In the beginning… I used to know what I needed to say, but I am so much older now… I want to take a chance, kiddo, but I am also very pragmatic and you are about the worst bet I can imagine right now. Oh, oh, oh, I can’t help loving you… can I pack any more crappy love songs into this letter? One can only hope.

Anyway, I’m tired of being guarded and cynical and old. I want to be stupid and young and love you openly and earnestly. I want to pack up and run to you and we could create some life in a place that was ours, just for us. I want to do that and I want to do it with you. Except: 1. You’re you. 2. I’m me and 3. I know you, i.e. I KNOW you and so I know how you can and cannot love. I think it would be hard and go against your nature to love earnestly, one woman, forever. Even me. I don’t think you couldn’t. I don’t think you wouldn’t want to, I just think it would be hard to undo all the years of solitude. I don’t know if you could make enough room for me in your life.

I don’t know. This… well, it’s okay. The whole thing is just an outburst. Here we are, 5 minutes later, and I can already almost think differently. I can be pragmatic and old again. I can listen to reason and be your OLD lover, unwilling to fuck up anything in your new life.

I could probably be okay with things the way they are. I have been, so it stands to reason that I could continue. It’s just that when I think about you, when I talk to you, when I hear from you through a huge expanse after however long, I can’t do anything but melt all over again. Because I love you. Always have.

realhumanbaby:

Someone’s probably in love with you right now, even though you think you’re boring and stupid and smell bad most of the time, someone probably saw you last week and wiped their sweaty hands on the insides of their pockets and thought about how small your body gets under your clothing and about how you would look asleep in their bed

aetholove:

I didn’t know what to do. I had finally met the man who always wanted who I already was.

Oh! I am so crushed out. Even though I’m so nervous because you are such a big deal and everyone (including me) thinks it would be crazy not to see what could come of your interest in me! I think you’re such a babe and i’m a little embarrassed to have already told you that. But more than that, you are so exciting to me. Everyone who knows you says you are the perfect gentleman, a fine southern boy, compassionate and smart, fun to be around and creative and talented. But now, I am also very, very much-so in no condition to be writing this. I am so nervous that I almost can’t find the words and all I can do is hope that you find my nervousness, my shyness, my inexperience endearing. I get excited about you. When that happens, my head gets all shimmery and I start to love everyone who loves me. But God, you are the biggest fucking sweetheart. A real grown up, already in your 30s, strung out on me, little old me, a fucking baby, still just a little burnt out on failed love affairs, and you still see something in me worthwhile: what is that? It makes me feel like there’s hope and like maybe it’s supposed to be this way for a while. Nervous excitement. Geez, could anything be any better?

Oh, honey…I kind of wish you were here right now. Even though your sweetness scares me. You should know I’m a scaredy-cat about romance these days. It’s okay, though. I’m not scared enough to let it stop me.

Hey sweets,

You’re in Nevada now, I guess, maybe— doing construction or recovering from cocaine. And I would have never called you, because I know what your old life means to you now, but since the last time I saw you, you were 22, it feels right now, like enough time has probably passed.

I think about you now only once in a very, very long while and I laugh at myself now, but not only half-jokingly. Even now, I’m still in awe of being 17 and nights spent with you. What was that? Who were we?

The things you said, why did you say them? I have no idea, because I don’t know you, never did, never put you into a context that can make the time we spent together make any sense. Anyway, I don’t think I want to.

I miss you sometimes, of course, although at no point did I want to be with you (except that I did). Whatever. Even now it doesn’t make any sense. For instance, why am I writing to you?

If you are no longer on cocaine, are you married now? Balding? Fat? Do you have kids? Your old girlfriend had an abortion a couple of months after we went to Atlanta that last weekend. I hardly even remember my life back then. It’s so unreal, because you were so in love with me and all we did was kiss.

So, somewhere we lived our real lives, all the while expecting things to work out forever with the ease of being teenagers. So far it has and hasn’t in a lot of interesting ways. One day we’ll meet up, sit in the grass and talk about it.

You’re my first unconditional love. My first true lover. My first honest attempt at loving. My Great Love.

I don’t see how there could ever be another to compare.

The worst day with you is still better than a great day with anyone else.

No matter what, every day is a good day with you in it.

I cherish you.