Return to Sender

August 15th

Dear Jo,

Please, do not tear up this letter. I know you have not heard from me in a while (I couldn't reach you in any conventional way, but by some miracle, I remembered your address). This is not a question I take pleasure in asking. I am, quite honestly, stuck. You knew all about my moods, the anxieties you would call "obstacles" or "roadblocks" - after we parted I started referring to these as mere parts of me, not defects. Perhaps influence is a selfish thing, or a beast with poisoned talons, or even a one-sided mirror. I am not sure when it happened, but Joanne, I am now less of you.

Thus, I would not write you if I didn't feel it absolutely necessary, but I can't go to anyone else about this. It's too embarrassing. And you, having seen every intimately awful piece of me, will not find it so. Or, rather, I do not care if you cringe on my behalf. You have seen me bare, and so I don't mind being stripped clean once more.

Joanne, I'll stop rambling and get to it: I have met someone, and she is everything you never tried to be. I don't mean to make you feel bad - you were to me what you were to me - but she, my Emelia, is what my life was lacking. You know about my job, how tense it was at the office, how the breakroom smelled of stale bread and refrigerator crooks. And you know that once I clocked out, I trudged home, peeled off layers of business casual, and rotted - rotted the way chewed apple cores do in sunlight, or polaroid photographs beneath heat.

But now, Joanne? Now, I look forward to leaving work because of Emelia, and not simply because I am home.

Joanne, I was not looking for your opposite. I did not mean to stumble upon a brunette whereas you are blonde, a tall young woman whereas you are petite, a brown-eyed beauty whereas your eyes paled the summer sky. I had no checklist. I did not seek someone who laughs at unfunny jokes harder than she would entertaining ones simply because the act of being unhumorous pleases her. I never asked her to bake caramel brownies with sugar crusts and thank me with kisses after morning coffee. I did not ask her to take interest in my day-to-day, the monotonies of a corner office and the pleasures of a lunch break trip to Miguel's bodega two blocks down (Miguel is doing well, by the way. He says he misses you. He tried giving me your usual on the way out, and I had to break the news). She just loves me, Jo. She chooses to, and she does.

The problem is, I do not know how to return the favor.

Joanne, I know I used to love you. At least, some part of me did. One with blindspots and excuses - a romantic. I saw a rose-tinted girl, perhaps because I could only see red, and so your pinks were soft, then rash, and I squinted too late. But nevertheless, I felt it, and I know you did too. And knowing that your favorite movie is La La Land, and that you hate pickles and only eat vanilla Oreos, and that you cannot stand neon colors, and that long acrylic nails aggravate your sensory needs - that all has to mean something.

To me, this laundry list of things I can't seem to forget is a history, a textbook. If historians were to ever fixate on the ordinary, they'd report on your awful love poems riddled with slant rhymes, and my poor attempts at Chicken Parmesan, and the extra-large crewneck sweatshirts that slowly became yours. They also might mention how we could never agree - perhaps because we were too alike, both dogmatic in nature and in admitting to our stubbornness - how our arguments grew loud and irrational until my apartment walls seemed to tremor in fear - like the children of parents on the brink of divorce - or how you carded through my hair moments after scrolling through my phone with rigid finger, insistent that I was unfaithful.

I wasn't, and you know that. I think you just wanted an excuse to leave. You should have talked to me.

Joanne, our history was real. But with Emelia, I want something better. I do not want to resort to bellowing ego-blows and manipulative feline eyes - you know how they once swayed me. I am starting fresh, and I need to have learned something from you, from us, to prove to myself that I can change. Emelia deserves a generous lover. Emelia deserves everything.

My question is: how do I do it? How do I love her, Joanne? What didn't work with us, and please, please be specific. Write me a bullet-point list with a title and a Works Cited, draw a map of the lifeline we walked like a tightrope and tell me how to traverse it this time, remember the moments you blushed at my mention and recall why; hold yourself, with fingers cradling elbows and pretend it is me embracing you. Did it feel good, or should I find a new place to put my hands?

This is all new to me, Jo. At least, it feels that way. And I don't know how to love well. I tried with you, and it caused both of us a great deal of hurt. So please, if there is even a shred of fondness left for me in your heart, help me love her, so that when these same simplicity-obsessed historians excavate my life, they'll find that I didn't stop at heartbreak or failure - I did well, and did well by her.

I apologize if this letter feels wrong to you. Even now, I'm shaking writing it, and you know I am not an easy crier. Beside me on my desk is the porcelain figurine of a skater you gave me as an April Fool's joke; I think I will throw it away after writing this. Perhaps Miguel is in need of ballerina stock. Sorry. Stupid joke.

I'd like to believe you'd like Emelia, Joanne. She is nothing like you.

My best,

Jonathon