Close to You

"Bobby, you have to stop," he says, handing me another beer as we sit at opposite ends of his kitchen table.

I sip lightly on darkened stout and say nothing.

"You can't keep writing her, not if you ever want to get over her."

He's right of course. He always has been. Ever since we were those two scrappy kids running wild through the woods near our homes in Dothan, my dearest childhood friend Simon has listened as I pour out the troubles of my heart. Now, as we sit together in his North Carolina home, a mere stop on my drive north to Washington D.C., he listens as I tell him about you Ornela. He listens as I tell him about all the letters I have written you over the past year, about how I traveled all the way to Boston just to see you, and about why I turned down the job in Boston when you told me goodbye.

"So she's the reason why you were looking for jobs up in Boston all this time," Simon says, shaking his head. "All of us back home thought you had lost your mind traveling all the way up there just for a job, but it looks like you had ulterior reasons for wanting to live in Boston. I guess you were willing to give up everything for some woman."

"Not for just some woman," I reply. "For her..."

Two weeks later I sit in my Washington D.C. apartment writing you this letter. Even now, I do not know if I made a mistake accepting the job offer in DC instead of Boston. I know that I wanted to move to Boston, very badly, but not because of a job...I wanted to move to Boston to be close to you. But when you told me not to move to the city for you, I knew that I had to respect your wishes. I could not move to Boston if you did not want me there because I felt that I would be forcing myself upon you, and I just couldn't do that anymore. So I live in DC yet again, wondering if perhaps one day we might pass each other somewhere on a walk through the National Mall. Part of me hopes that when you graduate you will move back to DC to be near your family. Perhaps then we might have the chance to enjoy the relationship we began six years ago in this very city.

Giving up the opportunity to live in Boston was difficult, but keeping the promise you made me make on our last day together is far harder...yet I am doing it. I kept my promise to you last Saturday night with the girl I took to dinner in Chinatown. We laughed over Pad Thai as I regaled her with silly stories about "une pesos" that I used to tell you. She smiled and asked me to come back to her apartment somewhere in Adams Morgan, but when I looked into her eyes I saw only your face, and so with only a slight kiss on the cheek I let her go. A few days later I found myself with another woman, a pretty young Russian whom I met at work who accompanied me on a stroll across the National Mall as we enjoyed our first date together. She teaches me some simple Russian phrases as we walk, the same way you taught me a few words of Albanian on our solitary walk in front of the Capitol six years ago. I mispronounce everything she says which makes her smile, but as she leans closer to hold my hand I instinctively pull away, not because of any aversion towards her but because even in this moment my thoughts are of you. I don't want to share these experiences with another woman. I want to share them with you Ornela.

In the long months that we have been apart from each other, I have asked myself if it would have been better if we had never met all those years ago. If we had never met, we never would have spent countless sleepless nights mending our broken hearts. We never would have cried with each other that night last March when we spoke on the phone and confessed that even after all these years apart we were still in love with each other. If we had never met, we would have lived our entire lives without knowing that the person we gave our hearts to, the person we loved, simply walked away. But if we had never met we also never would have laughed with each other, or stayed up all night in bed in Charleston, Panama City, DC, or Boston simply sharing our hearts and confessing the deepest secrets within. If we had never met, we never would have fallen in love, and even knowing what I do today, even knowing that you would walk away, I would do it all over again...I would endure having my heart broken a thousand times over simply to have shared those special nights with you. The moments are worth it. You, Ornela, are worth it.

Things don't have to be like this. We don't have to communicate only through my online journal. I just want for us to be close again. I just want everything between us to be like it used to be. You may think that is impossible, that there is no going back, but I still have hope for us Ornela because I know that we still have feelings for each other. Despite everything that has happened between us, somehow, someway, our feelings for each other are still alive. I know that you still have these feelings because you are still reading my journal...I have always believed that. If I believed that you no longer read my letters to you in this journal I would stop writing, but I am going to ignore the advice that my friend Simon gave me and I am going to keep writing you. I am going to keep writing you these letters for the same reason that you keep reading them...we still have feelings for each other, feelings that I hope will one day bring us together again.

I just want for us to be close again. I hope...I hope that you will talk to me so that we can laugh together, share our triumphs and struggles, and simply be a part of each other's lives.

I miss you Ornela.

Last Letter

Dear Ornela,

Over the past few months that we have been apart, I have had the opportunity to seriously reflect on our relationship. After much soul searching, I have come to some realizations and I have a few things that I need to say to you.

First of all, I am sorry. Three years ago I hurt you. At the time, I did not realize how deeply, but after feeling the sting of being rejected by someone you are truly in love with, I finally understand the pain you felt. I was immature and, quite frankly, undeserving of your love, and I did not realize how unbelievably lucky I was to have someone like you in my life. While there is nothing I can do to erase the pain I caused you, I hope that you will accept my apology for hurting you. I hope that you know I truly am sorry.

I also want to apologize for my behavior over the past year, specifically from when you ended our relationship in September. From the time I sent you my first letter along with my novel in February of last year, I have bombarded you with my feelings. I came back into your life without invitation and thrust myself upon you, reopening old wounds and introducing confusion into your life. After you offered to give our relationship another chance in June, I was overjoyed, and though I knew you were going through a difficult time emotionally, I never realized how much you were hurting or the effects that pain might have on rebuilding our relationship and becoming close again. When you ended things in September, I was hurt and confused. But rather than reflecting on the reasons you had for ending our relationship, I instead chose to focus on only one thing: trying to get you back. I thought only about my needs, only about my wants, and in doing so I completely overlooked what was best for you. You told me that you were not ready for a relationship, and that should have been enough of a reason for me to stop pursuing you. It should have been enough because when you love someone, you care more about their wellbeing than your own. You care about what is best for them...and somehow, in all of my desire for a relationship with you, I forgot that. I am so sorry Ornela...I am so sorry for how selfish I have been and how I have treated you over these past few months.

When we said goodbye at Logan Airport you asked me not to contact you unless you reached out to me first, and I agreed to abide by that. But I broke that promise. What you must have thought when you read the letter I sent you on Christmas I do not know, but I know that you did not respond. It was at that moment that I finally realized you simply wanted me to leave you alone. So that is what I will do. I will not call, text, or e-mail you anymore. I will respect your privacy.

I still have feelings for you Ornela. I still love you and, truthfully, would like to have a relationship with you. But that is your decision to make, and whatever your decision is I must respect it. If one day your feelings for me should return, I am always here for you. And if you never wish to see me again, I will respect that decision as well. As I told you during our discussion on that first night at Harvard, your heart is yours to give, not mine to demand. I love you, but more than that...I respect you.

You are a good woman Ornela, and I truly am in love with you.

Love,

Bobby

Our Talks

Dear Ornela,

You were with me last night. From the moment I fell asleep until the first rays of sunlight woke me from my bed, we were together. In my dream we did not make love, we did not kiss, we did not even hold hands. We just talked, all night, about everything...it was the closest I have ever felt to you.

That is what I miss most Ornela...our talks. I miss hearing your voice, hearing your laugh, and sharing our own unique inner worlds with each other that no one else even knows about. I miss that deep intimacy we used to share.

Some part of you still cares about me, which is why you read this journal every day. This journal lets us have those same talks that we used to, those same talks where we shared our intimate feelings...our true selves. I know that you are not in love with me anymore, but I also know that you made a promise to try to love me again. And that type of love grows slowly; it grows as two people begin to trust each other again. It grows as they talk and open their hearts to one another, just as I have tried to do through writing you my letters in this journal.

I hope you that one day, when you are ready, you will open your heart to me too. I hope that one day you will ask to talk to me again.

I miss you very much Ornela.

Love,

Bobby

Love Letter

"I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched."

— Edgar Allen Poe

  

Love can make a man do crazy things, foolish things that are out of character and at times leave him wondering if all reason has abandoned him. I have written about such love before, in countless short stories detailing the pangs of unrequited love and its effects on those unfortunate souls who must bear its heavy burden. I have watched as the characters within my stories pine over their beloved, sacrificing both dignity and common sense in the foolish hope of fulfilling their hearts' desire. It all seemed so tragic, so comically absurd, and though I filled the pages of my stories with such frailties of the human condition, never could I fully empathize with their plight, for never had I known the loss of true love that my characters experienced. But then I met you...then I loved you...and then I lost you.

I know that my behavior over the past year must seem strange to you Ornela. When I broke your heart three years ago, you handled your bruised feelings with much more grace and maturity than I have. Never once did you overwhelm me with e-mails or telephone calls pleading for reconciliation; never did you arrive at my home uninvited asking me to reconsider my decision. You handled my reckless treatment of your feelings with dignity and poise because you are an honorable and respectable woman. You did what I failed to do...you respected my decision.

Though my actions have not reflected it, I am not oblivious to how my previous supplications for your affection have been received. During my plane ride to come see you in Boston, I questioned the wisdom of my actions from the time I left Atlanta until the moment we first saw one another at Harvard. I knew that I was forcing my affections upon you; I knew that I was not respecting your wishes to be left alone, but I was so overcome with emotion that my better judgment was clouded. I am not trying to make excuses for my behavior, but I hope that you will at least understand that the reason I have written you so many letters, visited you in Boston, and tried so very hard to show you what is in my heart is because I have been struggling to contend with very strong emotions that I have never before experienced, and in my preoccupation of attending to my own feelings, I overlooked yours. I am sorry Ornela. I am sorry that I have not behaved like the man who once made you smile. The man you have always known, the man you fell in love with is still here...he just let his emotions overcome his better judgment. He let fear dictate his behavior rather than love...and for that I am sorry.

Just before we said goodbye at Logan Airport, you asked me not to call or write you anymore, so I write my letters to you in this online journal instead. Every time I am tempted to speak with you, I retreat to my journal and pour out the feelings that my heart no longer has the strength to contain. I have always felt that I could express my feelings for you openly in this journal without fear of infringing upon your privacy because the choice of whether or not to read these words is yours. Sending you unwanted e-mails forces myself into your life, but when you read my journal you invite me into your heart, where for a moment at least we can be together.

But I am not going to continue writing this journal forever. At some point I must stop because even though I feel so very close to you when I write, forcing these words from my pen is also very painful. Writing you these letters hurts me because I am speaking to a ghost who does not answer. Your voice is forever silent. I can only give my love, but never receive yours. It is as if I am continually dipping my hand into a pot of boiling water to retrieve a gold coin. Although I find my treasure, my hand is badly burned every time. But I keep writing. I keep writing because I believe that you still have feelings for me, feelings that have brought you back to read my journal several times a day, every day, for the past four months since we last saw each other. I believe that you still read my journal because in your heart you know that there is something very special between us. I just believe.

Perhaps we started everything up again too quickly. You told me in your letter back in June that you needed to take things slowly, and you were right...we both did. After so much time apart, we needed time to let our feelings for each other rekindle, to let those feelings grow at their own pace so that we could discover together what it felt like to truly be in a relationship with each other. We began as two friends all those years ago, spending each day learning more about the unique person that had stumbled into both of our lives. At the time I thought we were simply getting to know one another, but I see now that we were doing so much more. We were learning to trust each other. We were building the foundation of a very special relationship that would eventually lead us both to fall in love. I want to build that foundation again Ornela. I want to build a foundation of trust with you so that we can have something wonderful together.

You know how I feel about you Ornela. You know that I love you. The love we had for each other, the love I believe we still have, is that deepest love that I believe only touches the soul perhaps once in a lifetime. You may think my words are overly sentimental, or even patently false, but they are my sincerest and best attempt to describe a feeling I have for you that I have never felt for anyone else in my entire life. I am in love with you. After a year of writing you letter after letter after letter, there is nothing left for me to say...I am in love with you Ornela.

Dear Ornela

"Dear Ornela..."

These simple words have begun over a hundred letters that I have written you since our paths first crossed some six years ago. These two words prefaced nearly every letter where I simply told you how happy you make me and every heartfelt confession where I poured out my feelings for you. These words began my first letter to you in the fall of 2008, when I happened upon a profile on a dating website that featured a beautiful stranger whose captivating eyes and cheerful smile captured my heart immediately. I still remember the first time I saw you in a photograph posted on your profile. You stood atop some lofty skyscraper, looking down as the wind swept back your black coat and hair to reveal the most beautiful face I have ever seen. I can see that picture in my mind's eye even now. You were smiling, happy and carefree...just as I always want to remember you.

I have written you two novels Ornela, one that tells our story through the lives of characters in some mystical land and another in the form of letters. The letters that I have written you in this online journal are probably the most intimate part of me that I can give you, for they reveal everything I feel for you...everything that is in my heart. I write these letters not just to confess my feelings, but because when I write I feel close to you...as if you are sitting beside me holding my hand even now. When you read my words, when you read how I feel about you, how I am in love with you, what do you feel?

I do not know if you still read this journal. I simply have faith that you do...I simply have faith in you Ornela. I write these love letters to feel close to you, and I hope that you read them because you want to feel close to me too.

You make me happy...you make me happy in a way that I will never be able to put into words. You touch my heart in a place deeper than where my words reside. That is why I fell in love with you Ornela.

Te dua.

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I wanted to surprise you by writing this journey entry in Albanian. Over the past few weeks, I have tried to teach myself enough Albanian to write a rudimentary letter, but regrettably my understanding of Albanian is woefully insufficient to do so right now. Your language is so beautiful Ornela, and I just wanted to be able to touch your heart in words that speak directly to it. You probably think that trying to learn Albanian is silly of me, but speaking my words in your language is a gift I have always wanted to give you.

Love Letter

Dear Ornela,

So much time has passed since we last spoke, even more since we last saw one another. In all this time, thoughts of you have been with me every day and I have missed you very much. Though I have thought about so many of the moments from our past, the memories we made and the tender moments we shared together, our time apart has also given me the opportunity to reflect on other thoughts...your thoughts. I have made a determined effort to see things from your perspective, to really understand how you are feeling. I have done this because I care so much about you and I want to try to empathize with the struggles you have been going through.

When you asked me back into your life, I knew that you were in an extremely difficult place emotionally, but I never fully realized how deeply you were hurting, and I should have been more attentive to your needs. Sometimes that means lending someone an ear or giving them a shoulder to cry on, but other times it means giving the person you love the space they need when they ask for it. This is where my love for you was tested the most...and this is where I failed you Ornela. You told me in your letter in September that you were not ready for a commitment, and even though I did not understand your decision, I should have respected it. I am so sorry for how I have treated you over the past few months, for all of the unwanted letters I have sent you, for arriving uninvited in Boston to see you, and for not respecting your wishes to simply be left alone. I am sorry Ornela...and I hope that you will forgive me.

Before we were lovers, we were friends...best friends. For six months before we even shared our first kiss we talked on the phone nearly every day, getting to know each other and letting our feelings grow at their own pace. Even more than the intimate moments we shared together, I think I miss our friendship the most. I miss the late night talks we used to have together, sharing our hopes and dreams for the future and seeking comfort in each other during the difficult times too. You were always the first person I wanted to talk to whenever something important happened in my life, the first person I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings with. You told me once that I could call you anytime, no matter what the hour, and you would always be there to listen. I miss that Ornela...I miss simply hearing your voice...I miss your friendship.

I am living in Washington DC now. Last night I took a stroll around the National Mall, my hands tucked deeply into my pockets to stave off the frigid night air. I wish that you had been there with me, simply to hold my hand as we passed the evening hours together. If you should decide to visit your family in DC, I hope that you will ask to walk with me again across the National Mall. I hope you will ask to see me.    

Despite everything that has happened between us over the past year, I truly do love you Ornela. That will never change because I don't believe true love ever really dies. I will always hope that one day you will ask me back into your heart, that you will ask me to have a relationship with you that will one day lead to so much more. But that is your decision to make, and regardless of your choice, I will always respect your wishes.

I miss you Ornela. Te dua.

Love,

Bobby

Three Years Apart

Three years ago. Three years ago today I was just leaving Birmingham to come see you in Boston. I was so happy, so excited to see the woman I care about more than anyone else in the world...but all of that happiness was soon to be shattered, for I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life. I made the mistake of letting you go, a decision I have regretted every day for three years...a decision I wish I could somehow take back.


If I could turn back the hands of time, I would give everything I have just to relive the moment we shared together at Boston Common Park on that cold January night three years ago. As we held each other close on the bridge overlooking the frozen lake, I was shaking...not from the cold, but from the excitement of holding the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my arms. In that moment, when we looked into each other's eyes and kissed, I wish that I had asked you to be my girlfriend. I wish that I had asked you to be mine forever. If I had said those few simple words, our lives would be completely different today.


Ornela, do you ever think about what our lives would be like today if I had asked you to be my girlfriend on that night three years ago? I think about it every day. I think about how happy we would have been walking hand in hand back to your home, both of us knowing that we had just embarked on a journey to share the rest of our lives together. I think about the late nights we would have spent simply talking and sharing our hearts until the sun comes up, the travels around the world we would have taken as we explored exotic new lands, and even the family we might one day have had together. That is the life I wanted...the life I wanted to share only with you.


On this frigid night in DC, I wish you were here beside me as we hold each other close, just as we did on that cold night in Boston three years ago. I just wish we were together tonight.


Ornela, I miss you very much. If you are reading these words, it means you still think about me too. It means that you still want to be close to me by reading my love letters to you. Can we please talk?
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There is something I want to thank you for Ornela, something very personal that I have never told you. Before I met you, I had been through a series of relationships where I cared very deeply for the girl I was dating but had never fallen in love with her. After so many of these failed relationships, I truly believed that I was incapable of ever falling in love...that is why I asked you on our last night together three years ago what it felt like to fall in love with someone. The reason I ended our relationship that night, the real reason...not the one I told you, is because I thought that my inability to ever fall in love was hurting you. I thought that I was wasting your time, that I was wasting your life, and that the only way to protect you from my selfishness was to let you go so that you could find someone who could love you in a way I did not think I ever could. So I told you goodbye, not because I wanted to, but because I thought I had to.


But then something amazing happened. For reasons that I still do not fully understand, I fell in love with you Ornela. Maybe it was through writing my novel that my feelings for you changed from simple affection to love, or perhaps my love for you was there from the day we met and simply needed a very long period of time to fully mature. The truth is that I do not know why I fell in love with you after so much time apart or why I am still in love with you today...I just know that I am.


I know that none of this matters to you now. I know that you don't love me anymore. But I wanted to at least let you know the real reason I ended our relationship three years ago. I did what I thought was best for you. I did what I thought was right...but in the end I could not have been more wrong. I never expected to fall in love with you after I said goodbye...I never expected to still be in love with you even now. But you showed me that I can fall in love. You let me fall in love with you. It is the greatest gift you have given me...the greatest gift anyone could ever receive.


Te dua.

Promises

I never was very good at keeping New Year's resolutions. I'll make them in the final moments of the previous year, in high spirits that this will be the year when promises to myself go unbroken, but as the days pass and the allure of forbidden desires grow, temptation usually gets the better of me and I succumb to its seductive snares. That is what I am doing right now...that is what I am doing by writing you another letter. You see Ornela, my New Year's resolution was to stop writing you letters, both because I thought you wanted me to stop and because I am trying to keep my promise to you. Not the promise you made me make regarding trying to find love with someone else, but the other promise...the last one I made. Just before we said goodbye in your car at Logan Airport, I promised you that I would not contact you again unless you first reached out to me, but several texts and e-mails later (most notably the emotional letter I sent you on Facebook on Christmas) I realize that I have failed to keep my promise. I broke my promise to you Ornela, the only promise I made you that I have ever broken...I am sorry, and I hope that you will forgive me. 

My previous journal entry was intended to be my last ever, not just on the subject of our relationship, but for my entire journal. Ten years ago I began writing this journal on a whim, a mere pastime that gave me the opportunity to indulge my creative side and muse over the seemingly endless array of thoughts that whirl about my restless mind. And throughout nearly the entire ten year duration of my journal, it served that purpose well. However, over the past year my writing has changed dramatically. This journal has focused less on personal musings and humorous anecdotes, and has instead become something else entirely -- my only voice to you Ornela. For whatever reason, you have chosen to continue reading my journal despite pushing me out of every other area of your life. You have chosen to let me speak to you here even though you ignore my e-mails and would likely refuse to answer my phone calls as well. Your decision is a mystery to me because whenever a woman breaks up with a man, usually she wants nothing more to do with him, but here you are, right now, letting me speak to you once again. Why?

Nearly a month has passed since we last spoke, our communication limited to a few quick text messages where you told me not to move to Boston for you. In the time we have spent apart, I have thought a lot about you, but more than that, I have thought about the way I have treated you over these past few months. When you sent me your e-mail back in September ending our relationship I was hurt very badly, and I do not think that I have dealt with that pain in a healthy way. By focusing only on how much I was hurting after you left, I forgot that you have been hurting for a long time as well. I thought only about what I wanted from our relationship rather than what you did. After you told me that you were not ready for a committed relationship, I should have respected your need for space, told you that I am always here if you need to talk about what you are going through, and simply let you know that I love you. But because of my fear of losing you again, I escalated things far too much, far too quickly. I behaved very inappropriately and ignored the fact that you have the right to choose who you want to share your life with. Though I told you that I love you, I certainly was not treating you with love, and for that I am truly sorry. If someday you should ask me back into your heart, I promise to always respect your wishes and build a relationship only at a pace you are comfortable with. I do not know if you will one day ask to see me again, or if you will ever decide to even speak to me, but I hope that you will at least find it in your heart to forgive me.

Promises. We have both made each other so many, each one founded in trust. I am going to trust you Ornela. I am going to trust that when you made your promise to me at Logan Airport that you truly meant what you said, and maybe you are trying to succeed in keeping your promise where I have failed. Maybe the real reason that you still read my journal even after all this time is because you remember a promise you made to me all those months ago to give our love the chance to grow into something wonderful, a promise you are trying to keep even now.

Love,

Bobby

p.s. You told me not to move to Boston for you, so I have decided to respect your wishes. I have moved to DC instead, where I am currently living. I hope that one day we will take another stroll across the National Mall together, laughing and holding hands as we once did all those years ago. I hope that one day you will ask to see me again in the city where we first met.