Ugh, I have no idea why all of this is coming up right now. I’m very confused by it. I hope you can bear with me.
I’m not sure how to be a woman, without being married to you. I guess I will have to be a very sharp and kind of lonely person. I’m very responsible now, and much more sensible. How will you be man? Do you want to be with this person when you are old? Would you like to see me with someone when I am old? How would that be.
I’m sorry, it just doesn’t make sense to me. I need to talk to you sometime soon, on the phone. I have no desire to upset your life. Or mine. I don’t want to be upset. I want to figure out how to process this once and for all. We have never been allowed to truly be together, no matter what we try. Why is that? What should I do with these feelings? I want to do what is right and have common sense. But I also don’t want to pretend like they are not there.
I want to hear your voice, so that I can be embarrassed by myself, or hear your inflection, or understand this.
Because now, when I am at work at night, and I look out the big windows into the city, it looks like it could be anywhere. It looks like it could be the city where you live. It makes me feel… like I am 4 years old. Like I am 44. Like we are in some past existence where we were married in some Eastern European church. I don’t understand how all of this happened, but it feels like I could walk right out into the night and to a house where you are.
How can I not have seen you for 2 years? We always do this, 2 years on, 2 years off. Maybe it will be much more than two years this time. Maybe always. I don’t understand it.
Everything else makes sense to me now, I belong, I understand. But not this. I keep thinking I will wake up, and everything will be fine.
All I can think is that something which has been this painful, and beautiful, for so long must turn me into steel. I don’t look at other men, I’m almost a nun. I am a nice person, I help people. But I don’t truly like any of them. Is this what adulthood is going to be? Can you imagine me with another man? Who would I like? Can you tell me who they are so I can just get on with it?
Just bear with me. This is very painful. But no one is the same as they were before. I am a lot stronger now than I was then. I will figure this out. I’m sorry to send you all of this. But who else knows? Really knows. Who else would understand.
If only we had just sat down to a couple of pork chops and some mashed potatoes. If only there was laundry in the washing machine. If only there was a ring around the bathtub, and music playing.
