Dear A, Part Four

Dear A,

    I wonder what you’d be doing right now if you were around. Would you still be working at the firm? Or would you have finally started your own business. The one you talked about tirelessly.

    Would we still be living here? Or would you have had us move back home closer to our parents?

    Would we have started a family by now? That question in particular makes me ache. It was my dream, our dream, and now it will never become a reality.

    I will never get to see my little sons who look just like you run around in a field of wildflowers, getting dirt on their hands, and ruining their jeans. I will never get to hear our daughters with your eyes and caramel colored skin giggle with joy at the sight of you.

    We won’t ever get to take them on the trip to Disneyland we always talked about on lazy Sundays.

    You probably want to tell me that I can still have all of those things. That I can still have my messy little boys, and joyful daughters. That if I put myself out there, I’d be able to have a new start, a new future.

    But you see, when you’ve planned something for so long, when you’ve had one dream and held onto it, given your hope to it, given your love to it. When you’ve invested as much into that one idea and concept, you can never move on to something else. You can never forget what you could have had, even it never really was.

    I do not want to burden another with my sentiments. I do not want to have children, and face the disappointment when they do not have your eyes, your laugh, the crinkle of your nose. I don’t want to my disappointment to reflect upon them, and burden them with what cannot be undone.

    I’m fine this way, really.

    I still teach my classes. I engage with the students. I attend all my meetings. I return all my phone calls. I go to the store, and I buy what I need. I eat, and I drink, and I pray, and I sleep. It’s much better than I could have hoped for.

    You’re probably wondering about my writing. I want to lie and tell you that I haven’t stopped. That my stories still get published. That I’m still asked to recite my poems at public venues. That I’ve kept on top of my website, and it’s weekly schedule.

    I want to lie and tell you all of that. But you would know better. You would know that you were my muse, and that without you there’s nothing much left to say. These letters to you are all that I write now.

    And that’s fine by me.

Until next time,
Your B