Selected Correspondence II: I thought that I would be better at this.

I thought that I would be better at this.

I never thought forgiveness was difficult. I’m coming to see that that is because I’ve never really been hurt before, at least, not in any way like this.

I realized that I was merely a casualty of my parents’ divorce, and so forgiveness came in understanding that the offense wasn’t ever really against me. Likewise, in their subsequent remarriages, my parents’ spouses were no offense to me, but rather were filling spaces in my respective parent’s life which in turn affects my own, but less when put in perspective.

I thought I was a forgiving person because I got over the things that hurt and through the past few years of struggling to love someone I always had an underlying hope and faith that love, however flawed and human I made it manifest, would nonetheless prevail. Thus when we’d argue (or fight as she so termed such conflicts) I could always love her a moment later. When she needed a break I gave her one, understanding it to be just that, and as it turned out to be something more, when she started seeing other people, a mere hour in her company was yet enough for me to assuage most doubts because I could see that she still loved me, and forgiveness came inevitably after any vestige of hope returned. Of course as the years went by in frustration the hour sometimes took some days to get there, still, we danced a month before her wedding and I thought for sure we were in love.

Now I’m alone in this city, and despite the warmth of late I’ve been cold since the 13th, wrapped up in my own insecurities, and every night I can’t escape the thought that all of these past three months have been a nightmare and I’ll soon awake to love again, but not a different person, it’s still her, and it’s hope in vain this time and so no forgiveness has yet followed me here and I don’t know where to find it. All it does is hurt from one day to the next. I have managed to keep it numb most times, in public, but alone I feel it. Around her family, our friends, driving towards the places I used to see her and think about her, and there is nowhere in my life that isn’t so, because she’s still in my thoughts every day, though they’re not so loving anymore. It hurts. It keeps me from anyone who might ease the pain, or share what small successes or failures I’ve endured in life for want of having to love again into a void where all my love is spent and my investment is lost and married, and I can see no future past another unrelenting day tomorrow full of silent torture and my inability to forgive a pain too great to forget.

Forgive me.
Help me to forgive.



(I'm not sure I've progressed much further than the sentiment here expressed, despite the fact that these experiences are years old. It is this broken relationship that haunts, stifles, and informs my present far more than it should. Again, I would it were another. Nonetheless, the conclusion is one I could still use more often than not, be it for this same relational scar, or fresher wounds I bear. Forgiveness isn't easy.)

- TPK

Selected Correspondence I: I Miss You...

I miss you.

I didn’t breathe deep enough when I saw you last, and now I’m in too deep, and it hurts, and I want to breathe but if I do I’ll drown because there’s no air left to breathe this far down. You are the first question I’m asked and I have no response but to miss you more. I can’t escape my thoughts of you because they’re everywhere…
Driving I can’t help but wish you were there to keep me from tormenting myself. Then I think, better me than you, yourself, because there’s a chance you’ll still speak with me when the trip is done. It just seems like wasted time when I’m alone, looking at the vacant seat beside me. I remember the time I had your company and over the phone it just isn’t the same. I prefer to get lost in your eyes than in the small town intersections up North.
I missed you at the hotel; I couldn’t enjoy the hot tub because I kept wondering if you would. All the rooms had two beds so I’m sure you’d have been accommodated.
I went to church today and thought it better you weren’t there and forced into introductions and smiles and hugs I couldn’t be too sure of as far as motives were concerned.
I missed you at the mall when I managed to return your sweater because my decision making skills buckled under the pressure of what to get you. You said black; I hope you like at least one of my attempts. I met a friend there too. We caught up and she had quite a story to tell, and she made me appreciate and miss you all the more.
I miss you at night. Tea just isn’t the same. And I’m not as comfortable and consequently quick to sleep without your influence at hand. I miss your dog too, and thus miss you. He’s not like other dogs. Sherlock isn’t Matty, but isn’t Woof either. Give Woof some lovin’ from me.
I wish you sat across from me so my eyes could settle on you, and rest, and stop searching for you everywhere only to be continuously disappointed when the car is not so banged up, or the hair is too short, or too long, or anything yours is not except enough to wish for a second that maybe you’re not as far away as I know you are. No one else is you, and I miss you.
I miss you when people ask me about me because I don’t know what to tell them about my friend, with benefits, who is such a huge part of that answer but doesn’t fit into the work and school song and dance that makes things easy to sum up. I can’t sum you up. Not in any more than three words.
I miss you when I plan my days and can’t reserve the time to look forward to the best part of it.
I miss your smile and your laugh. I miss your eyes. I miss your ears. I miss your voice. I miss your hands and feet. I miss you like you’re not just up the road, or across town, or getting off work soon, or getting ready for bed but yeah you’ll be up for a while if I want to stop by when I’m done, and you’re not on the phone or brushing your teeth or taking a shower or running around or out, or you are all those things and I’m just not there to miss you like I do then because I’m here missing you like I do now.
I miss all I know and I know all I miss, but I’m used to it. I’ve missed you every minute we’re apart whether or not I knew it, and I’ll miss you again, in part or in whole, because there’s much I have yet to miss.
I miss you when I’m writing because I’m not happy with the product. I can’t tell you how much I’ll really miss you until I can be with you again and stop missing you.



(Now if only I could apply this old letter to my savior, and not a broken romance...)

- TPK

Honestly Opaque?

I've been wrestling with this particular blog of late. My goal is to express some level of honesty, however, in so doing I wish to remain at least partially anonymous, not for my sake, but for the sake of the lives of others that will invariably weave with my own professions, confessions, and obsessions.
Chances are, if you're one of the few who've stumbled here as of yet, it's because we lie within a few meager degrees of separation socially, relationally, or otherwise. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that I'll eventually make an ass out of myself, and I'm okay with that. What I admit of myself, I freely admit, but what is revealed of others, by way of my own testimonials, I trust those who know me to exercise adequate discretion; if you know, don't ask, if you don't, don't ask, and either way, please don't post or tell names I'm intentionally changing, or inquire as to circumstances intentionally clouded, for privacy's sake.

I'm only writing this preliminary caution because I spent a good portion of my day reading through some old e-mails (I keep almost anything and everything worth keeping that I write) and thought that posting selections from them here might be a good way to start to open up on the level I hope to achieve. So I'll be posting "Selected Correspondence" in the foreseeable future, only my side of it, of course, but if it sounds familiar, it could very well be because you were the recipient of these very words in the past, and I hope you won't mind my sharing them now for my own growth, and perhaps some manner of relative comfort to someone else who may find worth in such distanced discourse. All such posts will be edited for privacy (and contain commentary, like so); we'll see how it goes.