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?