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?