is truly
only for now. With our relationship and the way things are, all we really have is right
now. This one in 39 million moments.
in short, I just wanted you to have this because really, I think.. I really think this show is
my favorite show. It's a part of me. So I want you to have it, be able to see it or read it
whenever you want and maybe you'll think of me when you do, like I do with you. I love
you so much, Shane, and I will never waste an opportunity to tell you that using as
many words as I can, because if anyone really deserves my words, it is you. You have
helped me create this life, this perfect park, that is full of color and light. Thank you.
xxx
Grace