Day 4 back home

On Thanksgiving day, prior to preparing for our big dinner feast, my brother asked me to look for something in my room.  As I poked into old boxes filled with my belongings from college and high school, a giant wad of cards and letters fell out.  I picked those up and the first thing I saw was the valentine's day card given to me by my first love. In it, he tells me in his simple 18-year-old lingo that I am his first valentine and his first love.  It is my 1st year in college so he writes about missing me and wishing we were together.  He mocks himself for being so "sappy" and and for sending flowers and chocolate to convey his love.

I finish reading this card and feel hungry for more. I don't have to look further because right beneath that card is another card he sent for my birthday during our first year together as boyfriend-girlfriend.  He wrote 2 cards that year-- one to throw me off, and the second one which says "did you really think that that card was it? I didn't even get to tell you 'I love you' yet!" In this card-- the second one-- he writes about the importance of my birthday and how meaningful this day is for him. He also writes about the challenges of long-distance dating and telling me that he will love me forever and will do anything for me.  He draws a picture of us looking at stars (which is what we frequently did during high school) and he circles a cluster of stars to remind me of the same constellation we used to point out together.

As soon as I finish reading these two cards, my eyes fall onto an envelope that is stuffed with 4 different letters inside.  This envelope stands-out from the rest because of its thickness.  It also stands-out for me because I've read those letters a million times.  Those are the first letters that Robert ever wrote me when we first started dating.  They are the letters that he wrote when we were head-over-heels-in-infatuation during the summer before college.  He had written several letters within a 2-3 month period and had folded them all together and mailed it to me when I went to college.

I pore through each of them and in the first one, Robert is telling me that he likes me.  Not just likes me, but really really likes me.  He is so glad we went to a senior event together that day and is so grateful that he got to spend the day with me.  He also tells me that I'm his best friend and that he loves talking to me and sharing things with me.  Something romantic must have happened that day because he writes about his nervousness and embarrassment and he also discloses feeling happy that we can be vulnerable together.  In another letter, he is feeling terrible because he had a car accident that day and is feeling crummy and self-blaming. He is upset with himself but is glad I got to see him for even an hour that day to cheer him up.  He appreciates having me in his life and is happy that he'll see me 12 hours later.  In every letter, Robert concludes with his signature but also a quote/lyric from a movie/song.  They are each romantic and breath-taking and makes me feel like I am was so important to him, and that I am was the love of his life.

It's time to put the turkey in the oven and to prepare the side dishes for dinner.  I am an emotional wreck after reading these cards and letters.  I am so shocked and validated to see (in print!) that our love was real and that my feeling of being loved was real.  I am also dazed.  I'm not sure what to think.  I've spent the past 4 years thinking that maybe he didn't really love me to begin with, and maybe our love was not significant in his eyes.  I wondered if my intense feelings were/are a figment of my imagination and have to do with my own difficulty of letting-go.  But now look!  Here! All of this!  It's proof! Proof that we did happen, that it was real, that he did love me, and that at some point, our love felt like it would be long-term and life-long.  Robert did love me intensely at one point.  So why not anymore?  Why did it end?  Why does he no longer feel the same way as before?

I realize that I will never stop loving him.  Even in another relationship, Robert still remains as my first love.  My first and my pure love, unfiltered, unrestrained, in its organic and intense form.  Robert can date as much as he wants and he is sure to marry one day.  And even then, I will still love him, from afar. I hope I am meaningful to him because I was his first love.  I am the first person he wanted to spend forever with.  Our motto during long-distance dating was, exactly this: "This is only temporary, we are going to be forever."

I suddenly miss Robert with a ferocious intensity that it scares me.  I feel an unpredictable and uncontrollable urge to find him, see him, touch him, force him to remember that he used to love me and that we used to be best friends.  We used to live to see each other.  We used to want nothing but each other and we were so happy just to be with each other. I want to tell him that I used to love him.  Correction: I still love him.  As soon as I come home, I realize that I want only him.

I head downstairs to the kitchen to prepare dinner and pretend to cry because of the onions that I am cutting.  It's not the onions.  It's not the cooking.  It's the cards and letters.  I am officially transported back to the summer of my high school senior year during the honeymoon period in my first-ever relationship.  I am so in love.  I am so swept away by his loving words.  But it's actually not 10 years ago, is it.  It's not the same time period, and that same person doesn't even exist anymore.  He may still be just 5 minutes away from my house but he actually doesn't feel those things for me anymore, and we actually are nothing but strangers to each other now.