It’s been 20 years since you’ve last heard from me. I know that my last letter for you was a bit of a sham. I was way past the age limit and without shame I still had the most daring proposition for you. This must have not have gone down well with the elves, and most especially to the saucy but tempestuous Mrs. Claus. I was healthy and quite sound of mind, so this treachery was, for all intents and purposes, unforgivable. I know, but if you are indeed reading this letter, then I still have some hope and plenty of gratitude.
Thirteen is not the age for stocking stuffers. It’s the age for health class and the sudden outrage that is called puberty. Yet, at 13 I still asked for a special-edition of My Little Pony. You remember how I asked for it in detail — a pony studded in glow-in-the-dark stars with a carnation pink mane that would turn into a shocking Yves Klein blue when it took a bath?
My pleas to my parents fell on deaf ears. I was in junior high, I should have wanted a kiss from the Greek American boy in my class named Gregory Tickner or maybe a denim mini skirt. I just wanted my one last pony before I started wearing lipstick. I didn’t want to grow up, Mr. Claus. That year my mother gave me a Cacharel suit (instead of a collection of hermaphrodite-friendly dolls like Barbie and Ken) identical to what my brother had. She told me that I had to start wearing suits because I had since started to travel to transatlantic shores; I was old enough. Progress never looked so unappetizing as when I wore that hideous olive-colored suit. It was for the main and hopeful purpose of wanting an upgrade or better service in an airline. It did work. I flew plenty of first class as a child. It automatically stopped in my 20s. I hated growing up! It was kind of like a Benjamin Button experience. I promise you, Mr. Claus, that even when I was in tourist class, I never wore a tracksuit. Travel has been the very province of my existence to this day.
The thing is, Santa, if I may call you that, I want you to believe in me again. I’m really sorry about that crafty letter, full of chicanery. I just felt the world was changing. My grandfather couldn’t dive in the pool anymore. He often ate with a spoon and retired two hours before our usual time. He stopped dancing with me every evening. He was getting old and it worried me. I was getting old and it scared me.
There were many times when I thought about you. I was 15 when my grandfather died. My parents wanted to send me to Montreux for boarding school and I screamed abuse. It wasn’t December and I wanted so much to write to you, Mr. Claus. I just thought you were angry at me. I stopped wishing for ponies. It was then I fantasized about freedom. In a time where I felt I had lost everything, I wanted nothing more than my freedom. The informal freedom that a child possessed. Screw the pony.
You see, Santa, I am still a child in many ways. I still believe in things whimsical and impossible. I still cry over pain. I believe in laughter and its fellow agents. My mother, who has been the beacon of light in my life, still allows me to be one. I, at 33, the age where I should be stuffing stockings for my little ones, still find solace in the crook of my mother’s arm. I have no children. I have no husband. My mother told me I chose well when I first fell in love. The many subsequent affairs, she bit her lower lip and just trusted me.
Songs fade, moons change and planets disappear, Mr. Claus. You see, Santa, Little Pony notwithstanding, I ask this from you: I just want to keep that child in me. A child that believes that red roses grow on barren planets, where dreams and reality live in peaceful congress and that listening to Henry Mancini’s Moon River can still inspire tears.
I have nothing for now. I want children, I want to stop feeling scared after 20 years of being afraid and I want all my loved ones to live forever. I can still hope, and this I am thankful for. The day I stop hoping is the day I die. Your elves may be more predisposed to requests for such things that have apps and house digital music these days. Oh, your poor elves; they must really try to speak or have a conference call with Mr. Jobs in Heaven.
Mr. Claus, is there a way that we can keep forever in a capsule? To stay forever as children, believing, weeping and laughing? Can we perhaps take the time to create that yellow capsule of belief? A place where compassion and concupiscence exist without the ethanol of a controlled and bruised reality? I wish fervently for that, Santa.
I was just 13. It was an age so ripe for shoplifting, training bras and driving cars without a license. Of all my faults, it had to be because I lied to you. I do believe, in my more mature age, in everything that you stand for: magic, miracles and hope.
Can we believe in love that does not necessarily last forever but leaves a memorable tramp stamp on the unknown regions of our mind? Can we believe in friendship? Can we believe that you don’t have to forgive everyone and that a few friends will do a life good? Just like wise children do.
With all the things that have passed, there are those we hope will stay forever. I don’t know what deserves to live forever: true friends, family, pets, memories, true love? Maybe the more ephemeral experiences make more sense.
The fact that I’m writing to you and asking for your forgiveness is one act of hope. As children it was so easy for us to share, socialize and trust.
I just want to believe in people again and see them as a child would: faultless and full of promise.
Yours,
Celine