Letter to a Lover

My old friend,

 

I write this to you because I am torn by the emotions and logic I feel. I cannot begin to explain, yet I want to. I need that ear. Perhaps, not so much a response, but the gentle understanding that can only be achieved through the knowledge that you read this. What I have to say is complicated. But I suppose, most dealings in love are complicated in their simplicity. 

 

The truth is I don’t want to be alone. I fear it increasingly with each passing day. As the sun fades in the distance, so does my hope of love; my hope of peace. It is nothing you did nor can I really claim any responsibility for these feelings, though they are my own. What happened is and what was will never be again. It is a present reality sealed in time and I alone should carry the burden.

 

I once asked if you could tell me you loved me. I repeatedly requested to know where you stood on our relationship, yet your responses were so vague and unclear. I could never feel at peace with such ambiguity. It wasn’t always this way. When we first met, I couldn’t be without you and you were always there. We rode in the hills overlooking the ocean and sailed in the bay. I confessed my feelings and you confessed yours. It was so much what I wanted to hear, so much what I had been waiting to believe. At least, that’s how it was in the beginning. In the final days, I so wanted to hear you say, “I love you.” And it never came. Did you love me? I think you did. I know I loved you. I know there was a period when it was true. But we both know what happened. We both strayed.

 

They tell me that I will never find love if I constantly look for it. They continue to tell me that I will never live if I continue to search for what life means. They will constantly tell me that I must be patient and believe I will begin anew. But how can I be patient when I lose confidence in my own worth? How can I live a life of constant belief with little encouragement. I just don’t know if I can continue as my present self. 

 

There is little left of me to support my own being. You may call it what you wish; a dramatic play or tragedy, I no longer care. It is what it is and it is what my past as made me. I have fought so long to be where I am. I have fought so hard to live. But I should not have to, should I? Life should not be something that one must constantly fight to experience. It seemed as if only you could help me. And only now that you are gone do I realize what it was that is gone. 

 

What happened between us? What was left uncertain? What was lost? I didn’t see it coming. Could I see it coming? You meant so much to me, yet in the end I had to let you go. I couldn’t fight to hold you anymore because the feelings were lost. We both lost them. Though the topic of love eluded your speech, you told me you cared and I went with what I hoped. I held your hand and kissed you on the lips and told you I loved you. But the speech grew soft over the years.

 

It seemed as if we had everything. We were the envy of many; all whom wished for our wealth and companionship. Our lifestyle was perfect and we knew the best of people. Our names were on every list and our friendship was powerful. We worked together to achieve great success. Yet for all our accomplishments I never felt complete. We lived together beautifully in a home raised high with views as vast as the gap that seems to have fallen between us. How can I measure success if success if only achieved through the love of another?

 

I did love you. I have no doubt of that. You were beautiful. You were kind. You were perfect. But it was not what we could sustain. We each grew towards one another oppositely. When I kissed you, I felt not but a frequent thing. The passion was lost. The emotion was clouded. I saw in you the man I loved yet could sense your fatigue. I wanted so desperately to hold on. I tried to hold on.

 

I do not know how you felt at the time before it came to be. I only can believe that you did love me too. That it was not just for what others have come to say it was. I believe it was real. I believe it meant something. I have to believe. How could it be anything else? You lay there next to me each night holding on. In the middle of the night, I could feel your grasp tighten. But as what has come to be in our lives, your grip eventually loosened as the night went on and you eventually let go. But you did hold for a time; you did not let me go. I can only hope it was a reluctant release. I can only hope that it was real, if not for a time.

 

I tell myself these things every night as I read what they say. I tell myself these things when I am stopped on the street and offered sympathy for a relationship lost. They tell me what they believe and it is nothing short of grand: You only were there for your own benefit. You were only there for wealth and prestige. Some even believe I should have seen it coming. 

 

“How could he have been so foolish?” they whisper. “How could he have been so blind?” But they are wrong, I still believe. I know loved you. I believe you loved me too.

 

So wherever you may be and whomever you may be with, I will always love you, even if cannot express it in person. That time in the beginning, I felt so complete. Our life together was not a mask. Our life together was real. I believe it was true.

 

You do not have to respond with an explanation. You may not even respond at all. But if you do respond I only ask for it be four words. Only respond if you are to say, “I loved you too.” This way I may know for certain that it was real or, at least, allow for what I believe to be true.

 

Your loving friend