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Hey you,
I procrastinated writing this edition. I convinced myself that I held off because people do their best work when they are on a deadline. And that's how I realized, I'd rather lie to myself than to you. Because, truth be told, I'm not sure if I have anything to say this time.
I have written and rewritten this a couple of times now, in every possible tone. Hopeful optimism, depressing negativity, directionless mess. Nothing fit. Maybe someday I'll come back to this and pen something concrete. But not today, not when my faith is a little shaken, and my heart is overwhelmed.
I know you're somewhere out there. And I'll come find you eventually. But tonight, I'll sit by myself, talking to the moon.
But someday, when it's you I'm with late at night, remind me to ask you, would you give me your words when I have none?
It's fascinating, what time can do to you. How a single thought, a single act, a single moment of impulse or clarity can turn life around as we know it. A couple months ago, I didn't have anything to say to you, because I couldn't see a path to you. Today, while the road remains as shaky as ever, I am learning to appreciate the journey more than the destination.
I have imagined you in countless shapes and forms. I have adorned the picture of you in my head with a million personality traits, all cherrypicked to force-fit you into the person that I had imagined in my head. And while that person is my perfect match on paper, I must apologize, for I have done you a terrible disservice.
You know what is my most favorite thing about love? Two human beings, who are more often than not, strangers for a significant amount of time, come together, assisted by the magic of the Universe, learn everything there is to know about the other - the good, the bad, and the ugly- and make the conscious decision to accept that person. They place the totality of their faith in somebody that was once an outsider in their life, and choose to spend the rest of their days with them, rosy and rainy.
My vision of you takes away from what you actually are, what you can be. I have been pigeonholing you into being a certain individual, when you might be something entirely different.
Third time's the charm?
Things have been tumultuous, disallowing me to finish my train of thought every time I have sat down to complete this letter. I am afraid though, I am partly at fault. My notions, of late, have been influenced by the mayhem surrounding me, eliciting contradictory ideas of love concurrently. Fortunately, tonight I happened upon one of the few things that could win back my devotion, albeit momentarily, to that silly little thing called love.
It's hard to believe that it has been only been over a year since I wrote a piece swearing to stay true to my Fool's Quest. I had forgotten there was a version of me, who felt so strongly, unreservedly about romantic attachments. My bliss was to be defined by my family, natural and chosen, and only augmented by other aspects of life.
Yet, as is often the case, with the passage of time, I found myself relegated to the sidelines, a helpless spectator as life compelled me to reshuffle my priorities. So much so, that one entirely consumed the others, and my pursuit of building a successful foundation for my life overshadowed all else.
All this time, I thought that I was simply to occupied to feel my feelings with the appropriate gusto, and that when the opportunity would present itself, I would revert to my original, enamored self. All this time, I thought I was focused on work. Turns out, I stopped believing. Not in some depressed, I'm-gonna-cry-alone-at-night way. Not in a way I even noticed until tonight. It's just, every day, I believed a little less, and a little less, and a little less. And that sucked.
Because frankly, darling, that is not who I am. I am somebody who feels poetry instead of reading it. The one that keeps pictures and notes hidden away in her wallet. The one who will be your kind of boring at times, and at others, your kind of crazy. I want to live my life as if it were a book, or a movie. Only, I'd like to start with the happily ever after, with you.
Before I find you, I must find myself again. It shouldn't be too hard. I have enough Neruda and Atticus stocked on my shelf to rope me back into my fantastical world.
I only ask one thing of you.
You may only call me Mrs. Darcy when you are completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy.