I hoard all these letters like treasure

One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship.
It will keep the vultures at bay

When in doubt ...

Deal with concrete specifics. Not categorical absolutes. Very useful thing to remember next time you have an existential crisis. 

47 Years on a Knife's Edge

Happy birthday. It's been a good while now.
Some say you're an anomaly, a freak and accident of history, an artificial and unnatural country. Well, yes, but only, above all, because countries are artificial things by nature, imagined creations of the human mind. It's easier to see that reflected in the case of a tiny, young city-state---but at heart you're not any fundamentally stranger than even the so-called great powers and ancient nations of this world.
That tiny size does unfortunately make you somewhat more vulnerable---though at least insofar as it also makes you acutely aware of the same, it is not, unmitigatedly, a bad thing. We all live on a knife's edge and but by the grace of circumstance---and the more aware of that we are the less complacent and better prepared we'll be. There is no room for complacency. There never will be.

Something you just avoid for the rest of your life

No. Those shouldn't exist. They only persist because you let them. Because you lack the courage and conviction to look things in the eye and resolve them. Of course it takes two to tango ... doesn't change what was said, only means the pronouns should be read as second plurals.
Besides, someone always needs to take the initiative; and in this particular case, considering how things started, it would be rather fitting if you did ...
Eventually. One day. No rush. But no, you don't "just avoid it for the rest of your life".