letters to the editor

I found this letter on the street and have laboriously retyped it for your viewing pleasure:


I once heard from an old woman, 'Don't try to find a woman that has left you...

...it only causes you pain. In our case, i only made a halfhearted attempt to get you back through a half-hearted letter. Perhaps I should've never let you go. I let you go without much of a fight. But then if I did that, then things might've gotten ugly. But of course, that's probably what i needed to give things closure: for things to get ugly and for a clean break to happen. Although this break shouldn't be classified as 'messy,' it sure wasn't a clean break, by any means.

I let you go without a fight because until the end, all i wanted was what was best for you. I wanted to give you every kind of happiness and that included losing you, because that's what you wanted. It was really you that gave us up, that gave me up. And I let it happen and no matter how much I can trick myself into thinking that the breakup is mutual and that 'we agreed' to it now i know that not only did i trick myself, you tricked me. Unconsciously, of course. I think sometimes you are so clueless it's frightening. But at the same time, there is a certain feminine intuitiveness that takes over.

It's hard because I was your first boyfriend. It's harder still because, you know what, you were my first real girlfriend. All the other relationships were nothing. They really didn't compare. That must explain why I still even bother.

The right thing to do is to try to forget about you. Yes, that's the right thing to do. I can revisit memories later, I'll have those pictures when that time comes, but for now, it's time for mental purging. Every time I want to think about you, be it a good memory or bad memory, i'm going to push it out of my head. Because even when the good memories rise to the surface and a smile crosses my face, it inevitably washes over to the present and the fact that you are no longer there. And I can't keep doing that. I refuse to do that to myself.

I've decided to go the way of mens sibi conscia recti . I can move on, and do it with dignity. I really should've had more pride during our relationship but something happened to me -- to my inside being -- that took control. I was infected by a fever. That disease is still plaguing me. Slowly but surely, however, my body is reclaiming itself. That you can be sure of.