27 Jan 2018

Subject line: Read when you have the time

Dear Redacted,

        I’m supposed to be writing something else, equally related to you;
the words aren't coming to me. It’s as though something is stuck.
Tears were for a while. Even now when i do cry in front of you it is
not with the torrential force others in my life know. You said I do
not know you. Maybe I don't yet, but I understand when you tell me; I
will always try to listen.
        Meeting you was true miracle. A collision which could have only
happened at a singular moment in time in one place in the universe.
Perhaps those more willing to believe in the divine would care to
interject, adding some comments about “fate” or how “destiny” would
have brought us together further down the line, had we just missed one
another. I prefer to believe that only the magic of coincidence and
pure serendipity were responsible for our initial encounter.
        When I met you, as I am sure you know, my life was in flux. I could
not have told you what my future would have looked like three months
on had we not met. And now I will never know. It is a beautiful thing
to have found you. Even more beautiful that past initial attraction,
we then discovered in each other an ease of convivial I have only ever
dreamt of. We get along. We are a match. We are good together.
Regardless of nominal and descriptive sentences we both mutually
understand that “this” we share is precious. Because of this
acknowledgement we seem to both be constantly afraid of fucking it up,
due to our own shortcomings. No one wants to be responsible for a
potential catastrophe.
        I do not want you to live with undue guilt regarding potentially hurt
feelings. I don't want you to feel as though you and only you are a
flawed part of a perfect whole. You are not responsible for my
feelings. Be they of joy, anger, sadness, or the other myriad of
emotions held within myself. Your actions, though sometimes having
created in me negative emotions, are equally not my responsibility. I
cannot (and will try my very best not to) tell you what to do, how to
act, what to say, who to be. I have no intentions of doing that. Im
not here, in “this” with you, to delineate prohibitive measures
intended to keep “this” going. It isn't as easy as a rulebook, I am
not dictating the conditions by which if not met, “this” falls apart.
A living organism does not abide by hard rules but rather by
limitations placed upon it by its environment and physiology. And I do
apologise for utilising such a cliched analogy but “this” relationship
its own living thing. It requires, from both of us, an non hostile
environment, attention, flexibility, and a nurturing patience with
both “this” and one another. “This” will hopefully evolve, becoming
stronger so that our own personal insecurities do not feel like
apocalyptic threats to the status of our shared life.
        We are in a fragile time. I don't really know you, you are right. And
you don't really know me. We know what we have said to each other, in
our own words, interpretations of ourselves which though at times self
critical and honest, are always warped by our own egos. I do not think
we are that much different than who we have told each other we are. I
don't think that through living together either one of us will realise
the other is a fraud, hidden behind the veil of a self aggrandising
autobiography. Nor do I think that after living together will we look
at one another as holy untarnished beings, without baggage and
defects; as though the flaws we told each other about were magnified
by personal insecurities. My hope is that the boredom of routine rubs
off a little bit of the magic we have projected onto each other. That
we do not see in the other party a an image of shiny perfection, whose
reflective surface serves only to reflect our own flaws and remind us
we are unworthy. My hope is that we come to see one another as flawed
humans while being able to, through love and communication, accept one
another as we truly are.
        I’m terrified. I’m great at making people fall in love with me. I
know you’re laughing, but it’s true. I am almost too charming for my
own good, naturally I am interested in people, I want to hear what
they have to say, I ask too many intrusive questions right away, which
people often mistake for intimacy. I have made dozens of best friends
in the span of days. Often within a moth of dating someone they will
declare their undying love for me. Don't worry, this isn't entirely a
chance for me to praise my own wit and beauty and intelligence. I know
how to make people love me instantly but I don't know how to make it
stick. Of my dozens of best friends only a few still speak to me semi
regularly. Im not in touch with any of my exes because as I grew
increasingly more depressed or bored, I lost my ability to charm and
impress, slowly turning every passionate relationship into an awful
sea of guilt; in which I either sailed away from in a boat of
apologies or slowly drowned myself in. The choice between aloofness
and martyred commitment seemed to depend entirely on how much the
other person wanted me…. you can rightly guess that the more they
cared the less I tried and vice versa. I don't know how to make this
last is my point. I don't know what the next “goal” is that we are
trying to reach.
        I love you so much. I fell in love with you when the “you” was just a
fraction of the whole person. Everyday more and more of you comes to
light, I slowly discover a million new reasons to love you. It has
been an exponential journey where each day I am filled with more love.
But to love is one thing and to live something else entirely (and when
I figure out how to laugh I will have a perfect sign to hang over my
bed). I want us to be able to live with one another, even when not
occupying the same physical space. To learn of habits and boundaries
and to create, together through living, a safe space (dont laugh)
where our love can continue to grow. I cannot promise you much but I
can try my very best to do so and in turn, because of those pesky
reciprocal deals, I expect you to try just as hard.
        This was supposed to be a short letter, but I guess there is still so
much that remains unsaid. I will save rest for a moment where we can
speak with my hand safely tucked inside yours and my head resting on
that perfect spot between your shoulder and clavicle… In the
conclusion you are supposed to summarise the rest of the text so that
the reader can walk away convinced by the arguments made; I always
hated conclusions as never in my writing could I stick to one solid
argument. My interest and fascination with a topic would have shifted
two paragraphs in and by the end it would be impossible to conclude
without overlooking 95% of what was said. As I read back through this
my meandering thoughts are not exclusive to academia and even I myself
am no longer sure of the purpose of this letter. But I can vouch that
everything I wrote is true, and that I was trying to encourage rather
than chastise. So in a crappy conclusion founded on pure emotion:
I love you Redacted, I will do everything in my ability to do the right
thing so I can keep loving you for as long as you will let me.

All my love, always

Redacted