John's response to the letter addressed to him
Dear Marsha,
Perhaps I should be angrier.
Perhaps I would be better off as a seething lump of rage and regret,
self-doubting and self-effacing, questioning every facet of my
identity in which I thought I found meaning. I should be deep in the
dark of rejection purgatory. I should be directionless and
meaningless. I should be bitter shards of a broken mirror.
The strongest will I posses should cast a shadow over every intention and motivation, every promise we made that served as my foundation, every smile and at every chance at happiness I find before me. My love should turn dark.
But that's not happening.
I've been thinking about what I've lost since you've left, and what
it's going to mean to the new definition of me...
...Me alone, me unwanted, me anything…
But I can't help thinking... thank you.
I don't know your reasons. I have the ones you've offered, I have my
suspicions and my instincts. I have the rumours that belong to others,
their speculations and their condolences, I have the predictions and
the optimism, and I have little else.
I don't know your real reasons. I don't know if it's possible that you do, that any of us have the capacity for that kind of convenient honesty. I have a feeling that you don't even know you're lying, that your reasons are good enough because they're well-intentioned. No one can know but you. I have a feeling you're looking to the future and haven't confronted what you owe to your past.
If you're careful you'll never have to, but that will be unfortunate.
We are measured by our tragedy and by the outcome of our conflict. We discover the best in ourselves when the worst befalls us. I'm glad to see the best coming out in me, but it has come from the worst... and the worst is what you have contributed.
So...
Thanks for the heartbreak.
Thanks for all the things that came before it, that filled my body and my head with promise and belonging and desire and passion and doubt. Thanks for being a part of something that made me see I am worthy and capable. Thanks for being part of something with me that was bigger than the two of us.
Thanks for all that's coming. Thanks for the rush of self-doubt, for
the wounds and the scars, for the catharsis and for the healing that
will come. Thanks for that feeling that comes after pain; the storm
subsides, the sun's rays find me and I feel warm again.
I know that I'm lucky to have felt these things, from the days and
nights with you to the ones now without you. Some will go their whole
life without tasting chocolate or feeling the rainfall. The poignant
and painful can be the most valuable. It's in these moments that we
find out what is truly valuable about ourselves. We cocoon, we
evolve, we re-emerge... we are a better version of ourselves.
I'll one day see what you see, a picture that has changed with time,
no longer tinted by the rose-coloured memories of our time that stand
before the less intangible ones. One day everything will just be a
picture... in a book, a memory held only by the bookmark slid up
against it.
I never thought I'd say this about us, any of this.
I never thought what I had with you could be characterized, quantified
or definable, even by a metaphor. Though a part of me regrets the knowledge it has that weakness, I am only the second to exploit it.
You turned away, and you showed me the truth about something you
probably didn't intend to show.
So you have my thanks as my heart falls from your hands.
You have my best wishes.
I hope you never lose that which you find valuable.
You've made a mistake.
... Dear Marsha.
John
