2 years, 7 months, 11 days since the day of our marriage…
Tee Rak,
I always tell you that you are on my mind throughout the day every day, but I can’t show that to you unless I put it down in writing. That is why I’m doing this now. I also want you to know the content of my thoughts tonight. As usual after running, thoughts of you and our relationship, my life, etc. were on my mind. And actually tonight, the changes that have occurred in these meditative moments were what I was thinking about particularly. I have had this habit all my life of turning inward to my own thoughts often. I think it is readily apparent when I do (you denote those times I lapse into it by bringing attention to “that thinking face.” Usually, I guess because I have a melancholy nature, those sessions tended to approach a level of despair with what I understood to be the dilemma of living. I think it must be really similar to the moods that you tell me about that you fall into sometimes. Maybe this is one thing that brought us together, our shared melancholia. Anyway, I think you understand me when I talk about it. I feel I understand you when you’re overcome by those feelings. Now ever since I’ve been out here, I have seen a change in this life-long pattern of mine. I’m sure it occurred before now, but not until coming out here did I have I the opportunity to fall back into that habit of chronic thinking. Now despair is no longer the mental state that I fall into when these prolonged bouts of thinking occur.
I’ve begun real thinking again, not brooding over issues of life or happiness. It’s not that the stuff I’ve been ruminating over is happy stuff, but it is a happy situation that I again wonder about the universe, the essence of existence, and the way in which I should conduct my life. Thinking of these kinds of things, I don’t fall into any kind of despair. I’m uplifted by the fact that I’m participating in thought processes, an historical conversation with the greatest human minds that have lived.
What caused this change? I know it is due to our marriage and the demons that were expelled within me when you came into my life. The shakiness of being alone is gone now. The existential loneliness is gone. I still have matters to contend with that reside in wondering about the meaning of life, but you honey, the like-souled human being that I never thought could have existed somehow came into my life and changed it forever.
I realize now that the next phase of our lives will be to decide how we want spend the next 40 or so years. Isn’t that so different than the way I saw life before as lonely and a source of suffering? We will continue to enrich our lives; we will have children which we can pour the best parts of ourselves into. We still have much to explore about each other, and much exploring of the world and life through each other.
This year has proved to be more difficult than we imagined sweetheart, but in that difficulty there is something we can smile about: we know how much we love and need each other, mentally, emotionally, physically…no way you describe it can justly put into words what we mean to each other. And furthermore, a fact that gives me pride, (a pride we express to each other often in certain ways), is that what we have is rare. I know no example in history or literature that could have been a basis for what our marriage is. Did Shakespeare even create such a couple? No, we are indeed rare; something my melancholic fantasy would never have conjured. We are a rare occurrence in the world. We provide the world an example of beauty out of the improbability of humanity. I mention us to the people around me, I see now, out of beaming pride. I think you do the same. Maybe our pride is how we cope with the distance that is between us now. The vigor or our marriage is certainly a thought that my mind turns to in those moments when I’m missing you the most and it gives me great pleasure.
I mentioned before the despair of my pre-marriage life. I am not yet free of all despair however, just free of the kind of that came with that mentality of existential loneliness. What ails me now, in the background of these thoughts that I think about all the time, is simply the fact that we are separated. I am not with you to enjoy daily the progress of our lives toward the unknown future. I know our decision to do this year made lots of sense, but now I know what is important in life. We will be glad for what we gained during this time, but we must realize that the most precious gain was learning that living our lives together is most important. It hurts to be away from you honey, every day. I’ve never loved anyone or anything as much as I love you. It hurts to be away from you, but I can say it is a good hurt. Let’s be strong and get through this remaining period of separation and promise to each other that we will more than make up for the lost time once