FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 394

At our age, everyone has baggage. I guess that’s what makes these dramas so vexed. When I think about how much I love you my heart races and my breath catches and all the ghosts of my considerable caution come out to haunt me. I sense this is the same for you.

So here we are – both looking at the other through the prism of accrued misfortune – both having to accept that the erstwhile simplicity of our desire has been sullied. By poor choices. Heartbreak. Negative patterns on repeat.

I realise this is a defeatist attitude – and yet somehow the fact that we both seem to be nursing our respective wounds weirdly makes it easier to accept. Why is this? I do not know.

All I know now is that – despite an extraordinary warmth between us, an almost reflexive connection – we will each turn our back, neither willing nor able to countenance one more risky trip to the well.

This is both courageous and cowardly. Gutsy because we know where our lines in the sand are drawn and because we retain the strength and conviction to stick to them. Craven because we have no stomach for the adventure that you and I would surely be. I wonder how big a loss this will turn out to be.

Tonight however, we are both disappointed for similar but different enough reasons. Perhaps we will both shed a private tear. I know that I will – and that while doing so I shall dream of your arms around me.