Letter #49

Hey, darling

I know, I know. It’s been so long since I’ve written to you, nay, since I’ve spoke to you from the heart. Along time since I’ve went beyond our casual conversations and said anything of value. I’m not sure why; perhaps I am timid, even nervous, to say things that I feel need to be said. Or perhaps it’s because we have been apart for so long that, to me, you are becoming only memories, or only a person I’ve met in a dream. The real you is becoming separated in my mind from what I only believe you to be. If this is so, then that is why I have difficulties telling you what I believe you are frustratingly asking to hear.

But do not believe for a second that your importance is fading from my heart. On the contrary, you have never been more important to me than at this very moment. I wonder why this may be; is it that I feel alone and need someone I can lean into or is it because my mind has wandered off into places of what could be, envisioning fantastical thoughts coming to life? This may be part of it, but I think that it has less to do with me and much more to do with you. I thought that I have known you quite well, but I’ve been proven wrong. In recent correspondence, you have revealed more about yourself than you seemingly have in all the years we’ve graced each others lives. And in these revelations lies a being so pure, so talented, so full of life, and so virtuous that I’ve no choice but to be drawn in. In retrospect, you have been this way all along, I just have not noticed it as much as I do now.

And yet, I still find myself biting my tongue in front of you. Is that not the most frustrating thing of it all? How much I profess my loyalty and unending devotion to you, yet I still question how much of myself I should divulge. You may want to be let in and may be angered by my hesitation, but that hesitation says nothing of your character. No, it is a judgment of my own; it is my own character that is flawed, and does not let my feelings flow easily from my mind, through my soul, and into the pen that crafts this letter. Oh, the pen wants to speak, it wants to glide across the paper uninhibited and without consequence. And if there is consequence, it wants to damn them to the farthest distance of the cosmos. But my pen is not my soul. 

While my pen be the most powerful tool I possess, my soul has not reconciled with that power. No, my soul is weak and timid and silly and, most of all, confounded. It worries of consequences and foolish, impossible possibilities. Simply, it wants to be safe. Complexly, as much as it frustratingly wants to, my soul cannot seem to find a way around the predicament we’ve become. And this swelling of words that my soul contains threatens the value I place on the virtuous notion of truth.

This weakness, this hesitant behavior keeps things from you, things I would love to share and revel in with you. But, above all else, it keeps the truth from you. I vowed once to live my life, if by no other measure, with truth always at the forefront of my actions. But with you, I have failed that in the most miserable way. Or if it is not to be considered failure, it should at least be thought of as not going as far as my soul would like. Stopping short has become my favored method, and truth gets raped and slaughtered, left to repair itself. Though, even if I could frame the words just right, my soul begs the question, for what purpose? Is truth enough reason to make complicated an already complex situation? Or, it may ask, is “complex situation” really what we deal with here? My mind screams “no” with the full force of an army prepared for war. But my soul, the part that really matters, seems irrational. It does not care of truth or making matters worse. Its concern is focused on me. Yes, it wants to speak, it wants to unleash the feelings that burden it onto an unsuspecting you, but not at the expense of my own safety and complacency. And, I suppose, that that unsuspecting-ness plays a role as well. 

But, alas, you have been away from me for so long that I do not know if being together will be the same as being apart. I worry that the feelings may not be the same, or as strong, or…well, I do not know. I just worry. I suppose, though, that I make this sound more than it is. I just…I miss you always and I’m tired of you being on mind every second of the day, when I’d much rather have you here, holding me, making me aware of the safety I’m surrounded by.

Perhaps I’ll hear from you and you’ll ease my worries in some way. In the meantime, I’ll work through my philosophical and moral hang-ups, while looking forward to your response.

Shawn