Guest post: A Love Letter - of Sorts

The following letter was emailed to me from Megan's mom Liz. Ever since my daughter’s new friend asked people to write a love letter to someone in their life to be posted to her blog and my daughter suggested that I do it, I have been perplexed over to whom I would write this letter and also, in a much broader sense, what really is love. If you can’t define it, how can your write about it?

Now if you had asked me as a young or middle aged woman I could have told you exactly what love was and defined it in no uncertain terms. Then again, up til about fifty-five (55) I was sure I knew exactly about a lot of things and could unequivocally explain them whenever the occasion arose. I was so sure of so many things. Now, at the age of 64 and fast approaching 65, I have found that I am unsure of most things. The irony of this is … it doesn’t seem to really matter. In fact, being ambivalent, unsure and sometimes totally clueless seems to be rather a natural way of being. Isn’t knowing "nothing" the way of Zen?

So, to whom do I write this love letter? There are so many in my life, past and present who I have felt a deep care and concern for and who have added immeasurable happiness, contentment and joy to my life.

Do I write to one of my daughters; each one of whom embodies everything promising and admirable in young and growing women. They are joyful, fun, intelligent, and provocative in their thinking and, in many ways, I still can find the little girls in them that made my life so meaningful as they were growing up. Being their mother has always been a privilege for me and a rather awesome experience. By the way, I plan to continue being their Mother even when they chaff against me being so. There is definitely a love letter here.

Do I write this letter to my parents, both now deceased, who created a safe, secure and loving environment in which I was able to grow up (with the appropriate craziness for an Italian family on my mother’s side off-set by a quiet demeanor of my Spanish father)? They were always there, somehow always showing up if and when you needed them. Even well into my adult life when I was fifty-seven (57) my then eighty-eight (88) year old Dad drove five hours over the mountains by himself to spend Christmas at my house because he felt “the girls and I may need him” to be there since it was the first Christmas we would spend without their Dad who had left months earlier. Yes, there is a love letter here.

But, who do I write this love letter to? Do I write it to the man with whom I shared the majority of my life? From the age of 18 to the age of 57 this man was a constant in my life. Then I could say how love was suppose to look….I knew unequivocally that through all the tough times that LOVE would prevail and underneath all the problems, the heartaches, the betrayals, that there was something so deep that it could not be diminished. So, was that really love? What is odd or maybe not so odd, that after being with this man for forty (40) years and now being without this man for nine (9) years; after the sadness, the hurt, the disappointment, the anger, the shock there is still something that makes me not hate this person nor love this person in the way I once defined love. Instead there remains a regrettable feeling and sadness to know that we could not be happy together. Is there a love here or is it something different, something I can not yet describe? This, in itself, brings up an even bigger question! If you loved someone once can you stop loving them? Truly just stop loving them? Somehow I don’t think that you can reverse loving someone. Once you have loved them, the love remains….perhaps tempered, perhaps different, perhaps without such fervor or without the unrealistic hopes and dreams that we attach to the word love. But then, if it is truly gone (that feeling of love, whatever it is) perhaps it was never really there. There is a letter here, not sure if it is a love letter.

Who? Do I write this letter to so many totally kind, generous and committed friends who have shared my joys and my heartbreaks without judgment and with reservation. I have been most blessed in this area of my life. Do I write this letter to my sister who is so much more than a sister to me? She is a friend, a buddy, a role-model who also turns to me for help and support. She is a remarkable hiking, biking Grandma pedaling up the high mountains of Colorado who has for years has been my hero. Yes, there are many love letters here.

So, who do I write this love letter to? Is it all the wonderful animals that have graced my life? To the warm little wiggly bodies of my dogs over the years from my Star, Star 2 (collies) to Angus, Bonnie, McNeil and Angel (Westies and Scotties) and my beloved Chloe (my soul greyhound), Lakota and now Shyla. They have given me so much love, attention, support and pure joy in my lifetime. Do I write the letter to the wonderful warm, sometimes smelly, 1200 pounds of horseflesh that have given me the opportunity to be my total complete self as we cantered through the fields, who have been my constant and unending friends since I was a teenager. They (Sundance, Champion, Silly, Don’t Pretend and, my dream horse, Hellas who has been with me unfaltering for 18 years) have never let me down (well, they dumped me more than a few times but it was nothing personal) and have always there, never judging, never questioning and always nickering. Yes, there is definitely a love letter here.

So, perhaps I write this love letter to the quirky, fun-loving, caring and gentle-hearted man with whom I now share my life? How lucky am I to have found someone who is so easy-going and generous of heart and spirit, who makes me laugh more times in a day than I use to laugh in a week, who makes me feel like a woman always, who holds my hand even as I fall asleep, who never complains and who walks my dog, shovels out my horse’s stall, cuts up boxes and builds things with my grandkids and shows me each day how to “fall through life”. Actually we don’t use a word as loaded as love in this relationship so I really could not write a Love letter it would have to be a “Like” letter. So, yet another question. Is it more important to hear these words or see them in action on a daily basis? Is it more important to be treated and to be allowed to treat another in a respectful, joyful, caring and loving manner or hear the words? One thing for certain…there is most definitely a Love/Like letter here.

So, here is my dilemma. How do I write a love letter to only one person when my life has been touched by so many, in so many different ways? How do I choose and what really is love? Perhaps it is something that you don’t define. Maybe the lesson I learned first, from my Father and now from the man with whom I share my life, is that you don’t have to define it, you just have to live it in whatever way you know to live it, even if the other person can’t return it to you. As my hairdresser says, “It is all good! Share the love” whatever and whoever it is to you.

Liz Ribas

An Open Love Letter to my Husband

Dear Rich, I spent so long trying not to be in love with you that I catch my breath now whenever I realize that you're mine. And even during all those days that stretched to months when we were not talking, I knew that I would work my way back to you in one way or another.

A friend once asked me if I would regret how our relationship began. He wondered if I would wish for a "boy meets girl" story to tell. At the time I laughed it off, so determined that I would be with you, that the circumstances seemed immaterial. But now, I'm glad for how our relationship began. It settles my heart that we found each other, pursued each other, held onto each other when it was very often the hardest fucking thing to do.

And now we share a home and a daily routine. We have all those empty hours that we yearned for when our relationship was new. For all my stubborn certainty that you couldn't get away from me, I could never have imagined that this Sunday would exist. When I find your dirty t-shirt crumpled up on the bed, I still snatch it up and bury my face in it, not wanting that smell to ever get away from me.

I fell in love with you when I knew it would be hard, when it would be complicated, it could get messy. Those feelings are still at the center of how I feel about you, but over time they've become the kindling for a much brighter flame that I carry for you.

I love you for the way you put me off so that you could do the right thing by a failing relationship. I love you for your loyalty, fierce and constant. I love you for making a decision to be happy. I love tracing my fingers over the 27 scales on your red dragon tattoo. I love the way you tap the center console in the car whenever the sports announcers say something that might jinx the game. I love the rough way you throw a bag of goalie equipment, and the gentle way you move the cat off your chest to not disturb her. I love the way you fret over me, though I roll my eyes about it. I love that your opinion is the one that I go to first and last about anything. You are mine and I couldn't be happier about it.

And I will always be

your girl.

Love, Genie

Guest post: Sometimes things don't turn out the way we want

Due to the highly Google-able nature of her unique name, this post is listed as simply from K. I think that counts as an open letter without her potential clients reading all of this one day. :) September 20, 1977. dear ____. tomorrow i’ll meet you for the first time. you’ve asked a friend to point you out when you get off the bus. she’ll ask me what i think of you, and i’ll tell her, emphatically. he’s a dog. it’s going to break your heart enough that for the next five years you’ll dangle your soul in front of me to show me what i’ve missed. you’ll stretch out your hand and in it will be your heart, but every time i reach to take it from you, you’ll already be gone. it’s going to break my heart enough that for the next thirty years i’ll wonder how i could have let something so stupid fall out of my mouth. thirteen year-old girls aren’t often good with words. they don’t always say exactly what they’re thinking, mostly because they don’t know what they’re thinking . . . my words won’t tell you exactly how I feel.

I’d thought about you, but I wasn’t holding my breath and I wasn’t holding my life. I may have said a prayer or two, asked the universe to let you be ok, maybe slipped in a little does he think about me? does he know I’m here? But I wasn’t holding back my life waiting to see you again. California was calling, not you. I knew where you were, and it wasn’t somewhere I was willing to go. Remember? I washed dished, you dried, she put your daughter to bed. …sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want as you brushed your lips past my neck.

i’ll move away and ignore the letters you write. painstakingly perfect penmanship, words carefully chosen, eloquently expressed. thirteen year-old boys aren’t often good with words. they don’t always say exactly what they’re thinking, mostly because they don’t know what they’re thinking . . . your words will tell me exactly how you feel.

Twenty-one days to go and California was calling. I knew that morning I’d see you. A conscious thought, a feeling right between my ribs. An early visit to the cemetery, my mom and I. It’s been thirty-nine years, the first one gone. A hot, lazy, summer afternoon, mid-week in a quiet restaurant in a small Southern town. I actually watched you walk in, your head down, unrecognizable, and take a seat at the bar. I’m screaming inside where no one else can hear, he isn’t coming. he’s not here. California was calling.

when life is sailing along where i want it to be, you’re going to hold out your hand, and i’m going to reach for someone who isn’t there. late at night, needing water for your radiator so you can get home . . . you don’t live near me. fingers intertwined, laughing, pulling me down the street on your skateboard under the gaze of a dark summer sky, the streetlamp and my mother’s “five more minutes.” one quick kiss in the front seat of your old andy griffth car. a midnight call from a phone booth on the bay, a cancelled fishing trip, dialing my number, talking about nothing, inviting me to dinner. i’ll wash dishes, you’ll dry.

I looked up from my plate and locked eyes with the guy at the bar, and life stopped as slow recognition and an almost imperceptible smile spread across your face. The smile that makes your eyes shine. The smile that says to me 15 years, and there you are. We somehow met in the middle of a crowded restaurant but only two people were there, and you picked me up off my feet and you held me and you whispered in my ear, as your lips graced my neck, sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want.

Sometimes things happen once in a lifetime. Sitting on your bar with a glass of white wine, another hot summer day coming to an end, listening to Kid Rock sing All Summer Long. We both know there are only two days. Small talk, catching up the years, apologies for things I don’t remember, the way you guys treated us back then, all jokes and meanness. It wasn’t that bad. Me so sure I have every memory in place, every detail correct, you were confident, popular, fickle, indifferent. Our hands touch . . . and unexpected tears begin to flow for so many things I didn’t know, and I look out the window to the sun setting on the lake and realize everything I was back then and thought you were is cracking under the weight of what really was. I hold you, let you cry. Its not my turn. I’ll leave on Sunday, drive a mile or so, stop the car and let this out, cry with you for the guy I thought you were, the kid you should have been allowed to be. I’ll cry for the girl who didn’t see it for what it was, wrapped in her own selfish desires, that girl who’s hand kept missing yours. The funny thing is, as you stand in front of me, looking up at my face, your hands on my waist, that smile in your eyes, I apologize for calling you a dog. . . . and you don’t remember.

sometimes things don’t turn out the way we want.

But that doesn’t make the way they were any less precious, and sitting on your porch as the night wrapped itself around what would once again be too soon gone, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years . . . home.

backyard paths as openings through forests

trees green with the summer evening sun setting behind them.

darkness closing in but safety and belonging whisper their touch through the leaves

through the trunks

through the years

through the memories that turn out not to be quite what they seemed.

in the passage of time true feeling resonates

much stronger than the illusion we have come to know

and carried like letters of unfulfilled dreams.

now those pages hold more than words spoken by a boy longing for what he did not have.

they hold his heart, and in them too is mine.

Love, K