E-mail to Heather

So, in lieu of a proper update, I figured I may as well copy and paste an e-mail that I sent to Heather about 3 weeks ago. It’s a decent description of my life dilemma at the moment, at least. I just re-read it and now find it to be pathetically melodramatic at the end, but I am pasting it as is and will accept all the mocking notes as deserved.

 
Also, sorry I’m a crappy noter. I probably read your entries more than you think though. Honest. Anyway, here’s the e-mail.
 
 
 
Dear Heather,
 
I sat down to write you an e-mail because I feel like I have so much to say to you and I need to sit here and take my time and really let it out, but then when I sit down to actually write it I can’t think of how to say anything that I want to say.
 
I don’t know what to do about us.
 
You are the most important person in my life. I love you. When I think of my life, moving forward, I often find it very difficult to imagine it any way other than with you as my lover in some way. There is no other way that I really want to imagine it – in my heart, if not my rational brain, I still think of you as my life partner, the person I will be waking and snuggling up to when I’m 70 years old. And yet.
 
And yet when I think of how we would ever actually make that happen I can’t think of a very good answer.
 
To be fair, this isn’t a new dilemma. If anything, it’s the continuing dilemma of my life and one that I’ve grown rather familiar with. I still don’t have a great solution. I can see the first step of a possible solution – removing the physical distance between the two of us so that we can give a real relationship a real chance. But, the reality is, the physical distance between us is just hurdle #1 for the sustained future of Matt and Heather. It’s still something that I want to do. But, we would be foolish to think that that in itself would remove all of our problems. To me, the physical distance between us has never been the thing that sometimes made me think a real future between the two of us was impossible. For me, our differing religious views have always been the skeleton in the closet of Matt and Heather. It’s the one thing that can’t really be solved by compromise. Yeah, if I want one kid and you want three, then maybe we can compromise on two. But if you believe in a Christian God and I don’t, where do we compromise on that? How can we compromise on something as important as teaching our children the fundamentals of how life works and what it means to be alive in this world? Ultimately, I don’t know if we really can. And for as long as I’ve known that raising a Christian family is something that’s very important to you, I’ve also known that it’s something that I can never genuinely give you, no matter how open I am to compromise. And, if I can’t, then how do we have any possible future together?
 
You know, whenever I hear about one of my friends getting married, I naturally do the selfish thing of thinking of myself getting married and what that would feel like. I think of how my wedding would be and the emotions involved in dedicating myself to one person like that. And you know who the person across from me is in every imaginary wedding I have? You. It’s always you. I don’t know how to imagine it with anyone else, really. I remember driving home from Donna and Evan’s once and losing myself in thoughts of marriage, which eventually turned into thoughts of marrying you. And I remember almost being moved to tears when I thought of what a grand and beautiful gesture that would be.
 
What I don’t know how to do is to reconcile the last two paragraphs I just wrote. How to deal with the fact that emotionally you are the only person I can currently imagine ever spending the rest of my life with and yet rationally knowing that it doesn’t seem to work very well. And I think that explains a lot of the contradiction that you feel from me – like how I tell you you’re the most wonderful special girl ever and then go and kiss and date other girls. Because, the truth is, to me, you are the most wonderful special girl ever. But another truth is that I don’t think I am going to be able to keep you in my life forever.
 
Anyway, I’m sorry for this e-mail just being another in the list of ones that talk about our problems but doesn’t solve any of them. Primarily because I don’t really have a solution for the grand problem of you and me. Which, yes, is depressing. But, you know, I still can’t help but feel like an unappreciative twat when I feel depressed about you and me, because, hey, how lucky am I to have even had the chance to get to know and love you? So, yes, we do have a really complicated relationship and it is full of problems, but at least the problems are sprung from love and not hate, right? Yes, you know, as complicated as it can be, loving you is still a good problem to have.
Still,

Matt

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