FREE LOVE LETTERS

Love letter # 447

Time may well have washed us all away, eroded every last vestige of us and consigned that very idea to photo albums and dusty keepsakes, but there is still a room inside me filled with a kind of light; and even though I realise the utter pointlessness of regret there are still moments when the truth of my erstwhile complacency is nearly unbearable.

In these moments I ask myself what kind of blindness I was afflicted with – why could I not see what was right beside me? What form of the ideal was I scanning the horizon for? What illusory ‘other’ kept my gaze fixed in space? No wonder you turned aside.

However, I will spare you the drama of my self-reproach and say instead that I am truly sorry for my arrogant assumption that you would never leave. Not only did it rot the foundation of us but it has polluted the air of what followed. For both of us. I sense it in newly formed fears. In the holding back of love. In episodes of despair. In the loss of once unshakable belief.

I hear all this in your voice whenever we speak. Even read it in between the lines of emails. Perhaps I am over stating it here but it seems like we are not only older but lonelier; and although I understand that I am not entirely to blame (and that blame itself is not the best reflex) I can no longer deny that my lazy assumptions and lack of genuine effort and attention contributed massively to the corrosion of our once exceptional union. For this I apologise unreservedly.