The Unsent Letter

The alarm goes off again. I waken just slightly. My husband gets up and starts his day. When he leaves, I wait for my son to wake up. My day should be routine and normal. I am a grown woman. I have the life I struggled so hard to achieve finally in my grasp. As my son watches Blue's Clues, I go to my computer. I log on to the internet. It is in this forum that I think I have found you, again. You are my hope and my memory. I spend much of my time wondering if I'll catch a glimpse of you again.

I look out the window of my bedroom, away from the computer screen. I see the fence line and trees overhead. They might as well not exist. I remember so vividly each of the last eleven years. I run the months through my mind, and I wonder how I could have changed things to accommodate what I now know is true. I pour myself over the emotions and the feelings that you inspire in me. I no longer doubt the veracity of anything I ever felt, nor anything that comes to my mind in the present. When I am alone on days like today, I feel the misery of choices I made so long ago. And I want to tell you all about it.

I have issued my full apology so many times. The guilt still burns in me. There is just enough fuel in my mind to keep it going. But I don’t want to spend my life in misery over choices I have made. I suffered through many years, and I believe I’ve paid for my sins against you. Still, there you are, dominating my thoughts. Today, when my life has settled, when my nest is complete, and I have time to think, I spend most of my extra time thinking about you.

There is a part of me that longs to break my promises in this life I have chosen. There are several parts of me that want to run away, to you. And yet, another part of me wonders if I am the biggest fool on earth for even thinking you care about me after all these years. I will never know if you only wish to watch me suffer like this, or if you also feel the burning desire to be together, again. It would serve me right if it is merely amusement for you.

I loved you with every ounce of my being, from the very moment we became girlfriend and boyfriend as kids. Perhaps it’s biological. Perhaps women can never really shut off that part of us that longs for our first true loves. I’ve had two or three loves since then, but they were easily wiped out of my mind in time. You have been branded into my soul in a way that I don’t understand. If this was 1998, and I was merely engaged, I could throw everything away that I had at the time. I would take the risk. I would shed myself of everything for one more chance with you. A part of me wants to smack me for feeling this way.

I linger over the sensation that I can still trust you with my whole being, and the sensation that it is the right thing to do. I am living a lie. Everyday that goes by, I know that I have only hastily tried to patch my world together and keep moving forward, but that I am carrying a flame for someone else. Even if you are secretly laughing at me, I’ve been warned before that I am not truly happy with the one who loves me. I am safer in this world to stay with him, though. The logical thought that I am wrong about the things I feel for you interferes with my desire to take a leap of faith. Faith in true love. Faith in a loving God. Faith that as I have wished - that we would someday meet again, and that we would one day become one, again - you have also wished…

I can remember the way you soothed away my fears, my tears, and my hopelessness. I remember when we would stand together among classmates or churchmates, and we did not care what they thought about us. I remember your fingers wiping away tears that I could never explain. You made me want to live.

I remember your kiss more than anything else. The memory of way your tongue knew exactly how to lap at my mouth interferes with my daily routines, even now. The way that your hands knew exactly how soft to be, one minute, and how rough to be, the next, is etched on my libido. You taught me about pleasure in a world that I regarded as mostly pain. The soft caresses, the rhythmic thrust of your cock, and the way your eyes could hypnotize me… I promised that some day we would never be apart.

The why’s of our parting have been hashed and rehashed, haven’t they? It was a terrible ending to a beautiful romance, and it nearly killed any belief I had in love. It is the memories of those last months that make me step away from this sense that I believe I have found you now for a purpose. It is the memories of the loss of control of my future that makes me reluctant to approach you with anything but apologies. But I remember, too, the acts of our love, and it overwhelms me into submission to belief in the romance novel vision of true love. I believe you are my soulmate. If I am a fool, then so be it. My belief abides. I believe in you. At the end of the day, my husband will still be between us. I don't have the nerve to leave him, with this fantasy I have that you'd willingly take me back into your life. I cannot risk the home I've made for something I don't completely trust.

Someday, I hope there comes clarity and discovery between us. I hope that things are resolved for you and me. Because I honestly can say that I have not forgotten you and that I still love you.

Until the day comes for such resolution, I send this love to you to heal you from the past between us and the things that led you to me, in the first place. I send my love to you, and hope you can embrace it without anger tainting it ever again.

I will continue my search for you, my glimpses of you. I will also fantasize about you, when his hands caress me, instead of yours. I will continue to wish that I am someone special in this world. I will always hope that the love you devoted to me was as real as it felt. And I will forget the things that were said after your father finally broke you and took you away from me.

In the meantime, as I wait for one more sign, I sigh and sob one more ocean. I look back out my window at the wooden fence, and I will plod on though my life...