Things I’ll Never Say
My Darling,
I really don’t know why I’m writing this letter, I don’t have the slightest idea where you are right now to send it. I feel compelled to talk to someone - well not just someone. I need to talk to you. Despite being ushered to one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, I cannot imagine feeling less alone.
How is it we fail to see how reliant on our people and surroundings we are until we are forced to live in an alternate reality? I have only needed Jo before. She was always dependably there - solid, sure, ready, and willing. Everyone else has neither relied on me, nor I them. I have lived in New York several times throughout my life, but always as a pair - Jo and me. When she went to Indiana, I didn’t think I would be able to live without her, but I did.
Again - I was a selfish creature, worrying about myself while I still had you, our Peaches, and the comforts of the house we all called home. Jo lost her team, her oldest friend, and her home in one moment. So every time abandonment and isolation took over I reminded myself that I still had a place of my own. I will have that comfort, again in New York, though it will lack the things that made a home - the cacophony of music, laughter, and family dinners. Simple things like laundry drying on anything resembling a clothesline, late night card games, and stargazing in fields. I don’t feel as if I am a part of something anymore and it’s left me heartbroken. Can your heart be broken if you aren’t in a relationship? What are we now? I just feel so leadened, like there’s something sinking within me and it leaves me feeling like a shell of the person you knew in Rockford. It is almost poetic - how much time I have put into being guarded and contained and that’s exactly what I have, but I want nothing more than to forsake it. How can having everything I have always dreamed of make me everything but happy? Perhaps excitement, joy, and safety in the exact opposite setting has changed what I once thought the key to my own happiness was.
As much as I look forward to this job and the opportunities Vivienne is giving me, I know I’ll wonder what you’re up to whenever my day slows down. I’ll lose focus listening to a customer debate about which shade of lipstick looks best or which scarf will be more alluring to their husband. I’ll contemplate what you are doing - are you working? What are you reading? Who are you spending your days with? Do you have someone to play catch with? Then I’ll shake myself from those thoughts and dive into creating another superficially happy housewife. Panic and anxiety are taking over and I don’t think I want the answers to these questions. My heart is betraying me by wondering in the first place.
This entire train ride to Grand Central, I am replaying our last moments on the porch. You have split me wide open and made me realize I haven’t really been living in years. This new openness feels like it is a tethered stipulation, only existing when you are present. That’s a terrible burden to place on you. Without you, there isn’t anyone for me to be anything other than reserved and I’m afraid I’m not brave enough to be any other way. I don’t want these self-erected walls to go up like another sky rise in the city.
This is self-centered of me, again. It was so much easier to be my true self around the team and even more so with our own kind. Honestly, it comes down to me being scared. I am terrified of not knowing where we stand. What we really are to each other at this moment? If the League comes back or if it doesn’t? If you find another person that makes you feel completely fulfilled? I’m scared for us, but I’m also scared for you sweetheart.
While you have become this amazing leader over the last few months, there is so much for you to discover about our kind and learn about yourself. I’m not sure what you will find on your journey. Will you miss Charlie and reconnect with him? You said in our last moment you weren’t going back to Idaho or to him, but when we all leave and we’re on our own we lose the security of the familiar. You have been in each other’s lives for more than two decades - how can you possibly know that you can just cut him from your life? I wake up in a cold panic that you’ve realized it’s easier and safer to be with him than to consider any alternative. I dread that it diminishes the feelings we have (or I suppose, had?) for each other. I worry that he will locate you even if you don’t go back to him. The League is quite popular and there are bound to be ways that someone could find any one of us if they tried hard enough or contacted the right person. I worry that he’ll find out why you really don’t want to go back with him and you’ll be exposed. What if someone turns you in? I cannot bear these thoughts, but they bubble to the surface and overtake my entire body. It paralyzes me.
What if you don’t go back to Charlie, but you find someone else? What if it’s another man? (Or maybe I fear more) another woman? What if I was just the person that made you see that men weren’t the only option, but I am not the one destined for you? Will there be a myriad of nameless women in your future like Jes and Lupe? Or long forgotten housewives like me? Will you find the person who makes your heart beat a bit faster when you see them? The one when you’re with them all sounds turn into muffled discord? Will you find your romance you have read about a thousand times in your books?
Will you realize it’s not Charlie, but it’s not me either? What if you come to find that we were a mistake? What if you resent me for being an “us” even if it was briefly? What if I am again just another memory like I have become to so many other women? Like I don’t matter or never existed.
I don’t know which of these gnaws at me most. I don’t want to be just a memory to you. You need time, I know and respect this. You deserve nothing less than taking as much as you need. The unknown is exceptionally difficult to handle. We both have many unknowns and unanswered questions to work through as individuals, then potentially (hopefully?) as a couple. My life hasn’t ever been about someone else’s timeline. I just kept moving onto the next city and the next “adventure.” This has left me emotionally stunted and I don’t know how one processes something so life altering.
I will always search for your face while walking through the city. I’ll look in my mailbox and hold my breath waiting to see your handwriting. I have unintentionally tied all my wakeful hours searching for signs of you. For weeks I have thought of you when I’m alone in my bed and dream of the years we could spend together.
I hope I can be enough for you. I want to be enough for you. I aspire to be worthy of your time and energy. I want to be able to explore what a real committed relationship should be with you. I yearn to be someone’s first thought upon awakening and the last touch before sleep claims them for each night. After that, anything else would be confetti. God, I would have never expected to feel like this and it’s all a result of having you in my life, Carse. I can’t fathom not having you in my life.
So, I sit here and write this letter I can never send. Spend my days thinking of all the unknown places you go from here until next we meet. Maybe someday we can go back and see these places together. If I ever have the chance, I will let you read every insecurity, fear, hope, and desire. I’ll keep writing until I see you again, no matter how long. You have become such a significant part of my life - you’ve resurrected me. I owe you so much more than I can give. I just hope I will get the chance to try and give you the world.
Always on my mind,
G.