Unsent

I am dedicating this page to you, so that in the event of my death you can read it and remember me a little (‘yeah there was once a girl, so confused’). Ok, I know you won’t remember me a ‘little’. You’ll have rooms full of thoughts about me.

When I was a bushy-eyebrowed girl of 13 I’d write in my diary everyday the same constipated yearning of having a Someone Special in my life. My darling soul mate who’d Want to Spend All His Time with Me, who’d Make Me Feel ok (being prone to depression even then, as I am now). And who’d Love Me too, just as an extra special surprise of the day. And now that I have thinner eyebrows and a special man to keep them maintained for . . . I find that one is not enough. That’s where you come in. I’d like to say you hurtled into my life like a blast from an air conditioner . . . but you didn’t because my relationship isn’t suffocating. I’d like to say you Really Are the One but I can’t because I don’t and I can’t know you. I’d like to say my first one was a big mistake, and now I’ve found you, will you marry me; but I can’t because I’m waiting to find out if my first one is a mistake or not. Yes he loves me, doesn’t beat me, listens to my whining, my loving. But I want him for my safety net so that I can see how far you and I can maintain that special-ness of being together, like we feel now. (Yeah I admit I knew the attraction between us existed and exists, like a stick of dynamite neither wants to touch.) I’d like to see what happens when we argue (would it get as bad as it does with my present significant other?), or what you’d do when I display that messiest of all human emotions, crying (would you leave like he does sometimes?).

Oh well, my wondering about all these what-ifs is absolutely pointless because now I have to stick to the choices I had made three-plus years ago when my mind was still unformed and anyone who tolerated my moodiness was candidate for Person of the Year. (He tolerated it first, you see). So every time Dissatisfaction moves in for its fortnightly vacation in my head, I should tell myself ‘what I have now is good enough and what if the next person [you] turns out to be worse?’ I have to let Fear guide my actions. I’m sorry I couldn’t say that Common Sense is my guide, because it lives on valium, you see. (It’s all I give to eat).

So, I’ll have to do the big thing and let you go . . . if only in the physical world. I’ll keep thinking about you; keep judging and making comparisons. Until the day I marry him.