My friend, it’s true I really don’t understand how someone who had our good mornings and good nights so often would not miss them after three weeks, or how you would not miss saying “I love you.” I never had them as the happy fellow you discovered and cared for, and if I never have them again, we all three must be happy, anyway.
I don’t understand, without you, why one day while alone in Italy, you realized what you had missed, and found the courage to tell us this was so. To have the friendship we had, it was never necessary for you to say so, and by now you know why I offered to explore such things day by day, even as I relented and rushed to join you in promises beautiful to say. But beautiful, they are, and I do not blame you for making them. If you never meant them, I was completely fooled, because to this day I believe they were spoken from your heart, and a desire by your free will to give yourself all the loving and friendship and aid in your goals you would ever need---and a chance to share them, too, challenges and all (for they are, sometimes, challenging, but worth it!). Maybe not everything you said was true, but I have lied and apologized, myself, because the intention to be true gives strength.
As I have found in life with a wise and understanding lover, inspired promises become more beautiful when they have survived real life, and only from free will, which belongs to each of us, to act upon our personal truth. No anger, embarrassment, or fear need freeze an open heart from giving that truth to others, nor will any secret do better than steal us to sleep---and by erasing risk that we be known, isolate our happiness, on a road that is, in spirit, always walked alone, except where we choose to share it. If you let us know you better than people there, you know you could tell us all along what happens in your heart, and not even disappointment, which came to our home anyway, would’ve made us try to force your wishes. That is still why I have said so little. If by your wishes I say nothing more---for a couple of months, or not at all---it’s not because I never cared. I did and do, without begging anything you do not find willing to give.
I wondered why, just January 25th, you said we two were what you needed to be happy, which was either too much to say, or you have not been very happy since. We found a way to put together a living again after being so sad and impeded by winter, as we always have, even with every dream alive, and are glad for the changes, even when we realized we must make them with only us two. I am sure you have had some fun, and if I didn’t want you to have fun, I would never have agreed you would love California, nor ever loved you.
Your companionship, and the offer of mine and Angela’s, was always the treasure greater than anything bought or sold. My trust was born in the light of your sweetness, and the feeling that living my life true to my heart brought you gladness and even daring. Those things were as unexpected as your absence, and all this experience is a gift for the growth of awareness---mine, yours, and kind and true Angela’s.
If you would not be so afraid of your feelings, of letting someone close to you when they sincerely care, more compassionate ears could not be found. Control over you was never the goal for me, though, and only control over myself---and the need for sincerity, seriousness, and emptiness--- makes it necessary to keep my freely given words to you, of which you have so many. Guilt is not greater than the inspiration of caring, but only life experience, and not even the greatest of words of a heart more noble than mine will bless you with understanding until you discover it inside yourself.
I don’t need you to say you love us anymore if you do not know. The anger and sadness from not hearing from you anymore fades each time, as the desire for anything you do not truly want is laid to rest. Forgive me the impatience that led me to share these words; to repeat the same thing over and over and expect a different result each time is the very definition of insanity. After having felt so very loved by you, I will not harass you, or reduce the messages you said made you so very happy each time to bitter and unwanted manipulations. I am sorry the urge to spend time with you, even this way, is still this strong, but I mean no harm. I think the power of secrecy versus the power of sharing is yours to weigh, and there comes a time when any case must rest. I leave you to your own deliberation.
I think, in Italy, you had a chance to be alone (and care for the animals) and find what you thought you wanted. I cannot run to questions of what happened as distractions from the ways I should dedicate myself to improvement, and they are really more important to you than me, for what they tell you of your inner self. My own needs, I can fold up into my own life, as I’ve tried for two weeks. We felt you drawing your energies away from our lives, and while this was so very sad and against all my stubborn willfulness, they are yours of course, and you are young, even younger than I, who still senses a full life ahead. As always, I truly wish you the best, and mean no harm by this hour spent with myself and the part of you I feel still inside of me. It was harder not to judge you in your angry silence than it would’ve been to not judge your sincerely shared words. Times of judgment came and passed, for who can live that way?
However sincere my disappointments, you gave us the beginnings of a love and acceptance beyond compare, transcending whatever we might still have had to make in common from time together. I think someone will take up those beginnings some day, if you cannot, and such love, while a great risk to the heart, I don’t think is crazy. I was very in love with what I had to give, as well as to whom I gave it.
The words were sent out of respect for what we have been and whoever we are, and the silence I offer until you reply is from that same respect, I promise. If it seems like a lot---and even over the Internet, we made lots of enjoyable memories, months of which are still bound in a book signed to you (and all of which is saved), along with the other book of stories you inspired---it’s for a farewell I never desired, to gifts that came so naturally from me to you, in whom I must have found something beautiful indeed, even as once you showed me how beautiful we are, too. Whether that’s something over for this lifetime, or something you may find in opening day by day to a new beginning in our friendship, thank you for inspiring me to share. When I said you were my world, it was true—sharing our true selves with you has given us something to share with the world, and I’m unafraid what they think, and overwhelmed by who it may yet still move to live life with love, daring, and laughter.
I don’t demand or expect anything you promised before. You know, free of the intensity of those things that seemed so close by your design, we will listen without judgment.
*What do you think?
