The Letter

This was my night tonight.

I came home to find my roommates sitting in the family room with a guy we went to high school with. I can't remember his name, but I always thought he was cute in high school. I saw him on New Year, he spent the night here out on the couch. I was making breakfast for dinner and he came in and laughed. He looked at me and said " Are you making breakfast for dinner? That's freaking awesome. The smell of bacon is an aphrodisiac almost." I looked at him and said "It reminds me of childhood... but same thing I guess." He laughed and tried to make conversation with me. I became increasingly aware that he was showing interest, not necessarily flirting but trying to get to know me... asking where I worked and what I did for a living. I was so nervous I was sweating, embarrassed by my bacon that was frying on the stove... so nervous I couldn't look him in the eyes. When he left, I wondered whether or not he liked me, whether or not I should have conversed further. And I realized not only am I out of practice, but that it shouldn't be practice. It should feel natural. And then. I was watching TV later, feeling fat off of my bacon and eggs, drinking pinot grigio, when I got a text. "In the last month I've come to realize that side of me you saw and didn't like.I'm in Colorado and these mountains bring me back to the person i was with you, and woke something in me. I'm going to be that way again, but not for you. For me. I want to see beauty in the world again, so I'll leave this alone, leave you alone, even though it kills me. I know you are right to not respond to my txts or messages." Guess who. I responded with "I guess I just thought that when we grew up together we'd keep the same values. The same love for life, the same passions. For things like rain and country music and family and movies and sunsets. I didn't think we grow this far apart. I feel like I still believe in those things. And you don't. And it makes me feel lonely, and sad for you." And he responded "I still do, and those things remind me of you. Sunsets, country drives, summer rain. You have all of the best memories and I don't do those things with Alyssa But I need to learn how, and I am going to try." ... At this point it occurred to me that this is how he's kept me these past few years. Entangled in him based on this ghost of who he used to be, a ghost he says he still recognizes. And then writes this: "You don't know it, but almost every positive emotion with love is related to you. It makes it impossible to move on without becoming calloused. " And I just cried. For the longest time. What's odd is last year I couldn't cry over it, I could only complain. And this year, whenever I think of him, I cry. And sometimes I stay up until four a.m. dissecting our relationship, why I am still in love with Mike, and I cry. I cry and cry and cry because it feels so fucking real that it aches to the point of physical distress. That our childhoods were so brilliant and we experienced mistakes and heartache together... and now all we experience is reality and how we need to find others to satisfy the thirst we once had for one another. then he wrote : "What I have now, it works. we get along, we laugh and we have our intimate moments. But if she were to leave me I wouldn't cry, I wouldn't chase her. I wouldn't stay up all night grieving her until the sun came up. It is what it is." And I wrote this back : "I think first love is just really overpowering sometimes. It doesn't mean there isn't another love out there will make you stronger, or better. Maybe you have found that love with Alyssa, maybe you haven't found it yet... but we both deserve it. A different kind of love." People speak of this different kind of love their whole lives.... Falling in love with numerous people. I like to think I was in love with Sonny and Michael, that it was just a different kind of love. And who knows... maybe it was. Maybe that was the different kind of love others speak about. I know that I did love Michael and Sonny, and looking back now I am more than grateful for what those relationships taught me about msyelf, about men, about the world. I'm not afraid of being hurt as much as I am afraid of falling in love again. I'm afraid of both, but love is more scary. Because it makes you vulnerable. Hurt just makes you angry. But love makes you learn. I don't think people learn from their pain. I think they learn from the emotion that made them have the ability to feel pain in the first place. We feel anger and sadness because we had hope that got shut down... people let us down, or hurt us, or made us feel rejected. But just the FACT that we were able to feel those things meant we were able to feel love, hope, and passion in the first place. And that is kind of awesome... and I don't think I'll ever reject that again. I may be apprehensive, but I look back now and realize every hurt was worth it. Because it brought me closer to who I am today. The love that took me to the hurt made me better. And being jaded... while understandable... I think is just a lie. A wall. A shield. Apprehension makes sense, but anger and mistrust are the lies we tell ourselves so we don't have to take risks. I wish I coulda called you to say all that. Sorry for the babbling. But when epiphanies come, they come, you know??? :) I miss you, best friend. Can't wait to see you next week. You're the only one that would get all of this.