One Year later

One year ago today I sent you a package containing a novel written for you and the following handwritten letter:

Dear Ornela,

In your hands you hold the past two years of my life, one of the most tumultuous periods in my life primarily because it was spent without you. Your absence has had a profound effect on both my life and this novel in ways I never could have imagined. What started out as a simple fantasy novel became a love story, our love story, and I have written it just for you. This novel is my love letter to you.

After so much time has passed, you probably think it strange that I could still have feelings for you, especially considering that your feelings for me have apparently long since disappeared. Two years have passed since last I saw you, but we have not been apart. You have been with me every day as I wrote. Your memory was there to inspire me when I needed new ideas and to encourage me when all hope of finishing seemed impossible. Writing this novel has taught me about commitment, sacrifice, and not giving up on the things that you truly care about. My dream was writing a novel, something that I never thought I would be able to do. And I was right, I couldn't...but we could. On my desk I kept a picture of us from when you visited me in Birmingham. Whenever the ink from my pen seemed to have run dry, I would look at your smiling face and the words would always return. You gave me the courage to keep going, to persevere even when I didn't know the outcome, but to try anyway. I have come to realize that relationships are that way too.

In the month since we last spoke, I have thought a great deal about what you said to me and your decision to not see each other. Truthfully, your words hurt. I always thought that no matter what happened between us, you would always still want to see me, but I began to understand that although I desperately wanted you in my life I was no longer an important part of yours. Never again would I see you, never again would I hear your voice. I realized that although I still loved you, you no longer cared for me...and my heart was broken. But then I realized something else. The pain that I am feeling now is the same pain that I have caused you so many times before. Every time I said goodbye, every time I ignored your feelings, every time I was unsure of my own I broke your heart a little more until finally it could not be put back together. You no longer trust me. You no longer trust me not to break your heart again and that is why you have guarded it. And that is my fault. I am to blame for the pain in our relationship and I finally understand how deeply I hurt you.

Twice I have asked you to open your heart and twice you have said no, and I have no right to ask for a third time. So I am going to ask you to do something else. I am going to ask you to remember, all the way back to two years ago when we waited at a bus stop on a frigid Boston night. After dinner we waited in the terminal as the snows fell, a temptation that led us outside to enjoy the evening. The streets were ours...not another soul in sight. We had a snowball fight that ended with you wrapped up in my arms. I told you that I loved you. You said the same. We kissed. It was the happiest moment of my life, and as we stood there looking into each other's eyes I should have asked you to be mine. But the moment passed, and with it my opportunity that evening to make things right, an opportunity that you will decide whether or not was lost forever.

I do not want what we had. I want something so much more. I want a relationship with you. I want to have a real relationship with you, one where we see each other every day, on our good days and bad. If you ask, I will move to Boston just to be with you. I will do that because I know what I have lost and I would do anything to get it back. You are the closest person I have ever gotten to, the one person I withheld nothing from. For three years you were more than just my lover...you were my best friend. You are the woman I was supposed to marry.

I asked you once what it felt like to fall in love with someone. You told me that it meant you would do anything for that person. I finally understand because that is how I feel about you right now, which is why I will do the hardest thing I know to do. If your feelings for me are truly gone, I will go away. No more letters, no more phone calls, no more attempts to contact you in any way. You deserve to be able to carry on with your life without my constant intrusions and I will let you go...I promise.

Writing this novel changed me. My characters are all fighting for love and they showed me what lengths a man will go to for the woman he loves. People change. I changed. I hope that one day I will hold you in my arms again. I hope that it is not too late to show you the man I have become, the man you always wanted me to be. You made me happy and I hope, more than anything else, that I made you happy too.

I am in love with you Ornela. I will always love you.

Te dua,

Bobby

Before I sent you this letter last February, I reflected for a very long time on whether or not I was truly prepared to ask you back into my life, and what's more, to ask you to be my girlfriend. I knew that the sacrifices I was asking you to make for another chance at our relationship were significant, and because of that I had to be sure, completely sure that I was ready and mature enough to have a committed relationship with you. I was...I was ready to give myself completely to you. And so, with trembling hands that sealed the envelope closed, I sent you my letter and awaited your response. I had no idea what your reaction might be to my unexpected sentiments, whether you would be confused, joyful, uncertain, or even angry. But I had fallen in love with you Ornela...and I had to tell you.

With this journal entry, we have come full circle. Over the past year I have told you everything that is in my heart, and every time you read my journal we are -- for a moment -- together again. You invite me into your heart every time you read my words. When you read my journal, what are you hoping I will tell you Ornela? What are you waiting for me to say? You know how I feel about you...you know how deeply my feelings for you run. I have written so much about the time we shared together because those moments were the happiest of my life, but I don't want to keep rehashing the past. I want to make new memories with you. I want to stop writing about our time together and instead simply be together. I just want for us to be a part of each other's lives.

We are two imperfect people, both of us filled with regrets for the decisions we have made in the past. But maybe it is those imperfections, and the fact that we still care very deeply for one another despite them, that adds a deeper intimacy to the feelings we have for each other. On one of our last nights together three years ago we laid in bed and watched the movie Goodwill Hunting. One scene in particular has always touched me, as its words seem especially pertinent to our relationship.

Neither one of us is perfect, but I have known for a long time that you are the perfect woman for me. You're different, you're unique, you're special in a way I can't even describe but which I intuitively recognize and am attracted to -- you just make me happy Ornela. Whether or not I am the perfect man for you, I do not know; that is your decision to make. But I hope that I at least still make you smile...I hope I make you happy.

A year has passed since I sent you my first letter. Four months have passed since we last saw one another. I miss you very much...much more so than I could ever hope to convey in all of the letters that I have written you.

Ornela, can we see each other?