Letter to my Future Love

I saw this on another person's site, and I just love this idea. It's romantic and silly, and I'm both. Open up and talk about love? Why not? I've been on a roll today.

I'm going through a divorce. This is a hard thing. It's my own fault and my own problem, but I started this blog as an exercise in honesty, and it's still something to strive for, even through these difficulties. I don't tell it all, but I acknowledge the struggles, and the pain. So I know my ex is likely to read this, and that's another hard thing. To know that someone wants you back, whether you deserve it or not. And I don't. And I don't want to go back. More hard things. Nobody said this would be an easy road to take.

I don't ever want to go through this again. I don't ever want to get married again, not through our legal system. I never want to experience this. All of that said, It's now been just about six months since I discovered that I wasn't in love with my husband anymore. The divorce still isn't final on paper, but in my heart, I've really started that strange process of letting go of the past. I'm looking around me now, and discovering an amazing new world of people to love, not all of them as romantic partners, but friends and companions and acquaintances and intellectual partners, and yes, some as potential lovers.

But who, in their deepest heart of hearts, doesn't still dream of true love, not even though the cruelties of real life experience poke holes in that dream an achingly endless number of times? So here, then, is my letter to my true love, whoever that person may be.

To my darling,

Tonight, I do not know who you are. I can't see your form in front of me. The color of your eyes is a great mystery. Are you dark or fair, thin or broad, slender or strong? I wonder. Are you someone I know, or someone I have yet to meet? Or are you someone I'll never meet at all?

Whoever you are, in this imaginary future, I am in love with you. And so this is my letter to you. Here is what I ask. Be with me, nearby. Breathe the air with me. Feel the sunshine on the grass. Go places with me, and hold my hand. Walk with me, and talk with me, and share my world. Be proud of me. Take pride in yourself, in your work, in your life, in your passions, and yet always return to my side, if not for rest, then at least for relaxation. Play with me, and laugh. Move with me, and accept me, and my need to always be in motion. Read on the train, take me on an airplane, drive the length of California with me in my car. Be ready to go. Go with me.

Accept my children, and be aware of them, of their youngness and their frailty, of their fears and their sadnesses, of their beauties and their strengths. Stand with me as I struggle to parent them, but stand never between us, but always at my side. Care for them as much as you can, and inspire them to be like you, in all the best ways. Accept that I will always love them deeply, and that you will therefore never have the full of my heart. Take what is yours, and realize that there is bounty enough in that.

Be prepared for excitements, and passions, and a million crazy dreams. Keep my feet on the ground, but don't put me into a cage. Help me to succeed. Recognize what is good in me, and help me to grow it, little by little, day by day. Help me map a thousand laugh lines onto my face, and rejoice at the appearance of every single new one.

Expect some darkness. Expect some troubles. Be ready to chase the shadows. Be there when I come running from them. Stand strong when I am at my most weak, but don't protect me from the problems I create for myself. Let me get into trouble, and back out again. Have some faith in me. I always land on my feet, in the end, but it takes someone brave to wait through the storms.

Wake up with me in the morning, and make me coffee. Go to sleep with me at night.

Make me feel like the brightest and most beautiful woman on the planet, every time you look in my direction. Smile at me. And bring me flowers on Tuesday afternoons.

Oh, and everyone else? None of these directions will work if you're not the one I picked out in the first place. Otherwise, it would all be too easy, now wouldn't it?

What will you get in return? Oh, nothing much worth mentioning. Affection and loyalty, excessive obsessive passion, obsequious hero-worship, alarming intelligence, amusement and excitement, being just some of the offerings. If you can handle that sort of thing. I expect you'll manage just fine, once you get over the initial shock.

Jackie