Dear Derpy,
I write to you, not knowing if you will ever read this. If it can even reach you.
I have a few things, that i want to get off my chest. My name is Mitchell, or Mitch for short. I was born two weeks earlier than i was expected to be. Usually that would not be any cause for alarm, but I wouldn't eat anything. I stayed for almost an extra week at the hospital, just so i could be leaked nutrients through a tube.
A few years after, when i was but two years old, my right eye began to drift. I don't know exactly why, or how. But by the time i was three, I was completely cross-eyed. I endured a painful operation, and a couple of months with an eye-patch, just so i wouldn't be made fun of.
Other than that there was not much else about me. I started walking later than most children. That must be a foreign concept to you, but lets say that a person learning to walk is like a Pegasus learning to fly. Anyway, not only was I slow to walk, I was fast to read. I was reading on the toilet, before I could use the toilet. (Thanks dad for the habit.)
My school days were normal, went to kindergarten, made some friends. First grade was different. I was forced into a program for 'gifted children' that was really just meant to separate us from the other kids. At recess, my friends left me alone, and all i had was the sandbox. I literally spent all my recess time digging a hole, and then digging a whole next to it to fill the first hole. During that time, I got glasses. It was due to the fact that my eyesight was bad, and my cross-eye was returning,
In second grade, i got my friends back, but they were different, not as nice as before. I often was a go between for their fights. I continued to be in the gifted program, not like it helped me much, the teachers always had us do weird activities to 'strengthen our young minds' and other meaningless things like that.
Then, in third grade, I got new friends. These friends were much nicer to me, unlike some people in my class. I was still called four-eyes, and other, more profanity filled names. And it was during that time when my friends introduced me to something.. And that day was the day that I regret the most in life. Lets just say that what they showed me, was a human version of unshorn fetlocks. By fifth grade, some really messed up people started calling me 'Mitch the B****' i was hurt, so I had everyone call me Mitchell.
Fast forward to sixth grade, I was kinda messed up. But my parents had found me a new school, one with a less, tainted image, than the last one. So I completely changed my attitude, and covered up my past. But i couldn't cover it completely, I was still a glasses-wearing, cross-eyed, weirdo that had no friends. I still dealt with my now addiction to, that thing i mentioned before. But life began to look up for me. i got into this academic rivalry with one of the girls in my class, and she totally beats me every time.
She is just as crazy as I am, if not crazier. She and I are almost the same in every physical way possible, except for male/female differences. In my mind she was perfect for me. But she never expressed the same feelings.
About two years ago, my grandfather died. When that happened, my grandmother, changed a bit. She began to have these suspicions that my family was out for her money. And she puts her trust in all the wrong people. It has just become so hard to deal with her. She keeps this false identity around others, as if she was a sweet old lady. But I've heard the yelling, and it's not pretty.
And just like my grandma, there was another side to me. One that consumed me. I couldn't stop my self from returning to, it. From watching it. It was the worst. possible. thing.
About four months ago, i was trying to overcome my addiction by blocking it with television. (Its like a play in a theater coming out of a small magical box.) I found several shows. Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures come to mind. But they both had stopped making more, and I soon finished them. I slipped back into my addiction, this time it was worse. But I found a show, a new show, a show that had not ended. A show called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Through that show, i overcame my addiction, but not in a normal way. I literally got bored of it. And when I first saw you, I felt a connection. Maybe it was the eyes, but there was a connection. And when you spoke, I was so overjoyed. But then there was an uproar, and your voice was changed. I stayed out of the battle, but I was worried. After the explanation came for Hasbro's intentions, i felt better knowing that you, were still you.
In conclusion, You and the other ponies have helped me through the tough times as of late. and I thank you for that. I also have a bit of encouragement for you, a short little poem to bring you some hope, and to remind you that you have friends that are right there, ready to help you in your time of need.
Love and Tolerate
Even in the face of hate
Don't make any remarks
That are only meant to berate
Hold you head up high
And stare at Death with one cross-eye
You and me together now
don't know where, why, or how
But of one thing that I know
Our love and stuff is sure to show
Your Caring Friend,
Mitch
To: Me
From:輕浮蹄Derpyдитзи копитаHooves@equestria.net
CC: принцезаPrincess天體陽光небеските сонце公主Celestia@equestria.net
Subject: RE: Dear Derpy
Dear Mitch,
I don't know who, or what, you really are. But if what you've told me is true, honestly true, then I thank you. I thank you for feeling sympathy for me. I don't know how you were able to send me this letter, or if I will be able to reply to you. But through all of this, I feel a sense of, completeness. The way you described your pain, the pain of humiliation, was the same way I felt for a very long time. And what you've given me, the amount of support, just by telling me that I am not alone, is enormous. Like you, I have always had problems. When I was born, my doctor almost dropped me. As I slipped out of his hooves, he caught my ankle, and i swung around and hit my head on the hospital bed-rail. My vision immediately went cross, and I'm haven't seen straight since. Things got worse the moment I set hoof,or at least when my parents did, outside of the hospital. Somepony flying by, carrying a bag of muffins, ran into my mother, who was carrying me. This time, I did fall to the ground, and as tears welled up in my recently crossed eyes, that remorseful pony gave me a muffin. It was delicious, to say the least, by I was but a new born, and I chocked on it. Using his magic, my father was able to dislodge the small delicacy from my throat, while my mother scolded the stranger for giving me the food that, clearly, I was too young to be consuming.
From there, life was much simpler. I had two operations in my first year alive. The first on my neck, a weird mole had grown there, and the second was on my hoof, which had locked up and ceased to function. Then I found out I was lactose intolerant, and that most I have problems with digesting most unprocessed plant material. That meant that everything I ate, was either boiled, fried, or baked. And on top of that, my impaired vision removed the possibility of flight school. I was disheartened, dissatisfied, crushed. All in all, I thought my life was the worst, and that it could not get any worse. But it did.
My mother had health issues also, it was her heart. Tachycardia, that was what the doctor had called it. It was what he said had got her. On that faithful night, my sixth birthday. I was devastated, to the point of denial of life. That's right, suicide. I tried to take my own life, but my father stepped in. He showed me that life still had meaning. And because of him, I continue to live.
But the problems didn't stop there, no there was much more to come.My friends Lyra and Bon Bon, and I went to school together. Speaking of Lyra, I should really tell her about you. She was the one who always talked about the existence of humans. Anyway, as I was saying, we went to school together. But I had trouble reading, for obvious reasons. In the end, I was called many hurtful names. Retarded, Slow, Wacko, Strange Eyes, Freak, Psycho. They tortured me with their words. It was like my mom's death all over again. I became depressed, again to the point of starvation and anorexia. My baked and boiled foods, they disgusted me. I was angry at the world, and at myself. I felt powerless.
One day, after about a month of my worst depression, my father gave me a piece of paper with a poem on it. What it said touched me in a way that I didn't think was possible. Here, you read it:
Life is fragile, this much we know
we live our lives, with not much to show
keeping our distance, like bubbles that float
but the winds of change, they started to blow
so now, as life seems to implode
and the path you take, now a different road
we bubbles collide, they combine or explode
and friends or enemies are made
So in the end, where do you go
down the same path, you tended to flow
or with friends, will you grow
like bubbles, our lives are short
Do you know what happened, at that moment? That was the day, that I got my cutie mark. It was amazing. Oh, right. A cutie mark, is this little symbol you get on your flanks when you find your special purpose in life. Can you guess what mine is? I'll give you a hint. Bubbles. That's right, bubbles. And I know the reason. That poem, that my dad wrote, it reminded me that life is going to suck sometimes. but other times will be amazing. I will have conflicts with other ponies, but I will have friends that love and care for me.
So let me tell you a bit of advice. You are not alone. If there are ponies, or humans, who have conflicts with you, then love and tolerate them. I may sound crazy for telling you to do so, but you should. It will help you cope with any problems you have. Get your friends, and have them support you. If your aren't the one at fault, and they are true friends, then they will aid you in anyway that they can. If you can follow this bit of advice, even to the small degree that I have, then life will improve.
Your new friend,
Derpy Hooves
Dear friend Derpy,
Wow. I can't believe you were able to respond to me! When I got your reply, i literally jumped out of my chair, and ran around my house. My parents thought that I was crazy, but you probably know how that is. Right? Anyway, what you wrote to me actually inspired me to work on my relationships with my friends. Old enemies became close friends, I started to hang out with distant friends that I mostly ignored. All that, and more, just for a bit of advice. Have you considered becoming a shrink or something? On to a more serious note, you are a great friend. You know that? It's true, one hundred percent. And as for your friend Lyra, she needs to know, you can tell her all about me.
But let me catch you up to speed, about what has been going on around me lately. Recently, my grandfather died. You remember me telling you about that, right? And after he died, my family sort of drifted apart. My uncle and his family isolated themselves in a different part of the country, and my grandma underwent a drastic change in how she looked at life and family. The only family members that my immediate family remained close to, were my cousins. My mom and my aunt are close sisters, so their relationship as siblings is basically what held us together, that and one of my cousins is like a brother to me. The other is what you would call, a parent's ideally behaved child. I don't even remember the last time he did something even remotely worthy of punishment. And my third cousin, she and my sister are inseparable.
After my grandpa's death, things got bad. Then, a real estate company that all of my family had invested in was found out to be a ponzi scheme. What did this do to us? I caused my family to loose over $1.5 Million. (dollars are a form of currency were I live. I have no idea how much that would be in bits, but lets just say that it's worth a million bits.) Then the founder and CEO of that fraudulent company was arrested, and is currently up for trial. But things got worse. Now, a state attorney is suing my family, including my uncle, aunt, and grandma, along with 153 of the 600 victims of the ponzi scheme. The amount we're being sued for, let's just say that it's more than we lost from the actual ponzi scheme, by about a million dollars.
I just don't know what to do. I am having a really hard time trying to put a positive spin on my current situation. The only thing good that any of this has done, if you can even call it good, is that now all of my family is on the same page again. My uncle is actually communicating with us again, and my grandma has decided to actually pay for a lawyer. She hasn't decided to pay for something so expensive, not since her refrigerator of 55 years died. It is a miraculous event. But under the circumstances, I wish that it didn't have to happen this way.
But even as I go through this. I still have my friends. The have always been there, to listen, much like you have been. They have given me all the support in the world, and I can't thank them enough. And you, my friend from another world, you have given me a new hope. And that hope is what made me seek out my friends, and to repair my damaged relationships. I thank you once again for that, and all the helpful advice you have given me. Someday, I hope to meet you.
Your Friend Forever,
Mitch