Dear Lauren,

I'm tired. Sometimes I can barely find the energy to get up and fix food for my brother and I when we're home alone, especially since he likes it insist on "servant" doing everything for him even when it means going almost all day without eating because he only reminds me when I have to do something.

I've been thinking a lot lately of what it would be like if one of my friends died, my parents died, if I died, and if my mom and I died when she gave birth to me. For anyone who doesn't know, my birth was very risky to the point it was a miracle we both made it out alive and the doctor who was there still remembers it as one of the most terrifying c-sections she had ever preformed.

I've come to the point where if I died at birth, almost no one to this day would care. They wouldn't know me so how would they have even known I died?

Sometimes I think that maybe someone who was supposed to be in my life died before I even got to know that they existed and I morn my loss of them. Maybe they would have been my best friend. Maybe they would have bullied me. Maybe we would have fallen in love. I'll never know because they're gone.

Maybe you're that person to someone else. Maybe you would have influenced their life in a big way, but now you won't and they'll never meet you.

Sometimes I cry to morn the loss of hope and innocence we all used to have. I wish I could go back to being that person who used to think that we could stop climate change before it got too bad. I wish I could go back to being that person who didn't understand why people hated others who were different from them.

Other times, I cry to morn humanity and the world. We're horrible people at our core, as much as we'd like to deny it. I'm sorry for the planet we call home. It's nourished us all our lives, and what do we do to repay it? We destroy it and everyone else living there.

Most of the time, I just cry. I cry about nothing, I cry about everything. I cry for someone who's dog just died, I cry for that one person who's being abused.

The truth is, the world is a cruel, cruel place that we make worse by poisoning with our hate and our anger.

Still, I cry for what could have had, what we all could have had. Especially for that one person I'll never meet.

Please, Lauren, come back. I know you can't, but I wish you could.