Just to See You Again

"I'll see you again Ornela...I know I will."

These were the last words I spoke to you on that brisk Autumn day four and a half months ago. I stepped out of your car and walked to the airport terminal, wondering if you were watching me leave or had already driven away. I paused, looked back, and saw you there...waving goodbye. Everything within me wanted to walk back to your car; everything within me wanted to beg you to ask me to stay with you in Boston, to tell you that if you only asked those simple words I would never leave you again. Yet I kept walking, and once I arrived in the terminal I waited there for what seemed like an eternity...waiting, waiting, waiting for you to come running through those airport doors to find me and ask me to stay. But you never came, and so with a heavy heart I boarded my plane that day and left, uncertain if my last words to you would ever come true.

That day in the airport, I really did think that you would come find me. I really did think that you would stop me from boarding the plane and ask me to stay. Now, all this time later, I reached out to you again on Valentine's Day to ask if I could call you. I'm not sure how I expected you to respond, or even if I thought you would. After so much time apart, I hoped that maybe we could just talk, not about anything serious but instead about what has been going on in each other's lives. I suppose I just felt a bit like I did that day in the airport...I just wanted to talk to you again.

My reason for telling you this is not to induce sympathy or try to guide your behavior down a path you are unwilling to walk. My reason for writing these words is twofold: First, despite all the letters that I have written to you over the past year in this journal, this medium is simply that...a journal. This is my diary. This is where I record my innermost thoughts because it is cathartic and writing helps me cope with the deep and passionate feelings I have for you Ornela. Yet I write for another reason too. I write because this is the window through which you are able to witness my feelings for you; this is the lens through which you have chosen to see who I really am. But this lens is like a two way mirror, such that you can always look into my heart without ever having to open yours. This journal brings us close, yet always forms a wall between us. Ornela, you understand me very well through reading my words to you in this journal...but I want to understand you too. I want to know you, the real you, on the deepest level two people can experience. I want to listen as you tell me about all of your dreams for the future, all of your regrets from the past, all of your daily struggles and triumphs, and all of the little quirks that make you the amazingly unique person that you are. I just want to know you Ornela...I just want to share our lives with each other.

You have seen a side of me that no one else ever has, a side that even I did not know existed before I met you. Whenever I used to hear stories of people falling in love and the irrational things that love made them do, I scoffed at their behavior and wondered at how anyone could let such strong emotions override their better judgment. But then I met you. Then I fell in love with you. I do not know if you have ever fallen in love with anyone besides me Ornela, but you are the only woman I have ever fallen in love with, and it has been difficult for me to simply let that go. Maybe that is because I know how rare it is to find someone you truly care about, someone you would do anything for, someone who cares about you just as much and is willing to move mountains simply to see you smile. That is how I feel about you...that is how I hope, deep down, you still feel about me too.

Maybe I should have moved to Boston for that job with Starbucks, but the only reason I did not was because I thought that you did not want me there. Would things between us be different if I had chosen to move to Boston rather than DC? Would you have let me take you on a first date again, let me hold your hand as we walked through Boston Common Park in the snow. Would you have invited me back to your apartment where we would spend all night talking before falling asleep in each other's arms. If I had moved to Boston, would we be together right now? I don't know, but even now I still have hope that you will ask me to see you in Boston again. If you ask, I will come.

I don't know what else to do Ornela. I don't know what else to say that hasn't already been said or what more I can give you. You know so much about me through reading my letters, yet there is so much about you I still don't understand, why you are still reading my journal most of all. What do you get out of reading my journal? Are these letters merely entertainment to you, or something more? And who am I to you Ornela? Am I simply some relic from your past, one of many suitors who have vied for your love and attention over the years? Or was what we had different, an uncommon bond that was unlike anything either of us has ever experienced with anyone else...a relationship that was special in a way that we both intuitively recognize?

I write these letters because you read them. When you are ready, I hope that you will ask me to put down my pen and say my words to you in real life.

Ornela, can we take things slow this time? Can we take our time to rebuild the trust and intimacy we once shared? May I please give you a call just to talk...or if you'd like, to maybe even play a game of Battleship or two, just for old time's sake ;-)