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Letters to an unfinished, unsatisfying love

I still spend so much of my time thinking of how we could be together, imagining how our lives could meld into each other. I imagine coming home to you, to lie in bed beside you each night, and how we would get to know each other. I imagine bringing you across the ocean to my homeland, driving you around to see the still lakes and green pines, to sweat in the summer heat and play board games while drinking wine with my family. I imagine having you all to myself, all of your affection, and your attention.

I think about the beginnings of our own family and what our child would look like. A baby in a bear coat, tucked into a pram, as we take her on chilly walks through the park, near the wild and unpredictable sea. I think she would be a beautiful baby girl. And you would love her until your heart exploded. I would become second best, as she would be your new favourite. But that’s okay – because you were always a bit distant from me anyways. I would realize, painfully, that I never quite had you all to myself, that I yearned for a child only to be closer to you – and that it never quite works out that way.

Regardless, she would make me feel close to you, in a way that you and I alone could never do. I would keep her close as a way to hold on to you. I would give her everything I wanted, but couldn’t get, from you. I wanted a rock, a container, someone to hold me – physically and spiritually – in allowing me to express wholeheartedly, ME. Perhaps you have been doing just that the entire time. I have thrown so much at you – keeping secrets about my past, avoiding confronting you when I was upset, threatening suicide, panic attacks from overwhelming anxiety that I could not explain to you.  Am I expecting too much? Or am I entitled to more? Do I deserve more? Maybe the things that I want are what you can’t give me. Maybe the things that I want are not what I need. Whatever it is, you have undeniably helped me to grow.

I will contemplate over and over again what it is that I want and will still be unsure. In my head and in my heart, I have never been more confused. You won’t give me what I really crave – the affection, the attention. Yet I cannot get enough of you. This in between state of ours, our cycle of being close and then distant, pulling away and then coming together, is possibly what I relish in. I want to feel the passion, the pain of not being able to separate myself from you – but I want you to feel it too – and be in it with me. I want us to be together, as you yell at me how you love me, push me down to keep me from leaving. Make it difficult, make it messy. Let your emotions fight for me.

I don’t know if I’m ready for you. Ready to be settled, stable and easy, with you. Are we only holding on because it’s easy? Or because we can lie to each other and to ourselves and keep it easy? Each time you think we are in a good place, a happy place, I feel unhappy, ready to cause sabotage. I need your reassurance that you are happy with me. I need it constantly. I need it harshly. Remind me of my own self-worth. Stop your niceties and throw me in the gutter. Then pick me back up again and tell me that you love me. That you’ll always be there for me. And I will continue to sacrifice my life for you, believing that I am in the right place.

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Biography

At heart, Erica is a traveller, a yogi and an artist without a medium. Her life isn’t defined by boundaries. That is, not by what work she does, or what country she lives in. She has always loved to write, and it draws itself to her when she needs deep expression. We don’t know where in the world she is now… a good chance not in Canada where she is from. Hopefully she is somewhere walking in Big Nature, practicing how to love in this world, and continuing her mission to express her discoveries to the rest of us.