The Real Thing

A few weeks ago, as I was clearing out my mom's house--she bought it after I graduated from high school, so it's hard to feel like it was the house I grew up in--I stumbled across love letters, poems, phone cards, e-mails, paper cards, and photos from my time with V. It made me feel loved. It made me feel real. It reminded me that at some point someone had loved ME that much. I'm not the most emotional person, especially for a woman, but I teared up and finally had a good cry when I stumbled across the faded wedding band and certificate of marriage we'd been issued at Spring Fair by a Hopkins authorized judge cum religious figure played by someone a year or two our senior. I cried for me and I cried for US, but I didn't cry for him because he's in a good place: working a stable job, living in a solid house, driving a safe car, and dating a girl who loves him with the might his love exudes. V's love, for me, will always be the real thing; the barometer by which I stake every claim.

Today, as I was flipping through a scrapbook from the tail end of 2004, I re-read a card and found some photos of my New York X--I've hardly spoken of him here--I haven't had much to say because I haven't been ready to say anything. The truth is everything I'd ever wanted to say to him I've said a million times to him. But looking at the cards and e-mails (he traveled a lot), I realized something. Something that is the basis for why we broke up. He loved me. In a real, tangible, heartfelt way--he loved me. I was so busy super-imposing his love on V's love, I never noticed that in his way, as best he could, he loved me. That's all we can every ask of anyone, Lord knows that's more than we deserve from someone. As I type this it becomes more real. I spent a long time missing him, wanting him back, and crying over him--I spent even more time mourning the loss that was loving him. Today I'm ready to talk about it. His love was real. It may not be what I wanted at the time or what I could have lived with in the future, but that he loved me, really loved me, is enough in the present.

So, the thing I wanted to tell you, Zayan is this: Thanks for loving me. I'm sorry for the way some parts of myself expressed themselves to you and I'm sorrier for the parts of myself I kept from showing you. I never did give us a real chance and now we'll never know what could have been--but I'm grateful for what we did have. I still don't think there is anyone out there in this great big world who can swim in my brain the way you seem to...I really wish we could be friends--real friends--let bygones be bygones and such.

I grew up in flats, condos, townhouses, and condos--maybe that's the draw to Manhattan, small spaces always made breathe easier.