I know it's silly but I love some of these. Check it out. I know this is often a therapy exercise, but I wonder if it is truly therapeutic to write letters you know will never be received or if received, unresponded to....
This is when I stop writing the email for this is exactly what I am doing, writing an "open letter"that may be received but will more than likely never receive a response. This is nothing new. I've been writing this person for years with a hit and miss history of call and response. I wrote him in joy; I wrote him in rush. I wrote him in sorrow, in fear, and anger too. I wrote him in the thrill and thrall of an idea. What I wanted, hoped for, was conversation. What I got? I'm not really sure. Something or I wouldn't have kept doing it, found myself doing it still.
They say intermittent reinforcement is the strongest. So maybe there is a purely behavioral reason for my continued writing in a vacuum. And, that's probably part of it. There is what we want, what we hope for, what we are sure we have in another until the slow realization that we don't. Dreams die the hardest, and he was a particularly beautiful dream. I'm sure too there is something of my history in this clinging and continuing, something that fits, feels familiar, painful but safe, the devil you know as opposed to the devils you don't.
Which got me thinking about who/what I would write an open letter to. This old flame and perhaps friend? Maybe. But I'm thinking that he is a particular, the current face of a larger problem. It's not the man, per se, at least not only, but what he represents. I thought he was the love of my life, my soul mate, "the one." Obviously not, and yet maybe there was something in the greater concept that was the real problem. That's when the letter came.
Dear Soul Mate,
It is with great regret, after fifty-two years of deliberation, that I must humbly decline your insistence on happily ever after. While true love and "the one" are beautiful theories, in practice fairy tale endings, like any and every ending, are problematic. This is not to say you haven't been persuasive in your arguments. If this was a debate, it would definitely be a close call and frankly, your eloquence might have won the day. You are a smooth talker, truly.
We were off to promising start, I'll give you that. Ah, my first heated summer in Sacramento was pure magic. I was nearly sure I had met my Prince Charming; and you, you whispered all those perfect sweet nothings in my ear, a magic spell I couldn't withstand. And when the following months proved my Prince a frog, I realized the fault was not in my stars but in myself. I choose poorly. You, Soul Mate were off the hook. You weren't what was wrong; it was all me.
We had our ups and downs after, but then what relationship doesn't, even the best of them. My first marriage ended more sadly than badly; my second certainly began full of promise and the friendship at the core of it, that was a nice touch. It made me think I just needed to tweak things a little and I'd get it right, that happily ever after was a distinct possibility. Your best work came in my forties though, with the return of my first love, the young and hopeful one that never had its moment, that perfect and elusive mental, emotional, spiritual, physical connection. I could have it all and here was the proof, this man, this love. You nearly had me with that one and in the years after its end, I still thought the fault was mine, that you were still possible, that I could have what seemed the point of every story, that one, true, right love.
Maybe it was my dad's death that got me thinking, or maybe it was the approach of fifty-two. Perhaps the heart attacks and quadruple bypass set me on the path. I'm sure the love of my life's marriage to the woman he dumped me for played its part. I started to wonder if I really needed you. I started to doubt your promises. Wrong and right, true and false, grew a bit harder to determine definitively. I had been so sure what happily ever after looked like and was coming to realize that every love was true in its way, every relationship perfect and imperfect, at the same time. I began to think that happy today was the best I could hope for, all I wanted, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow would take care of themselves. In these tough times, I think I may be downsizing, Soul Mate, and your position, at least in this corporation, has been made obsolete.
No tears, Soul Mate. There are plenty who still want you. There are organizations clamoring for you. You won't have any trouble finding people more than willing to hold out for happily ever after even if it takes them a lifetime, or more to find it. It's been swell. Now get going and don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm going to kick it old school with my darling daughter and Mr. Pretty Darn Good, my sweet puppy, and a life that, while not perfect, is good.
Sincerely,
Susan M. Cross
Citrus Heights, CA
