Hello Darling… Is that the best way to start this letter?
Maybe Dear Darling would be better? No, that’s far too formal, considering the
amount of years we have known each other (that’s twenty by the way, just in
case you have forgotten, again). I could
possibly start with: I'm sorry. But I think that would be too negative, and you
would get flustered like always and read this so quickly that you won’t really
take any of it in. No, I think I was right the first time.
Hello Darling
When you read this, I will no longer be laying next to you,
or in the house, or anywhere near Sittingbourne for that matter. I will be gone;
just like a misplaced memory, niggling in the back of your mind that you can’t
quite summon forward. I finally realised that I can’t be all you want, and I
can’t be all you need. Maybe I should have said this to you sooner? But our twenty
year illusion was far too good… Change is a scary thing, but I have dispelled
the magic now, I know that there is no going back.
Do you remember when we first met? I hope you do. The memory
still remains in my mind, like that leaky tap in the bathroom that won’t stop
running; every now and then a small splash of memory will ripple in my mind, a
tiny drip of emotion will make my body shudder sweetly. I will probably be thinking about it as I
leave our bed today and place this letter on our dresser; even when I'm walking
out of Sittingbourne, that tap will still be dripping. (You need to get that
fixed by the way; the water bill has gone up a lot recently… But I suppose
that’s your problem now).
Friday 18 January, 1993. That seems like another life now. I
was hobbling down the road, just back from shopping and carrying those four
monstrous bags. They might as well have been concrete elephants that I was
carrying! I remember seeing those
heavily pregnant clouds in the morning, but me being me I still forgot my coat.
To this day I have never seen such heavy rain as that: sheets of water pouring
from the sky, as if a waterfall had been placed directly above our heads; I say
I hobbled down the road, but it was more like swimming, or for me, drowning. Then
you came hurdling around the corner- late for work as always- and smashed
straight into me! The concrete elephants took to the sky and performed a
perfect dive into the newly formed pool, while I completed my best belly flop
to date.
It was that smile
that spun me into your web; it was both charming and innocent at the same time.
I never did see that smile again after that day. Then you helped me up and took
me to the coffee shop next to the bank, you carried those elephants all the way
there! Then we sat and talked nonsense for hours, I remember how the steam from
the coffee slowly curled and twisted into the atmosphere, like acrobats
performing in the background. Days could have past in that haze of coffee
steam, and I wouldn't have cared. I still can’t believe you missed an entire day
of work just to talk to me! I can feel the same guilt creep over me now, those
tiny spiders scuttling through my veins; how you didn't get fired I will never
know…
I'm sorry that I don’t have the patience of your boss. I
wish I knew his secret to his twenty year endurance; maybe then I would still
be laying next to you now, getting ready to wake up and make your coffee: no
milk, two sugars.
But those bottles were everywhere. Ever since I declared:
I do I have been lost within that maze of glass, tumbling through the obstacle
course of cans.
‘It wasn't your fault’ was my mantra: it was the
vodka that gave me that black eye, the beer that screamed at me, the cider that
broke my arm… Or was it? I loved you after all, or rather, I loved the man in
the coffee shop. Are you the same person I wonder?
I think it was hope for the coffee shop man that
carried me through these last twenty years. He was there somewhere, drowning
within those glass bottles. If only I could dive in and draw him out; then the
coffee steam would come back, the acrobats could perform again. But, I failed. I
know that man is too far away now; but finally the steam has disappeared and I
can see clearly again. It’s taken me a while, but I know now that you can’t be
all I want, and you can’t be all I need.
Even with my cuts and bruises that you created, I can
carry my own concrete elephants now.
There is one last thing that I will ask of you though:
please say goodbye to the man in the coffee shop for me.
