The Letter

Dear Berlin;
I'm not sure you are much of a writer, but I suppose I have always felt that when you embark on a big change in your life it helps to write things down. Whether it's to remember the details of all the things you will take for granted down the road, or just to look back on how much of it you had wrong...

The truth is I've never been much of a journal writer myself. I tend to censure my thoughts, just in case someone else might read them one day. As emotional as I am, it's actually really difficult for me to sit down and be brutally honest about my feelings. Perhaps you're better at that than I am. I doubt it though. From what I can tell, we could both use some practice in that department.

So I don't know what you'll do with this book. I suspect it might fill some shelf in your new Berlin apartment and collect dust, lost in a jumble of papers and photographs and symbols of people and things that mean much more to you than I did. But nevertheless, I harbor a small hope you will write in it all the impressions and memories of your new life, and maybe one day when it's filled, send it back to me, so I'll know what became of you. Not just the boring stuff everybody else already knows –whether you got into medical school, or got married – but what became of your heart and the journey it traveled to get there.

I like to fancy myself a rather sensible person. Grounded. Realistic. Level-headed. But the truth is, at my core, I'm a romantic, and not the least bit sensible at all. I love too easily and hang on too long. I readily expose all my emotional vulnerability, and carelessly and recklessly offer up the most valuable parts of myself without demanding much of anything in return. On the surface it's foolish, and often extraordinarily painful. I don't know why I do it, except that I think to share who and what you are with someone else – to divulge that little bit of your inner sanctum, to risk your heart and its rejection at the deepest level, is really all we have to offer in this life. Because when everything else falls away, if you never let anyone really know you, if you never feel and touch the deepest vein of another person's core, then when you leave this life there is nothing left behind. No mark that you have left on those around you. So when I discover someone I think is worth knowing, I always let them in. I close my eyes and take the leap of faith. I certainly did it with you.

Exactly what I expected that night when I met you for the first time, I'm not entirely sure. I guess I figured you might be someone worth passing a little time with, a distraction from what is certainly one of the more difficult periods of my life. I didn't think I'd meet some one quite so extraordinary. I didn't think I'd meet this guy who comes from the same Italian town as my family. Someone who shares my love of both science and politics, can build coral reefs in a fish tank, knows what sheep sorrel is (and can find it!!) and thinks dogs are worth every hair they shed all over your house. A man who can cook, who enjoys restoring old and broken down furniture and homes, who doesn't think cilantro tastes like soap, and thinks a bottle of red wine and me naked make for a particularly pleasant evening. A guy who thinks the spectacle of feeding carp loaves of bread is hilariously fun, and would take a woman he just met there on a date. You are smart, and thoughtful, and sensitive. If only you weren't in love with someone else.

I knew I was in for a heartache the moment I found out about her. There I was on that bar stool, thinking to myself, "This guy is really cool." Then out of blue, there it was... the real reason you were off to Berlin. "I'm chasing a woman." My heart sank. That was the one thing I didn't want. The one thing I had explicitly requested. "No happily married men. You can be exiting a relationship, but honestly it has to be pretty much over." Chasing someone across the Atlantic Ocean does not exactly constitute closure! And then in nearly the same breath, you said "but I don't think she really wants me to come." There was a flicker in my brain. A moment when I considered letting the evening end with a few drinks and a nice conversation. Followed by a moment when I thought, "Maybe she really doesn't want him to come. Maybe it is over. It would be a shame if I didn't find out." And then you kissed me, and the risk seemed like the only possible decision to make.

I know I should have never asked you what I meant to you. I should have been content to let things remain casual. I should have repressed all those romantic and unrealistic ideas that there was some sort of instant connection between us that could supersede the years of what you felt for her – this woman who gave you cause to leave a relationship of eight years, a woman who you hang onto despite the fact she won't commit, who you would allow to flirt with other men right under your nose, a woman who despite everything, you would travel halfway across the world, quit your job, and change your life for. I don't know what I was thinking – or hoping. Asking those questions shattered the illusion we had built. Burst the protective bubble that provided our escape from reality. I regretted the words the moment I said them.
And still I had to ask – I had to say what was in my heart, because the worst thing in the world I can think of is not telling someone that you care about them and missing a chance. I suppose it's also that I have never been much good at detachment. My emotional faucets run hot or cold. On or off. Love or ambivalence, and not much in between. So even though I instinctively knew the answer to the question before it was asked, I had to spit out the words that were stuck in my throat. The words that seemed to stick between us.

Not that it helped. There is still so much that's unspoken. So much that I have been carrying around that I couldn't tell you. So much I probably never will. Even now, in a letter you are reading on a plane, knowing that I may never hear from you again, there I things I wonder if I should tell you. Things like how jealous I was every time you talked to her. Like how I wished I was the one you were missing while you were away from me, or the one you would want to call to recount the ups and downs of your day. How crazy it made me to find myself in the position of the other woman (I mean, really, the irony!). And how in the span of the two weeks while you were gone, I discovered I was pregnant, and while still reeling from the emotion of that discovery learned the life inside me would never be (it turned out to be ectopic). How it felt to be treated - alone and scared- and struggle through the anguish and grief of losing a child – that wasn't yet a child – but somehow I loved as if it already were. It's not something you could probably understand. It surprised even me, but in the ultrasound, I found myself waiting to hear the heartbeat with so much anticipation. Even knowing it was all the wrong timing, and totally unplanned, that if I decided to have it you may have resented me forever – still knowing all of that – I couldn't stop wanting that baby. I couldn't stop wanting to protect that life. And then there was no heartbeat. Just a great aching sadness, and a burden of loss I would carry alone. There are a lot of things I suppose I will carry alone.

So when you would ask me what I was thinking – it was all of these things and more. Thinking I was a fool. Thinking I was with you but really alone. Thinking that there was such a tremendous opportunity here, that was being squandered, because your mind, your heart and your energy were engaged somewhere else – invested in someone else. Wondering what might have been if we had met under different circumstances – and if that were even possible. Knowing it's pointless to wonder.
In the moments when we could forget all that, it all seemed so light and easy. Without all the heavy stuff, I would catch a glimpse of something that felt so completely natural and wonderful. And then she would be back. Texting. Calling. Always there, reminding me what I wasn't – a meaningful part of who you are. A real, acknowledged, part of your life.

I can't say I didn't figure it out early on. The truth is I knew I had made a mistake in Pennsylvania that afternoon on the park bench when she called you. The look that crossed your face when you told me who it was, the sort of pained expression of wanting to pick up the phone but knowing it was so obviously inappropriate. That look told me everything I needed to know. You needed to talk to her. You wanted to talk to her. I was suddenly an obstacle. You walked away from me to take the call, and that was the metaphor for everything I knew that would happen next. I knew then that this was just a last roll in the hay for you. An emotional escape from the gravity of what you were about to do. A last fling before the wedding, so to speak. But I needed someone, and even if only temporarily, it seemed so did you. So I put it out of my mind and hoped it would be worth it in the end.
I know that sounds a little bitter, and a little like I think you didn't have any real feelings for me. I don't actually think that. I think that you do care, very genuinely in fact. If I didn't think that I wouldn't have stayed, but I was always a little too aware that I wasn't the one you really craved. A little too cognizant of the fact that you had too much unfinished business to accept what I was willing to offer. I deluded myself about your intentions just long enough to get sucked in, and then it was too late. So even though I cherish what we did have, sometimes I'm a little angry with myself for selling out in that way. It makes me feel a little cheap –the idea that I am little more than a passing fancy, a notch in the bedpost, and a way to help you find your way back to someone else. It stings. I admit it. It hurts to be the one who hides the hole but never quite fills the void. And I was always conscious of that void.

It doesn't help I suppose that you have caught me at a moment in time where I am rather vulnerable. My emotional neediness is off the scale. I feel clingy, depressed, self-conscious and more alone than ever. I have projected a lot of that neediness onto you – rather unfairly under the circumstances – and I imagine it is both unattractive and a deterrent to establishing any real connection we might have had. I am weaker than usual and there are a lot of moments lately where I second-guess my value as a love interest and life partner—but that's what years of being with someone who won't love you the way you need will do. It will break you apart inside and make you lose sense of yourself. It will make you forget what it feels like to be cherished and adored, until you reach out for it in desperation in all the wrong places.

And yet, in spite of everything, I don't necessarily think that searching for affection and love in your arms was entirely the wrong place to be looking. There is a genuine, unappreciated tenderness in you. A part of you that seems guarded and a little lost. But still searching ... for something or someone, in many ways, not so differently from my own quest. I watched you nurse that kitten and saw a man with a beautiful and natural desire to nurture and love. It was such a simple moment, and yet it touched me deeply, and when Oliver was whisked away by his would-be middle-aged female protectors, I was sorry not so much for losing him but that that would be the last time I would get to see your paternal sweetness.

And even if it was all wrong between us, even if you never thought me more than a pleasant way to pass the time, it felt nice for a while, and I do think my life is richer for having held you in it, albeit at arms length. It did help propel me forward—initiating the necessary steps to control my own destiny and happiness, and I will always owe you a little bit for that. There is a nice expression in German for someone you hold dear. Ich habe dich Lieb. It doesn't exactly mean I love you, and yet it conveys much more than fondness or affection.

I know that you are moving on, and that you are making a home and a life in a new place, with a woman you love, or at least one you haven't quite gotten out of your system. I know that my affection for you is not reciprocated, and that this probably all seems immature and ridiculous, and that I am probably just a foolish grown-up girl with a broken heart, clinging to the smallest and flimsiest threads of generosity she has been offered. But be that as it may, I do love you. For whatever it's worth. I fell for you, and there is no real point in pretending anymore. I don't have to keep up the brave face.

So I hope you remember me fondly, and don't remain a permanent stranger. And for your sake, I hope she does love you, and loves you in the way you deserve, because I would hate to see you find your own heart in the sort of pieces mine is.

That's not to say I am broken beyond repair. I don't want you to go away thinking you have left this fragile, damaged thing behind – a victim of your irresistible charms. No. I will recover. I still have hope that I will find someone someday who will be all that I seek and more. Maybe even someone who will find me compelling enough to chase me to another continent. Someone who finds me as charming, and smart, and sweet, and creative, and amazing, and as hard to live without as I find you. But until that time, I'll miss you very deeply, and I'll think of you often.

Ich hab' dich lieb. Lieber als du denkst. Ich habe dich lieb – so lieb. Auch wenn du nicht an mich hängst. Ich wünsche dir einen Leben voll am Liebe und Freude, genau so wenn's nicht von mir kommt.

Vergiss mich nicht. Vielleicht eines Tages sehen wir uns mal wieder. Das hätte ich gern.
Küssen-
immer und ewig-
WFTH