My Private Public Love Letter

This isn’t the post I intended to write this week, I’d meant to write about my shattered perceptions of a Sedaris childhood and how validation does/doesn’t affect who we become, but this is what I was moved to write so this is what you get.

I heard the words “I want to grow old with the man I was young with” and only thought of you. I choked up. I’d never heard what I feel about you put into words so precisely. 

It’s really weird because I don’t want to say “we’ll be together forever.” To me, it feels like making a birth plan for a painkiller-free, natural birth, and then having an emergency c-section. We have ideals in our mind but writing them down is tempting fate. 

I’m too much of a realist to say now, in my 30s, that we’ll be together forever. Lives change, people change, and things don’t always work out. Even for a skeptic like myself, promising myself a forever feels like cursing what we have now, and makes the very idea of not being with you more unbearable. 

Like, if I promise myself a forever and it doesn’t happen, it’ll hurt worse than if I hold in my mind that forevers don’t always happen. 

But I want what we have right now to grow into our forever. Our love will change as much as we do, but I want to cling to it, wrap it around us and mold it like a blanket to our frames to ensure it warms us until we’re old and tired (dibs on being tired, you have to be old.)

It feels like things have been difficult the past few years, what with my stupid wonderful house purchase, with you going through school, business slowing down, and my mental health. But the weirdest thing is that I feel closer to you. The things I thought would push you away only showed me your strength in a new light and reminded me why I love you so much. 

We don’t always agree. You don’t like my girls with pianos music, and I still think the Henry Rollins Band would sound the same if you listened to it played on underwater speakers. I love horses, the country, and being alone. You like the city, apartments, and sidewalks. I want to read and hike and camp. You want to play video games and make things on your computer. 

These things feel like they’d be too different, but it works because we make space for what the other person needs. You showed me how to do that, mostly when I began getting up at 3AM to write every day instead of curling up with you and watching TV every night. 

You hold me up when I’m having panic attacks over lawn work and phone calls. You tell me you’re proud of me when I sell stories. You read 80% of what I email to you, begging you to read, and that’s more than I expect. 

I only hope that I’m being an equal partner in this relationship, and giving you the same care and consideration. 

There’s that line in The Princess Bride (I almost typed The Princess Pride and omg let’s make that story, too,) the famous “As you wish.”

Your as you wish is, “We’ll figure it out.”

Can I leave for an entire summer and do sail training in Long Beach?

We’ll figure it out. 

What if I applied to med school?

We’ll figure it out. 

Hey, I’m going to go camping alone for half a week. Will you be okay with house, kid, pets and business?

We’ll figure it out. 

I’m not getting the writing done I want. I want to book an AirBnB for a few days to just write. Will that be too hard with your class schedule?

We’ll figure it out.

You even said I could have a puppy, you beautiful monster, you. I won’t, I know how complicated our lives are already, but still. You said yes when you saw how much joy other people’s puppies brought me. 

You encourage my every passion and make space for every wild whim. You let me set off across half the country with our kid, a tent, and no solid plan, then made KOA reservations when I panicked. 

You let me book tickets for nearly three weeks on another continent, with our kid, and without you. 

You listen to me vent, you validate my feelings, you survive my wild moods, and you love me. 

You love me, and I know it. 

Why else would you put up with… gestures at self

All this, 700 words just to say, I love you. 

Enough to post this as an open letter and be all sappy and gooey and lovey on the internets. 

So though I won’t promise you a forever, I’ll secretly want it. There will always be a door, but I’ll do everything I can to keep from ushering you through it. 

Here’s to our now, and my hopes for our tomorrow.