Still I Think of Him

 

June 29, 2013

Dear Mister Heartbreaker,

This letter is more for me. I doubt that I will ever send it to you, or that you will ever read these words.

I still think of you every day. I still love you, even from afar, even apart. When I told you I loved you I meant it.

Here's the thing: even though I may have thought you were the perfect guy for me, it didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't the perfect one for you. I wasn't what you wanted. Realizing that doesn't hurt as much as it used to, thank God.

Eighteen years. It's been more than eighteen years since I first met you, eighteen summers since I was so devastated and heartbroken over you during the hot, humid summer in Japan. I will still be thinking of you eighteen years from now when I am 65-years-old.

I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I'm thinking of you even more this week because of DOMA being repealed.

I'm grateful to be with Domestic Partner still. We will grow old together. I need him. But he's not someone I would marry. More to the point, I am not ideal marriage material. My family does not have a good track record for healthy marriages. So, even if you had wanted to stay together, I wouldn't be the best candidate to be your husband. That would not have been fair to you.

I am not jealous of your partner which is a relief. But I look at him and think I would have been willing to be Mrs. Heartbreaker. I would have been willing to be your silent and supportive partner in all of your endeavors.

And maybe that would not have been fair to me. But I would have done it.

I regret telling you, after the last time I drove out to see your production company perform, that I still see the young man I fell in love with all those years ago. I regret it because I think it caused you to put some distance between us again. You were probably right to do so.

So, I apologize if I've continued to make you feel awkward with me. I'm sorry if any effort to pull you closer to me only made you push me further away.

God, I love you, Mister Heartbreaker. But here's the other thing: in the last seventeen years since we've left Japan, in all my heartache and despair over you, I think I've built you up in my mind as someone that you're truly not in actual life, kind of a fantasy figure. Again, that's not fair to you, not allowing you to be who you really are.

I keep thinking . . . even if our relationship had been given a fair shot, even if we had tried to stay together when we got back home to California . . . maybe we would not have lasted that long? I wanted to be monogamous with you but I wonder if we would have been faithful to each other? I know that at I least I might have ended up cheating on you, with all of the insecurities I felt when I was with you.

I would have messed everything up.

And your cigarettes! I would never date anyone who smokes, ha ha. I could never stay with a smoker. I keep trying to come back to that one fact . . . but still I think of you.

We met at a bad time. I had spent my twenties attempting to be celibate, had spent the majority of that decade in ex-gay ministry. When I met you I was like a junior high school kid discovering boys for the first time, trying to date with a limited emotional skill set - at 29-years-old! Too bad I didn't meet you when I was more mature, emotionally, and less prone to falling head-over-heels so quickly.

My life is good, I have no real problems. If I did, I probably wouldn't dwell on you so much or think of you on a daily basis. So, I am grateful for that. You've become a symbol, a reminder that I have no serious problems to worry about (even being unemployed for the last several months).

I need to change. I need to let you be who you truly are, the Real You. Mister Heartbreaker 2013.

I'm hoping to audition for your production company in a few weeks. Maybe I'll be good enough for you to hire me as one of your performers. Maybe we'll start working together again this fall.

And maybe we'll spend enough time together, as friends and as coworkers, for me to get to know the Current You better.

One-sided as this obsession may be, I love you, Mister Heartbreaker.

I always will.