Lost Loves

"Why don't you love me anymore Bobby?" she asks, her eyes just beginning to water as she tries to suppress the tears.

"Jessica, it's been eight years since I last saw you," I reply. "We haven't even spoken since you were in school at Auburn."

"I know, it's just that..."

"And you married someone else," I remind her. "When you married him I had to let you go."

She looks away, covering her face in hands that tremble slightly to conceal her sobbing. For several moments she says nothing, silently crying as she sits beside me. I drape my arm over her shoulder to provide what meager consolation such gestures can offer, when she removes her hands and looks upon my face with tear filled eyes. Those emerald green eyes, the same ones I looked into all those years ago when we shared a love so innocent. Two college sweethearts she and I once were, for she was both my first girlfriend and first kiss. But that was so long ago, a lifetime ago, and as we sit together on the couch in my apartment I see only a relic from my past.

"I thought about you every day I was married to him," she confesses. "Every day for the past five years."

"Jessica, please don't..."

"Every day Bobby. I always wondered if I made a mistake letting you go. I always wondered what might have been between us if I had not told you goodbye. You are so different than any man I have ever known and I just...I just could not forget about you. I want to be with you again."

And there it is -- her confession. She has driven all the way to Atlanta just to see me, an unexpected reunion after eight years apart, a reunion that I was hesitant to agree to lest she surprise me with the admission she has just made. There was a time all those years ago when had she uttered those words I would have given my life to be with her, a time when she was the light of my world...but this is not that time, and the fidelities that her confession is trying to elicit have long since passed away.

"I'm sorry Jessica...I cannot give you what you want from me."

Her head sinks low as she mutters, "Why Bobby? I do not understand."

"Do not make me say. It will only lead to hurt feelings."

"Please tell me," she begs. "I came all the way to Atlanta just to see you."

"I did not ask you to come," I remind her.

She nods, looking out my bedroom window to see her car parked just outside. For a moment I can read the hesitation in her eyes as she wonders what to do next, if she should simply drive away forever or make one last attempt to understand why we can never be together again.

She takes my hand within her own. "Please Bobby...please tell me why you do not love me."

My answer will crush her. My answer will break her heart, but she has asked me for the truth, and so I shall tell her. I look into her eyes and say, "Because I am in love with someone else."

Her fingers loosen. She lets go of my hand. For several minutes she simply cries as I hold her and say nothing more. Finally her weeping subsides and she stands up to take her leave. We hug each other just before she walks out the door, a lingering embrace that we both know will be our last. I watch her drive away forever, knowing that she is taking a part of her heart back with her, a part she gave me all those years ago which I now return.

After she leaves at this late hour I spend several moments in quiet reflection before retiring to bed. But before I do, I check my e-mail for the last time tonight, just to see if anything interesting has arrived, when my eyes behold a single letter...a letter from you Ornela that makes my heart stop:

"Hey Bobby,

I'm sorry for everything that I have put you through. My wish was to come find you in Atlanta, hug you, and tell you that I'm sorry in person. It is a bit difficult for me to do that at the moment, however I did not want to wait any longer from contacting you again. I can't say much right now except that I'm willing to give us another try. But you need to know that I'm going through an extremely rough time emotionally right now, so we have to take this slow.

I am looking forward to giving us one last chance.

Love,

Ornela"

I read your letter a dozen times...again, and again, and again. And then I cry, for a happier moment I have never known.

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You think that I do not understand how you feel Ornela, but I have been down the path you now walk. Our lives parallel each other in more ways than you may think.

A week before you sent me your letter in June, an old girlfriend came back into my life. Unexpectedly, and uninvited, she sent me a letter asking to see me again. Though hesitant, I agreed to her request as eight years had passed since our last visit and I thought that perhaps she simply wanted to reminisce for old times' sake. However, I soon learned how mistaken my initial assessment had been. She confessed her feelings for me, feelings that I knew nothing about, feelings that she had withheld for eight years. She confessed that despite being married to another man for the past five years, she still thought about me every day and regretted ever saying goodbye, and what's more, she wanted me back in her life. She asked me to be with her again, but I knew that such a union could never be. The man who once loved her is gone, and a new man has taken his place...a man whose heart belongs to another. I knew that I could never ask her back into my heart because I had already given it to someone else, the woman I have fallen in love with...you Ornela.

I debated long and hard about whether or not I should tell you this, but I decided that if I truly loved you as much as I claim, then there could be no secrets between us. This woman, whom I once cared for very deeply, asked me back into her life...and I told her no. A day later you asked me back into your life...and I told you yes, a thousand times yes. The timing was surreal. You are the only woman I want to be with Ornela...you are the only woman I love.

You and I are not like most people Ornela. We are both much more sensitive than others and feel everything very deeply. Such a trait can be a curse because it means that the pain we feel from an emotional loss is much greater than most people can ever realize. It means that we carry our pain internally, our burdens becoming like a great millstone hung around our necks that we feel we must carry alone. I understand this feeling...I truly do.

But this capacity for emotional depth is also a blessing, for it means that we feel love on a level that most people will never experience. It means that we are capable of loving someone completely, unconditionally and without reservation. It also means something else. It means we can give ourselves to someone. That is the secret to love. You can only truly love someone when you have given yourself to them, just as I have given myself to you...just as I hope you will give yourself to me too.

I give part of myself to you every time I write you a love letter. Every letter I write makes me feel so close to you...I only wish I knew if you are still reading this journal. I simply have faith that you are. I have faith that if you are still reading these love letters I write to you, if you are still reading this journal, then it can only be for one reason...because you still love me. Why else would you be here?

Read the letter that you sent me in June again. Do you remember how you felt when you wrote it? You said that you would give us one last chance, a sentiment you echoed when you made me a promise just before we kissed at Logan Airport. Will you give me that chance Ornela? Will you give our relationship a real chance? I would like to ask you something very important, something that I first asked you six years ago, almost to the day:

Ornela, will you go out on a first date with me?

I would like to take you out for dinner and a walk around Boston Common Park. I want to start things out slow and build something special with you over time, the way a real relationship grows and matures. Just a first date, that's all I ask, and where we go from there is up to us.  

Ornela, even if your decision is no, can you please give me an answer?

Our Past Our Future

Maybe it was foolish to look. Maybe it was foolish to spend today looking through the past six years of our letters to each other on Facebook. But I did, I read them all...every last letter. They read like a diary of our relationship, how it started off so innocently, two kids whose mutual affection for each other bridged the expanses of time and distance to form the most unexpected of unions.


I read all the letters detailing the trips we planned together:


Our trip to Charleston where we shared our first kiss.


Our vacation down to Compass Lake and Panama City where we first shared our bodies.


Your trip all the way from Boston to DC so that we could spend just one night together.


Your visit to Birmingham when you told me that you wanted to be my girlfriend.


My visit to Boston where I foolishly let you go.


Each trip represents a milestone in our relationship, a relationship that was unlike anything I have ever experienced. In those three years that we dated, we only spent twenty five days together, yet you had a more profound impact on my life than anyone I have ever met. That is how I knew that you were my soul mate. I knew that if we built something so amazing in only twenty five days, there was no limitation to the depth of our love if we shared the rest of our lives together.


Over the past few weeks I have been interviewing with several companies in Boston. Some of these interviews were for jobs that I applied to before you ended things between us. But many of them have been for jobs that I have applied to in just the past few weeks. After quite a bit of reflection, I have decided to relocate to Boston if I can find work there. I like the culture, I like the city's unique history, but truthfully the real reason I would move to Boston is because of you. Part of me will always wonder what would have happened if I had never left DC and we had been able to pursue a normal relationship. Part of me wonders if moving to Boston would give us that second chance.

This is the hardest confession that I have ever had to make, but I cannot deny any longer what I know in my heart to be true -- I know that you don't love me anymore. When you told me in Boston that you do not love me, I did not want to believe you, I could not believe you...because it simply hurt too badly. You had already told me in your last letter back in April that you no longer loved me, only to confess in our first Skype call together in June that you really did have feelings for me all this time. I thought that since you had admitted your love for me after initially denying it once before, maybe you would do so a second time. But after you have ignored me for so long, after you have rebuffed every attempt I have made to be close to you, after the way you have treated me for so many months...I finally believe you. You keep pushing me away, and that is not love.

Though I know that you no longer love me, I don't know what you feel for me, whether it be indifference, pity, disgust, or even contempt. Maybe you are simply surprised that despite everything that has happened, I still keep trying to show you how much I love you. I know that it probably makes no sense to you, but I have never given up hope that one day we will be together again. I have never given up hope that one day you will fall in love with me again. The greatest irony is that when I was unsure of my feelings and treated you poorly, you fell in love with me. Now that I am doing everything I can to show you that I am in love with you, you won't even talk to me. Silence...only silence, and I have no words to describe how deeply your silence hurts. You were more than my lover Ornela...you were my best friend, but with your silence you keep pushing me further and further away.

I do not know if you have changed as a person or if you have merely changed the way you treat me. I just know that things between us are so very different than they used to be and it makes me very sad. I remember the girl I used to know, the girl who always treated me with such kindness and love, and I hope that she is not gone forever. I hope that one day I will see her again. I hope...and I love you Ornela. Always.
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You told me that you no longer feel a deep connection with me, but such connections are born of trust and openness between two people. For my part, the walls are down...I withhold nothing from you. I am confessing the feelings of my heart and imagining that you are sitting right beside me as I write.

I have a confession to make, something I wanted to tell you in Boston but was afraid to because you might think me selfish. Part of the reason that I have been so persistent in trying to build a relationship with you is because I need you in my life Ornela. The past year has been very hard for me...in fact, it has been the most difficult period of my life. Some of the reasons for that you can probably guess, others I have not told you, and I have wanted to confess my fears and struggles to you for so long. But I never felt I could do that. I felt that I had to be strong because you are going through a difficult time as well and I thought that it was my responsibility to be strong enough for both of us. I tried to be strong, as hard as I could for all these months, until finally I broke -- that was the moment you witnessed when I cried in your bed. I couldn't suppress my anguish of being apart from you anymore. It was a moment I desperately needed your help because I was drowning, and when I felt you place your hand on my back and hold me, my grief finally began to subside. Your touch made everything ok, just as it always has.

This is me opening up to you Ornela. This is me being vulnerable to you. I wish that you would open up to me as well. I wish you would simply talk to me about what is really going on in your life. You might be surprised at how quickly that deep connection we once had returns. You might be surprised at where your feelings lead.

I miss our long talks very much. I miss you.



Ornela, can we talk?

Promise Me Bobby

"I will promise to consider giving us another chance Bobby, but you have to make me a promise too."

"Anything Ornela...I will promise you anything."

"You have to promise to try to find love with someone else besides me."

"I...I promise."

Two strangers share a brisk autumn night together beneath the pillars of Atlanta's skyline. A girl and a boy, just leaving the restaurant together before walking only a few blocks to Piedmont Park. The moon shines bright and full, bathing these two souls in tempered light that illuminates a smile that only one of these two partners boasts. Her smile shines radiant and unfettered as she takes my hand, holds it within her own, and points towards that celestial watchman overhead.

"He lights our steps tonight -- the man on the moon that is. Do you think he really lives up there?"

"A man? I don't know about that. I've always heard that the moon is home to a rabbit," I flippantly reply.

She looks confused but says nothing as we continue our walk. She grabs hold of my arm and squeezes it tightly, resting her head on my shoulder as I simply turn away.

An hour later we arrive at her place and she fixes me a drink. Before she can even pour herself one I have already downed my first round and am asking for a second. She looks at me askance, her furrowed brow betraying her concern. She thinks that my proclivity to imbibe is due to a weakened conscience, a random indulgence...but nothing could be further from reality. In truth, I am very deliberate in my actions, for I drink tonight for only one reason...to forget. One drink taken quickly, then another, and soon perhaps I will forget this night's sordid affair.

We sit down together on her couch and she slides closer. Whatever reasons she may have for choosing me I cannot venture a guess, but my choice to spend the night with her comes not from any divine attributes she possesses, but rather from painful obligation...an obligation to you Ornela. She looks like the girl I knew before you. She looks just like the woman who broke my heart. Her long, blonde hair tumbles like golden waterfalls down her back, a few strands tangling with my hand as I put my arm around her. Her blue eyes are opened wide and gaze directly into my own, never blinking, never looking away. She leans closer still, placing my free hand against her waist before gliding it further down.

"I'm going to dim the lights," she says as I feel my heart begin to race.

The room is dark now, only the pale streetlight seeping through curtains to silhouette two figures whose bodies draw close. I continue toying with her hair, but in the darkness it has abandoned its golden glow and instead turns a raven black. Her skin, once unblemished porcelain in the light, has turned darker still and resembles the olive complexion of the woman whose memory fills my mind's eye even now. In this moment, when I am treated to the first tastes of intimacy since last your lips touched my own at Logan Airport, I do not see the unfamiliar face of a new lover...I see you.

I do not want to be here in this apartment with this strange woman. Everything within me is appalled at my infidelities, for I feel that I am being unfaithful to you. I feel sick...I want to stop. I turn to leave, but in a moment of willful loyalty to you, I remember your words:

Promise me Bobby -- I hold this woman's hand.

Promise me Bobby -- I look into her eyes, a mixture of brightest blue and darkest black, of the familiar and unknown.

Promise me Bobby -- She leans close, expecting our lips to touch, when from my own I unconsciously utter, "Te dua." She stops, taken by a look of confusion that overcomes her beautiful face. But before she can question my unexpected outburst, I kiss her, silencing both her objections and my own angels that fall beneath the onslaught of a thousand pitchforks.

Her tongue tastes my lips for an eternity before asking, "Do you want to spend the night?"

I look into her eyes, into the gates of both heaven and hell, and make my decision.

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Ornela, you made me make a promise that I do not know how to keep. You made me promise to try to love someone besides you, but (to inversely quote a biblical passage) where the flesh is willing, the heart is weak. I can make myself go through the motions. I can make myself spend time with another woman, get to know her heart, and even be intimate with her. But I can't make myself love her. I am in love with only one woman...and that woman is you.

This story was challenging to write, and one that I am unable to gauge your reaction from. I wrote you a story describing my intimacies with another woman, something you made me promise to do. You know me well enough to weigh the truth of my writing, a place where fact and fiction collide and where my daily experiences influence and sometimes even create entire narratives from little more than idle thoughts or dreams. Just know that I would never do (or write) anything to hurt you. If you trust me, if you believe me when I tell you that I am in love with you, then you already know when I wear my storyteller's cap, and when I remove it to speak directly to your heart.

Ornela, I am going to ask you here again, just as I did in my letter to you on Facebook on November 8th...may I please see you in Boston?

Two Months

Two months ago today, you told me goodbye. I do not know if you have thought about me even once since then, but your memory has been close to my heart every day.

Ornela, have you ever made a decision that you felt at the time was the right path to take, only to realize now just how great of a mistake it was? Have you ever made a decision that you wish you could take back more than anything, a decision that you know will forever affect the rest of your life? That is how I feel every time I think back to that moment three years ago when I ended our relationship. I believed, I genuinely believed, that ending things with you was the right thing to do in order to protect you. After three years of dating, my feelings for you still had not developed into love, and I did not think that they ever would. I ended things with you not because I wanted to, nor because I wanted you out of my life...I ended things because I thought that keeping you for myself was selfish and that I was hurting you. I ended things because I thought it was the only morally right thing to do. Had I known that I would eventually fall in love with you, I never would have abandoned you that night. Instead, I would have asked you to be mine forever.

You probably think that I should just move on, that I should stop writing these letters and simply forget about you altogether, just as you have forgotten about me. But I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to move past the regret I have over that one decision three years ago...it was the single greatest mistake of my life. It is my fault...it is all my fault, and the regret I have over letting you go is a burden that I do not know how to bear.

It was never supposed to be like this for us. We were supposed to have the adoring relationship, the fairytale wedding, and the loving family...we were supposed be together for the rest of our lives.

I miss you so much.

I love you Ornela.

I Believe

"I hope one day you will understand."

I want to understand Ornela...I truly do. But it is hard to understand your feelings when you won't talk to me. I want to understand what you are feeling, but I can't do that unless you tell me. Since you asked me not to speak to you, I have tried to reveal all of my feelings for you in the only medium that I have left to communicate with you -- my online journal. Despite everything you have done to push me out of your life, I still believe that you are reading my online journal. I still believe that you read my journal because you want to feel close to me, yet every time I try to reach out to you in real life, you withdraw. It is as if you want to be close to me, but you are afraid to let me into your heart. 

How deeply do you want to know me Ornela? How deeply do you want me to know you? I am willing to share everything about myself and risk getting hurt in order to know you, to truly know you at the deepest level...because you are worth it. Relationships are special because we get to share our own unique inner worlds with each other that no one else knows about. You are the only person I share my inner world with, the only person I tell everything to. I do this because I want to have a deep connection with you and I want to show you that it is safe for you to share who you really are with me too. All of your hopes and dreams, all of your fears and uncertainties, all of you...I want to know all of you. I want to know you and love you. You are a beautiful person Ornela, and I hope that the girl I once knew, the good girl that I know still lives within your heart, will let me love her. She deserves to be loved. YOU deserve to be loved, and I want to love you more than anything in this world. Please ask me into your heart...please.  

Do you know why I write you so many personal letters in my online journal? It is because I made the decision to trust you with my heart. I am opening my heart to you and making myself vulnerable because I love you and I want to have a deep relationship with you. These letters come directly from my heart, with the hope that they touch yours as well. On October 15th, 2014 I wrote a story describing how our lives would have unfolded over the past three years if I had asked you to be my girlfriend when I visited you in January 2012. This story begins with our relationship growing and maturing, ultimately leading to marriage before we are finally blessed with a family together...the family we might have actually had today. It was the most personal story I have ever written. What do you feel when you read this story? What do you feel for me...what do you feel for us? Is the life I described the one you want to share with me? When I look at my life five or ten years from now, it is so easy for me to see you there, playing with our children as we all laugh and smile. What do you see Ornela? When you imagine the family you will one day have, the children you will one day raise, do you see me there too?

In our last moments together in Boston, you did something that I did not expect...you made me a promise. I was both happy and surprised when you made this promise because it means that you are giving our love a real chance. But more than that, it means that you must still have feelings for me since you never would have made such a promise otherwise. When I invited you down to my family's lake house for your birthday, I hoped that you would remember your promise to me and we could talk about our feelings for each other. I hoped to do this on a quiet night laying on the dock as we gazed up at the stars and let the world fall away. That moment of peace and happiness is what I wanted to give you for your birthday. When you declined my invitation I was very hurt because the gift that I wanted to give you was very special to me. But even though you declined my invitation, I still believe that you are trying your hardest to keep your promise to me. There is a reason that you made that promise. There is a reason that you still read my online journal every day. The reason is because we are right for each other Ornela. There is something special between us that keeps bringing us together. Call it fate, call it destiny...I call it love. 

When I came to Boston this past Wednesday for my job interview, I wanted so badly to ask if I could see you. I wanted to spend all night talking to you, laying on your bed and sharing our thoughts and feelings with each other until the sun rose. But I decided not to ask if you would spend your evening with me...because I was afraid. I was afraid of being rejected again. There was a time when you would always say yes to anything I asked, when you would travel all the way across the country just to see me. There was a time when you loved me very deeply and shared your body and soul with me, a time we felt safe in each other's arms. There was a time when you smiled every time our eyes met...you were so happy. Maybe it is foolish of me to still expect you to feel that way. Maybe it is foolish of me to think that you could love me again...but I do. I just believe...I just believe that deep down you're still the same girl I knew who simply wants to be close to me. I believe it enough to keep opening my heart to you and risk getting hurt time and time again. I believe it enough to ask you this important question, hoping that you will remember the deep intimacy we once shared and that you will say yes -- Ornela, may I see you in Boston?

A Day in Boston Without You

It really is a beautiful city. The lights are glowing at Fenway Park, illuminating the entire field in ceremonial splendor. The Prudential Building is lit up at this evening hour too and resembles a giant lighthouse perched right in the middle of downtown. And somewhere, far below my plane that has just taken off from Logan Airport, is a girl who I am in love with, a girl who does not know that I am a thousand feet over her head.

For the first time, I did not tell you that I was coming to Boston. For the first time I did not ask you to see me when I came to town. I was in Boston all day on Wednesday, November 5th, for a job interview with a company that will likely extend me an offer, an I offer I will likely accept. The reason that I did not tell you that I came into Boston today was not because I did not want to see you...you know that I want to see you more than anything. No, there was a different reason. I could tell you that the reason I didn't let you know that I was in Boston was because I thought we wouldn't have much time together or because I thought your schedule was too busy, but I would only be kidding myself. Ornela, the reason that I did not tell you that I was in Boston all day today is because I was afraid...I was afraid of being rejected by you again.

On my plane ride from Boston to Atlanta after my interview, I thought a lot about you and how much I wanted to talk to you in this moment. I thought about how deeply I love you, and how deeply you once loved me. I had so many thoughts that I want to share with you:

I could ask you if you know what it feels like to want to talk to someone every day, to want to share your innermost hopes and dreams, but know that they will turn away.

I could ask you if you know what it feels like to love someone more than anything else in the world, only to have them tell you they don't feel the same.

I could ask you if you know the emptiness you feel inside when you watch the person you are in love with, the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, simply walk away.

I could ask you if you know how badly it hurts to give all of yourself to someone and know that it will never be enough for them...but I already know the answer to all of these questions. I already know that you know exactly what all of these terrible things feel like...because you felt all of these painful emotions when I left you all those years ago.

I have thought so much over the past few months about why my feelings for you took so long to develop and there is something that I need to share with you, something I should have shared a long time ago. I wish that while we were dating I had spoken to you more about the painful feelings I had from my previous relationship. I did not realize at the time that my unresolved feelings were preventing me from getting close to you. I was afraid that if I told you that I was having trouble moving on from being with my ex-girlfriend that you would think I did not care about you and you would stop loving me. I could not understand that you just wanted to help me by talking about it. I could not understand that because you loved me, you were putting my well-being ahead of your own and genuinely cared for my happiness. Only after I fell in love with you did I understand this, which is why I want to listen to you share the struggles and hardships you are facing so that I can help you through these difficult moments.

Now that I have confessed all of these seemingly random feelings to you, I will explain my reason for doing so:

This post has so many random thoughts interspersed throughout it and reads differently from many of my others. That is because I wrote it as if you were sitting right in front of me and I was simply sharing what is on my heart. In a single post I have confessed to you my fear of being rejected by you, how I now empathize with the feelings you had when I left you, and how the emotional scars from a past relationship hindered me from getting close to you. The reason I wrote this post is because I want to show you that I am willing to share my feelings with you again. I want to have the deep conversations we once had and I am opening my heart and making myself vulnerable to you, hoping only that you want to have these deep conversations with me enough to do the same. 

It's after 2:00 a.m and I just got back to my apartment from Boston. I also just read the note you sent me on Facebook. It hurts to read your words, but not for the reason that you might expect. While I am disappointed that you don't want to see me, I am even more saddened by the fact that not seeing each other means that we won't be able to have deep conversations. That's what I really want to have with you Ornela. I want to talk to you in person like I do in my journal. I want for each of us to share our hearts with each other because that is the only way we will ever grow close together again.

Ornela, I love you and am willing to do anything for you. But I am asking you to do something for me too. Can we start talking again? It doesn't have to be about anything important to begin with, but I really miss just being able to text you or give you a call whenever something interesting or amusing happens throughout my day since you are always the first person I want to share it with. Can we try just talking about what is really going on in our lives, maybe even in person, and see where that might lead? Can we see if that will open the door to having our deep conversations again? I want to connect with you on a very deep level, and I still believe that you want to feel that connection with me too. 

There will always be something special between us Ornela, something that neither of us have ever found with anyone else. I am not asking you for anything more than to try to develop the deep connection we once had, the connection that I believe is still there if we will only try to grow close to each other again. Will you please try? Will you please just talk to me again?

Happy Birthday Ornela

You're smiling, brighter than I've ever seen as the moonlight casts your face in an ethereal glow. The air feels cool tonight as the first hints of autumn are in the air, but we pay the weather no mind as we hold each other close to stay warm. Our bodies lay beside one another on the dock, frequently touching as our legs rub together and intertwine, a lover's caress. I stroke your dark hair and pull it back to reveal midnight eyes that sparkle with a brilliance far more luminous than the stars above. You smile...your beautiful smile has never been more radiant, but as I lean in to kiss your lips, your face disappears and this world that we share together suddenly falls away.

I wake up in bed, stretching out my arm to pull you close but instead grab only empty blankets. The room is completely dark, not at all like the moonlit sky from my dreams, and I wonder where it was that I held you in my arms just a moment before. The place seemed familiar, almost as if I was reliving a moment from our past.

For the next three hours I toss and turn in bed, a restless night spent thinking about you. I think about what you are doing right now, if you are laying awake in bed thinking about me too. I think about our last night together in Boston and whether or not you will ever ask me to share another with you. And I think about something else too, a very special day that I wish we could spend together...your birthday.

I have not forgotten. I have not forgotten how special this day is. Today, perhaps more than any other, is a day that I want to share with you because it is an opportunity to give you a gift that will make you happy. It is an opportunity to, in some small way, offer you the happiness that you give me every day. So I thought very hard about what I wanted to give you for your birthday this year, a present that would not only show you how much I love you, but would also make you smile.

Your smile...the same one that I saw in my dream last night. All day I have thought about that lovely dream where we held one another beneath the stars. It seems so familiar, but I cannot recognize where we are, my memory offering only glimpses into a moment where we both held each other in happiness. But as I think more about my dream, as I remember more of that moment we shared together, the world around us expands. I see the dock we are laying on as it stretches back towards the shoreline. I see the still waters beneath us, black as ink save for the moon's quiet reflection. I see a lake house just up the hill, a familiar sight that I have known since my earliest days of childhood, for it has always been a part of my past. My gaze turns from the lake house to your eyes, casting aside my past to instead look upon the woman with whom I want to share my future. And suddenly I recognize where we are in my dream, and what's more, I realize the gift I want to give you for your birthday.

I wrote you a letter that now sits in your Facebook inbox. It is concise, barely a hundred words, wishing you a happy birthday and asking you to come back to a place where I know you were once happy. I ask you to come back to my family's lake house. I ask you to go there with me. This is my birthday gift to you Ornela, a gift I am offering because I know you were happy on that single night we shared together at Compass Lake, and I just want you to be happy again.  

I want to lay beside you on the dock, staring up at the stars as we talk all night. I want to talk until the sun crests the eastern horizon and bathes the tips of the cypress trees around us in morning light. Though you have never seen a sunrise at Compass Lake before, I promise you that it is the most beautiful sight in the world...except for one. Looking into your eyes is a sight more beautiful still, and I hope that you will let me do so again as we lay beneath the stars and simply hold each other close.

Happy Birthday Ornela! I hope that you will accept my invitation to come down to Compass Lake. I miss you very much and I just want to see you again.