Dear future me,
Today is Austin’s birthday and day 1 of the basic. There are few words that could accurately explain how happy you are, or how grateful.
This is the one, I’m sure of it.
And if it turns out that he is not, I am sure that I will love him for what he has shown me and the things I have learned in his love.
I love you, my sweet girl.
xo
Dear future me,
Happy 22nd birthday, my darling girl.
Everywhere you turn, you are surrounded by love. Your life is full of laughter and joy, wide open spaces and welcoming hearts, great people and golden opportunity.
You are so blessed, and I am so grateful.
I love you so much, my sweet girl.
xo
Dear future me,
Lovemaking by candle light on the north shore next to (as cheesy as this sounds) the man of your dreams.
Lucky you, my angel.
Lucky him.
Stay happy, my sweet girl.
I love you.
Dear FutureMe,
Today I am grateful for the following:
- Austin and his sweet heart and the promising dawn of a new future
- my privilege to travel and move freely
- my ability to move at all
- eloquence and the written word
- candid conversation and surprise emotions
- Malia
- the wealth of options before me
- my ability to dream
- my ability to laugh
- my body and it’s strength and it’s commitment to me
- my capacity to trust and love
- the ease at which I am allowing all things
- that my needs are always taken care of
- that I get paid to eat a good and live a healthy vagabond life
- that I get paid to do what I love
- that I am able to inspire myself and others to greatness
- my dreams
- my personal growth
- my commitment to happiness
- that the universe aspires to my joys and my freedom and all my wildest dreams
- that I am loved wherever I go
- the network of loving people and support I have in my life
- kind, generous people with stories of their own
- the size of my breasts
- the curve of my hips
- the soft honey of my eyes
- technology
- and love. always, always, always the abundance of love that is in my life wherever I turn.
Thank you, Universe.
Thank you, heart.
I love you, my sweet girl.
Always be grateful.
x
Dear FutureMe,
Every night Austin tells you what a treasure you are, how beautiful, how kind, how perfect you are. He tells you over and over again how much he loves you and that he has never loved anyone quite as much.
The other night as you spoke to one another in bed, naked and calm and in love, he said gently, “You are so perfect, my sweetheart. I’ve been waiting for you for so long.” You could only smile and kiss him, because you knew. Without realization or plan, you had been waiting for him.
Part of you wants to rationalize, explain to your heart that you are just 22 and haven’t seen much of the world or been too many times in love to know, but my angel, you do. You have always known what was right with your heart, and you have always been aware of when it is not. Whether you act on it is a different story, but you cannot deny your mind, your intuition, the acknowledgement.
Are you wary of a future with him? No.
Do you trust him? Absolutely.
Do you trust yourself? You’re learning to.
The other night as you spoke to one another in bed, naked and calm and in love, he said gently, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to marry you.” You touched his face in the darkness, smiling as you pulled your naked body closer to his. “Then keep me. Don’t fuck it up.”
He laughed and kissed you. Remember, sweetheart, those words apply to you as well.
I don’t know where Austin came from, or how he happened into your life, but I am so grateful. For us, for you.
I hope years from now, looking back on this note, that you smile and are so happy that you trusted him and yourself. I hope that your lives are together and blissful and that there is always an overwhelming abundance of love. I hope that years from now there is a ring on your finger to match his.
Be clear with yourself. Always do what you love. Always be led by joy and be filled with love. Always tell him what you want or how you feel and ask the same from him. Be balanced, be kind.
I love you so much, my sweet girl.
x
I lay in bed with you astride your narrow hips, stroking gently your perfect lips, the side of your unshaven face, the curve of your prickly chin - I drank you in while you played with my hair, your long fingers weaving deftly through and untying the knots. You had your eyes closed and we stayed together in silence. I was in love with you then, but couldn’t bring myself to say. The words were heavy in my throat, hiding frightened behind my teeth, so I let them stay there and kissed you instead. You pulled me close and kissed my forehead. My heavy heart leapt.
I asked you if you were tired and you mumbled yes. I asked if you could talk with me, if you wouldn’t mind having a deep conversation with me. I had something I needed to get out, a different part of me I wanted to show you. I wanted to trust you and break. You mumbled no and turned your face my way. My eyes burned and I knew you would listen, whatever I had to say. I don’t know if I’ve ever thanked you enough for that, that look in your eyes, but I am so grateful. I don’t even know if you meant it, or if you were just being kind, but I felt it. I felt you in my heart and you haven’t left since.
“I miss my brother,” I said quietly.
You looked at me differently then, and that was all it took for my careful composure to fade. My tears were quiet, sliding indifferently down my cheeks. My sad heart ached and pulsed deep in my chest.
You pulled me closer to you and embraced me. I sobbed once, trying to be discrete.
“I’m sorry, baby.” You paused for a moment, that familiar phrase hanging empty in the air. ” I can’t even imagine losing my little brother.” You paused again. I could see you playing the scenario in your head, imagining. I wanted to apologize. You spoke instead.
You started to tell me about Dan, and Dan’s little sister. I cried a little harder and you kept talking, telling me how happy it made all of you to see her and how you could see glimmers of him in her eyes or her laugh, or the way she lit up a room. My heart broke for her and you and Dan and my brother and me. It broke and it warmed, altogether too sad and grateful to do anything else but beat. I loved you so much then, as a person, a friend, a kindred spirit and fellow human being. Was it selfish of me not to say? Selfish of me to be worried about how it would sound, or how I could say it so that you knew without a doubt that I loved you? Always I want you to know that I loved you, always I want you to know that I still do.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for loving me.
Thank you for knowing.
I love you.
I remember being in the hospital with you
White walls and air conditioning
Monitors and wires and wires and wires
A beating heart - isn’t that what constitutes life? Isn’t that what we’ve been told, been led to believe?
But what about the brain? What if it stops beating, thinking, decision-making and synapses-firing?
What then? Are you dead?
But his heart is beating!
I remember the nurses eyes,
Their sorry faces and guilty glances
They know. They’ve seen it.
They understand,
But I don’t.
I won’t, I can’t connect the dots or find reason in thoughts as to why your heart
So strong and steady
Doesn’t mean you’ll live,
Doesn’t mean you’ll pull through.
What do I do?
I lay my head on your chest
And try to match my heartbeat to yours.
Ba bum. Ba bum. Ba bum.
I can pretend like this, just listening,
That you’re sleeping
That you’re fine.
That when I look up next that you will to
That you will open your eyes
And look around fuzzily
Until you see me
And laugh at me for being so worried
And doubting you that you wouldn’t pull through.
I saw it in my head but couldn’t bring myself to look up
Couldn’t bring myself to watch you not move.
I miss you.
I listened to your heart for as long as I could until I couldn’t help it anymore
And my sobbing drowned out the sound of you trying to live
And failing.
I tried matching my breath to your breath
But your breath wasn’t real breath so it was hard to breathe like you
Hard to make pretend that you’re brand new and that you’d be fine.
I wished it was my body, mine instead of yours on that table.
I can’t stop thinking about what I could’ve done, or should have said
If I had called you instead of blowing you off,
Invited you into my life and my stories instead of beating you soft
With my hard exterior,
My unbending anger and hurt feelings
I am sorry that when you tried to love me, I was unwilling.
I’m not ready to let you go.
I don’t know if you can hear me
But I love you
My dearest, my darling
I love you.
I love you and
I am in love with you
Everything you make me feel
and inspire me to be
and everything that you have done to invite yourself into my heart and make it home.
I am in love with all the names you call me,
all the places of my body
you pause to kiss
all your sleepy good morning’s and exhausted good nights.
I love your gentleness as a lover,
your soft hands, soft lips,
and soft, beautiful blue eyes.
I am in love with the way you speak
especially when you speak of the things that put passion in your heart.
your words are like embers,
my heart a waiting pile of tinder
and you set me afire,
you set me ablaze.
I love your kind, compassionate heart and how it reaches out to me in quiet earnest when mine breaks and how your lips and hands do the same when I cry.
I love that you love me, entire
I love that you see the light in me.
I love that your love sets me free.
letters to myself and the ones i love.
