I wanted you all to read this - I cut some chunks out that were personal, but after some very hard and heartfelt Plan A'ing, I got this very perfect letter today... please share in my HAPPINESS over this letter.
(p.s. this was written in response to a letter I wrote him earlier)
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Dear Kxxx,
Your thoughts are so beautiful. As I read your mail to me I wonder how I could have possibly been so stupid or shallow as to stop seeing it. Maybe you’re right - maybe the complacency of domesticity caused us both to stop looking at each other. I feel like Steve Martin in the Out-of-Towners when he realized he had fallen back in love with Goldie Hawn all over again, there in Central Park.
I think both of us have been ‘programmed’ to think that domesticity means ‘Ward & June Cleaver’ and neither of us wants that life. We see the dysfunction bred into our own upbringing and we think that the ‘something-wrongness’ is part and parcel of the home-and-family equation. It doesn’t have to be!!! I remember when I would go over and have dinnerat my friend’s house - his parents were constantly goosing each other, joking with each other, googly-eyeing each other - it was like they hadn’t ever stopped dating after 20 years. I used to get so upset when I saw that my own parents didn’t show each other that kind ofattention. My dad was always very proper, almost clinical, in his approach with my mom. Neither one of them really ever showed much emotion around family members, let alone affection toward each other. I don’t want that kind of domesticity; I want the kind of domesticity that Bob and Carol had. With you. Not with E***, nor with anybody else but you.
If I ever had any doubts, they were erased. (You had me at “As I sit here this morning...” ) In your letter to me where you say that you’d be willing to let me have the space to explore a relationship with another if it came to that—right there you proved to me you love me more than she ever could. (not that it’s all about who loves me more, but if it came down to a contest, you’d win) Even if I had been having thoughts of exploring a relationship with her (which I’m not, nor have I been except for a fleeting notion or two while deep in the fog during what seems like ages ago now) you would have WON ME OVER with that one sentence. Just like the two mothers fighting over the baby, and the one who is willing to let the baby go rather than seeing it torn apart is the one who wins the contest.
Love can’t be possessive. You have shown me over and over again that you’re wise enough to know that—and she has shown me almost as many times that she isn’t. She practically threw a tantrum every time I brought up the subject of her being willing to risk the possibility of losing me - even though she never really had me in the first place. She honestly couldn’t get her mind around the concept that I was willing to lose her or let her out of my life even for a moment in favor of the greater good. And while it’s a very flattering notion to see someone having fits of possessiveness over me, that’s not the basis for a healthy relationship. I don’t want to be possessed, I want to be loved. There IS a difference. You recognize and see that difference, and I know that your love for me is the real thing—it’s not confused with possessiveness, jealousy, pride, arrogance, or anything else. You are patient and kind and if I ever had any doubts that your love for me is genuine, they’re gone. I can only hope that a lifetime is enough time for me to show you that I’m capable of feeling that depth of love for you also. I do, you know, but how to make you see that in light of the trust I’ve betrayed? (the answer, of course, is not to worry about whether or not you see that love in me, not to spend any energy trying to make you believe it’s there, but just to do it and be it and feel it and trust that I know it’s real and genuine and you will eventually see it through my deeds and our experiences together in a way no words could ever express.)
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” (Nature Boy lyrics)
I’m deep in the “what the hell was I thinking” phase right now. I will be for awhile. I have destroyed the fragile trust that was there between us, I have given you reason to suspect everything you’ve ever known about me. I’m still ****, but now you question what you thought you knew about ****. You have every right to. I’m questioning too. How could I sink to such depths? That’s not who I am. That’s not who I was meant to be. There are lots of things that contributed to it - lots of prior experiences that shaped that behavior, programmed me to act in a certain way - but at the core, my “kernel” to borrow a geek term, is solid. We just need to redesign my user-interface to be a little more stable. (or as Mr. Miyagi said: the Bonsai tree will survive because it has a good root. It needs the right environment, and it needs love and nurturing to thrive, but if the root is good, we know it will survive.” - well, he didn’t say it exactly that way, but you get the idea)
Don’t worry—I don’t have any plans for any ‘one-last-secret-meeting’ with E**** or anyone else. That kind of thing wouldn’t do any good. If she needs closure, she’ll have to find it somehow. Knowing what I know about her, she’ll get her closure by finding another guy to obsess over. I think I was the one who replaced R*** in her mind (R*** was the guy she started dating shortly after I met her; he was the one who replaced E**** as the object of her obsession) and I think she’s still at the stage in her life where the “I need a boyfriend” drive is stronger than anything else for her.
If she calls me again and wants to talk to me “one last time” I promise I will tell you every detail of the conversation, and I will make sure she knows by the end of it that I am serious about my feelings for you and my desire to make it work between you and I - and I will also make sure she knows that it really will be the last time she and I talk to each other. I’ll listen to her cry and beg and I’ll be kind and warm-hearted and understanding as I tell her once and for all to kindly get out of my life and leave us alone.
Closure is relative to perception. I could tell myself “I need closure with E****” but what I prefer to tell myself is “I need closure on that part of myself that thought he wasn’t ready to settle down and be happy in a relationship.” That’s the part of me that needs closure. It really had nothing to do with E**** at all. She was just the object of all of those “What if” thoughts I had been having. And it felt really nice for awhile. But (to quote Corinthians again) “When I was a child, I spoke as a child and acted as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.” The part of me that needs closure is the part that spoke and acted as a child.
What’s tricky is that I need to put away the negative aspects of the childish things without letting go the positive ones. I’d love to be able to approach my music and creativity with the childlike innocence it deserves. I’d love to be able to drop my adult inhibitions and the stage-fright they cause and be able to play on stage with the unfettered freedom of a five-year-old on a jungle gym, running and jumping with the joy of the moment as I solo over the changes in C major. How to keep that and let go of all the rest of the irresponsible childish behaviors that seem to unnecessarily get dragged along with it? Our daughter confided in me the other day that it’s really hard to be a 15-year-old; that she sometimes wished she could go back to being a little kid with less responsibilities. Well, sometimes it ain’t so easy being a 33-year-old either. The trick is knowing which behaviors to let go of and keep the rest. I’m really a piece of work, aren’t I? I don’t know much about myself right now, but I do know that I could never, possibly, not in a million years, not ever in fact, ever ever hope to even fathom my world without you in it. In all of those infinite parallel universes that exist according to the most recent theories, I think of the ones where you and I never met because of a butterfly in the rainforest who flew west instead of east that day, and I find myself incredibly glad I live in one of the universes where that butterfly did in fact fly east. (If I could find him and thank him for doing his small part to bring you into my life, I would, but unfortunately he was according to most accounts trod upon a day later by a large forest mammal, an act which contributed to the averting of a major world catastrophe, so we should in fact seek out the large forest mammal and convey our thanks to it instead.)
I love you and I’m going to make myself worthy of you if it takes me a hundred years.
Love,x
