Winter lingers. But Spring cannot be far off.
An open letter.
This is what I want to tell you: The man I love is good enough. Here’s why:
He’s kind. He’s generous. He has really good character. He loves his family. His family is worthy of being loved. He is smart. He is creative. He is sensitive. He is good to me. He is a good man. And he loves me. HE LOVES ME! In six months he has shown me he loves me more than another man was capable of showing me in 11 years. And I think I must be the luckiest girl in the world.
But he is five years younger than me, and by his own admission, kind of a fuck-up. He drinks a little too much and lives his life a little too recklessly. He doesn’t know why someone like me would love someone like him. Which leads me to ask, should I be wondering the same thing?
What does this mean? At 25 I thought I knew what I wanted for my life. I had committed myself to someone who I thought knew what they wanted for their life. I was wrong. Not about what it meant to be in love with someone, because that has always come easily for me. I was wrong about knowing what it meant to be loved, and about what it is to love myself. I realize this is my experience and no one else's. It would be unfair to tell someone that I understand their life experience simply because I know what my life has been like. It would be unfair to judge someone like that. But it wouldn’t be unfair to judge current experiences by past ones, would it? Isn’t that called learning from your mistakes? And yes, age is just a number, but in some ways, I am at a different place in my life than him. Because I don’t have time to make the same mistake again. I hate saying that aloud. It makes me feel so old. It makes me fear that this man, any man, will run away from me, terrified that I want him to settle down in a “stable” job, so we can have a house in the suburbs, and 2.5 kids. Because that is what my life is supposed to look like. That’s what everyone wants for me. Shouldn’t that be what I want for myself?
To be honest, I don’t believe this is why I don’t have time to make the same mistakes again. The real reason is that I am afraid of starting my life over once again. Because it is one thing to start your life over at 30; starting over at 35 or 40 is another thing. No one wants that for their children or for their friends. No one wants that for themselves.
So maybe I don’t want the house with the picket fence in the suburbs. Maybe I don’t want 2.5 kids, not now anyway. I’m not sure if I ever will. But I do want stability. I do want my partner to be someone I can count on.
I want to know that if I choose to make sacrifices for you, you will make them in return when the time comes. I want to know that I can depend on you, that you will take care of me when we are down on our luck, that our love is strong enough. Can you promise me that? Because falling in love with you was easy; so easy it’s almost scary. And I’m not afraid to take a risk. I know that my heart has already made decisions that my brain can’t even comprehend yet. I’m not afraid of you hurting me. I’ve been hurt before; I know I am strong, that I can survive. I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of me. I am afraid of my love. I am afraid of losing myself again. I’m afraid of waking up one day and realizing that I don’t know who I am anymore, that I have become a reflection of you and of your dreams. And most of all, I am afraid of believing in you more than you believe in yourself. Because if that happens, I haven’t learned a thing.
So here’s what I want to say to you. I love you. I love you just the way you are. I love being your girlfriend and I love the way you love me. And I understand that you are at a different place in your life and you want and need to experience that right now. I don’t want to take that away from you; if I did you would only resent me for it later. And when you’re ready to move to the next place, I will be ready. That is, if I can wait for you.
But if you think that I am going to dedicate my life, leave behind people and places I love, and take this journey with someone who is not ready for the next step, you’ve got another thing coming. And If you think you can just fall back on being ‘a fuck-up’ so you don’t have to be accountable to yourself or to me, well then forget about it. Yes, I have expectations of you, because I have expectations for my life, and I’m not going to fuck it up again. I don’t have time for that.
So if you love me, if you really love me the way you say you do, then don’t fuck this up. And please, don’t waste my time.
. . .
This will be my last entry in this blog. I started this writing because I needed to find myself, to save myself. I needed a place to do that and people to listen openly and without judgment. And it has been a place of solitude for me, but also one of forgiveness and self-discovery. And I am not done learning yet. I am not completely out of the dark. But in my tentative exploration of new love and new life, I've realized something: I am not without guidance. I do not travel alone. With this writing I have journeyed through my grief. True, the deepest, darkest places of that journey could not be faced by anyone other than myself. But I have not traveled blindly. My experiences and strength have led me through the darkness, and along the way I have discovered true friends in the most unlikely places. And at the end of that darkness, I have found a spark of life. At the end of that darkness I have found love. I have fallen in love with myself and with my life, and I am so grateful for the experiences that have made me who I am today. I know, I have always known, that I am truly blessed. But it took a journey through the darkest places inside me to really know me, to know what I am capable of. And the only place to go from here is forward. So for now, as I begin this new journey of love and life, I know it is time to say goodbye. So long, companions. Thank you for listening. May we meet again in happier places.
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