Love Letters
Love letters are probably dead, but the romantics among us still pine for the days of handwritten notes and the love engorged phrase. Here are some of my favourite lines from the love letters of famous people.
Even royal lovers have feelings:
I gently press my lips to yours and try to forget everything, gazing into your lovely eyes - I lay on your precious breast, rested my tired head upon it still. This morning I tried to gain calm and strength for the separation. Goodbye wee one, Lovebird, Sunshine, Huzy mine, Own!
Tsarina Alexandra to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, 1915.
Napoleon wrote up to 75,000 letters in his lifetime, many of them to the beautiful Josephine (pictured above):
I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!
Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine, 1795.
Simple and beautiful:
It seems to me, to myself, that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me.
Robert Browning, 1846.
Men of religion are capable of boundless love, apparently:
...her love overrides my boundaries as the sea sweeps over rocks and sands alike, crushes my barriers into dust out of which they were builded, over whelms me with its beauty, bewilders me with its sweetness, charms me with its purity, and loses me in its great shoreless immensity.
Robert Burdette, minister, to Clara Baker, 1898.
There's a lot going on in this relationship:
How can you think deliberately of life without me -- If you should die -- O Darling -- darling Scott -- It'd be like going blind. I know I would, too, -- I'd have no purpose in life -- just a pretty -- decoration. Don't you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered -- and I was delivered to you -- to be worn -- I want you to wear me, like a watch -- charm or a button hole bouquet -- to the world. And then, when we're alone, I want to help -- to know that you can't do anything without me.
Zelda to Scott Fitzgerald, 1919.
And this is easily my favourite.
I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports... When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.
Gustave Flaubert to his wife Louise Colet, 1846.
I bet it sounds even better in French.
As an aside, I have started linking to interesting blogs whose owners have written around the topic. It's surprising how good they are. I encourage you to check them out.
What other blogs are saying: Dumped despite the love letters, these are great, not bad, this sounds like a good read.
Technorati: Love Letters, Written Emotions, lovers, Over The Top.
53 comments:
I love these. Love letters are truly a lost art - something that we should strive to keep. I wrote a few in my younger years...There is something so intimate about sharing feelings in such a way.
They are special, EO. I'm so glad you like them. The combination of a hand-written note straight from the heart is unbeatable.
Reading them affected me too.
Those are really lovely. You romantic devil, you!
It's freezing cold here, truly bitter, and all I want to do now is read poetry. Thank you for for that.
Funny, Lisa, I never know how people will react to these diversions that take my fancy.
It's made my day that you and EO have found enjoyment in the letters.
Happy poetry reading to you.
I like the Robert Browning one the best...
simple and beautiful is right. It says everything it needs to, with the fewest words.
Impossible to disagree with you, Chick.
I just tried saying it out loud.
Beautiful. (The words, not me.)
I like your favourite Wombi, you renacionce man you,
The story of Elizabeth Barret and Robert Browning in itself was beautifully romantic. She was a 45 year old ill recluse, that lived with her domineering father, he was a 38 year old famous poet, the definite "man about town", with lots of women..she was a virgin.
they read each others poems and started a letter correspondence.
She invited him to meet her, and after that one meeting,they fell in love, and she defied her father and married and ran away with him to Venice.
She had a son to him, and tragically died 2 years later.
Their story is called the greatest love story ever told,
this is what she wrote to him when she was dying.
Sonnets from the Portuguese, #43
by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1850)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints — I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Thank you, Enigma.
No more need be said.
"No more need be said."
Well, if you were ALLOWING more to be said, I'd say I have quite a lovely collection of love letters from old boyfriends. My favorite though was a song one wrote and recorded - it was dreadful lyrics, horrible recording quality and I cherish it still to this day.
It's interesting what Gustave had to say, I had to chuckle at his ego, "I want you to be amazed by me, etc." His 'love' letter was more about his prowess than his love for her.
Or maybe I'm just jaded :P
It is a lost art.
To have received something like that, when it is truly meant, would be a treasure.
And now I have Byron in mind.
And context itself is everything eh Wombat... many years ago - closing up ship to receive a VERTREP (which stands for Vertical replenishment - a helicopter, dropping supplies and mail onto the deck of a ship, steaming along at sea) often had many of the ships crew on edge... the old "will there or wont there be mail for me?" message played over and over in your head till it began to physically hurt sometimes.
I can tell you - a good letter got read by all of your shipmates - whether you wanted it to happen or not. Not just the 'naughty' mail. Sailor's - for all their bluff and wind - are quite a sentimental lot you know... but please don't tell anyone I said that.
It got so after a difficult or long deployment (my longest was 11 and a half months away at sea... needless to say THAT relationship didn't work out - lol!) your mates felt everything you felt, knew your partner almost like you knew them, and would often greet them with an unusual amount of affection when you pulled into port.
"Why are they all smiling at me like that?" was a question often asked by the new girlfriends and wives... most times it was cheeky - for sure - but other times... well it would probably surprise some people, if they ever saw it... it smacked of an intimacy you'd struggle to find in other places. Spend a lot of time in the company of other people - under difficult circumstances and you start to act like a bee colony... what one feels - you all feel.
I can't begin to imagine this in the world and times where ships were made of wood and pulled along by sail.
Bizarre...
*wistful sigh*
I'm sorry - where was I Wombat???
;-)
*sigh* I miss letters.
I have abysmal handwriting, but what I like to do is to send flowers, with a tiny poem, and an email that reaches 'just' after the flowers, with expressions of love. I manage that by addressing the flowers to a colleague, who informs me that he or she is walking up the stairs, so I can send the email.
Although, last time I conscripted her boss, a personal friend of mine, but still, her boss. She wasn't too happy.
Romance isn't dead. Not by a long shot.
I've noticed the blog links you've been adding, and I have been following a few.
I used to write these things back in high school for money or to be left alone by bullies. This one guy in class made a bet with me once: if this girl falls for him (girl was 3 years older than him)by the influence of my letters, I get paid heaps.
I won that bet. But it never felt like a victory.
T-Shirt...I read the Flaubert's claim not as an assertion of his prowess but as a glimpse into his frailty. It was Louise Colet who he loved deeply enough to reveal this vulnerability. To put into words the complicated transfer of emotions and sensations that we have when we are in love. I read his statement as saying "I want you to feel from me that which I feel from you." And I love his tone in saying it. His love has made him super human.
Now, at the risk of jinxing it, I will reveal that I am being woo'd by a master of belles-lettres. A deeply passionate Russian belletrist at that. When he expressed a desire to kiss the fingertips that write the words he finds in his inbox, I new I was in for entirely different experience.
Your timing, dear Wombat, is as impeccable as ever. I refuse to believe that the art and craft of writing love letters, much like the love affair itself, have fallen to a bygone era.
We can learn a thing or two from these old letters. Nowadays, it's more like 'I wanna fill your hole!'
And what about you Wombat... have you penned such letters?
WTF, W?
R U saying U h8 txting?
;-(
This is a phenomenal blog, and right up my alley.
Glad to know of it's existence, along with a complete circle of bloggers I've never met. Funny how a small world gets a little larger every day!
Excellent post--I especially liked the czarina's letter, as well as Napoleon's.
And thank you for the link, very cool of you.
--Eric1313
bum poet
You may say as much or as little as you like...um...silent one.
How sweet that you have old b/f's in writing and song. I want to know if he named the tune after you...like Layla (Eric Clapton) or Angie (Mick Jagger) or 867 5309 Jenny (Rick Springfield I think). Although the last one is a bit suss.
T-Shirt, I think you'd be more receptive if you put on some Edith Piaf tunes and wrapped an Hermes scarf around your shoulders. That might increase the Flaubert smoulder factor a little.
Girl, now I have Byron on the mind too. Which is a good thing, of course.
Funny how one piece of paper with some heartfelt words can mean more than all the riches in the world.
Belongum, I always learn so much when you're around. Life aboard a Navy ship has taken on a new twist for me now. The whole community becomes lovelorn, as if it is a single entity, with one heart, if you'll forgive the pun. Amazing.
Isolation from loved ones is almost physically painful, and you describe it poetically.
Great stuff.
You should maintain your own blog!
*laughing*
You and me both, DJ. Bloody email killed the whole business. Or maybe not...
Flowers, Reno, you smoothy. Very good, and the well-timed follow-up is super-smart thinking. I should be taking tips from you, my friend.
Thanks for checking out the other blogs, I would like to think we bloggers can cross-pollinate more than we do. That was my thinking, anyway. It's easy to get stuck.
IP, you surprise me yet again. You were the go-to guy for love letters? That's so cool. AND you were good at it. That's some victory, isn't it?
Glam, such is the beauty of language that we can all interpret the same paragraph different ways. I see that Flaubert wants to measure up to what he thinks are Louise's high standards; he wants her to remember him as the apex of her love life.
Hey, it's impressive whichever way it's viewed.
As for you being the object of desire, he's one lucky man, and you're one lucky dame.
This is priceless...When he expressed a desire to kiss the fingertips that write the words he finds in his inbox, I new I was in for entirely different experience.
No joke! And it used to be the norm.
VI, that is precisely my point. And you, as always, sum it up impeccably.
Now that's a question to which I can answer yes, EO. However, I am sad to say that very few such missives were created by these hands, something I hope to remedy in the future.
Ha ha Kat, very amusing.
Yes! I hate that crud. Awful. Just awful.
Hey Eric, nice to make your acquaintance. Make yourself at home, and I'm glad you stopped by. This is exactly the reason I started linking folks who were blogging about similar topics, so we can find new friends.
Awesome.
I had a song written about me once, it was mark hunter from Dragon, and the song was "Are You Old Enough?"
*coughs embarrassingly*
Yes - well... too right Wombat! Problem is mate - you and your readers get me thinking... lol
;-)
Kitsune that was written about you?
Not that I don't believe you: I do. It's just that was such an iconic song. Is an iconic song.
Dragon.
Are You Old Enough. Countdown. Marc Hunter. Oh Lord.
Well that's the best thing about blogworld, Belongum, the thinking then the writing it down biz.
But I hardly need tell you that, eh?
Whatever you do, don't stop.
yes it was, but he didnt ask are you old enough to date,he asked are you old enough for something else.
Yessir, song was named after me. And the chorus was my name being sung (screeched) repeatedly. It still brings me to tears when I listen to it today. For romantic reasons of course. He got the place of my birth wrong (which was a key point to the song for some reason) but I call it creative license and all good.
I still chat with him, as well as several other old boyfriends at least once a year - just on friend basis. They check in to see how I'm doing. Come to think of it, it's exactly the same ones that were romantic enough to send me love letters and love emails when we dated. Hmmmmm.... I never made that connection before.
what a lovely post, sugar! i'm smiling and remembering all the letters i used to have, but lost over the years...
I have just watched it on YouTube, Hummer. 1978 was the year, and oh boy, does it look a long time ago.
Still blown away that you have a song...and a HIT song...written about you.
And the words are>>>
Are you old enough for love?
Hmmmmm, interesting.
Can I post the video here and announce to the world?
*laughing*
Well Hello, Savannah. I hope I have rekindled fond memories of those letters. And the authors.
PS Hummer is NOT who the song was written about,she would probably have not been born then, let alone old enough to bonk, and I forgot "it was are you old enough for love", it was a long time ago.
You can post the U-Tube, but he WAS married at the time.
Not for me, dude. The victor is the one who gets the girl, regardless of what you've accomplished.
Just look at my one of my favorite literary characters: Cyrano de Bergerac.
...I remember the nights that I have woken beside you and just watched you sleep that contented sleep of someone in love. My heart would stop every time you breathed. I could watch you forever.
I miss your touch. I miss the feel of your skin, the softness of your hair, the sparkle in your eyes, the smoothness of your body and the warmth of your heart.
I see you every day…in every crowd, on every bus, in every store. You are constantly on my mind and in my heart.
I am nothing without you and each day that I wake without you will be hollow until I can once again take you in my arms and kiss you.
I love you….
Always have…
Always will…
...this was one, in a great many, that I penned my ex wife while we both posted to different cities whilst in the military...but it is countered by this, as it appears in my blog margin:
My body aches for her and what we had - her touch, the light in her hair, the feel of her breath on my cheek, the sparkle in her eyes. Now I see a different person than the one I fell in love with – there is no touch, her light has been extinguished, I shall never again feel her skin or breath and the sparkle has been replaced by tepid pools of torment
This is where we disagree, IP.
Getting the girl is always secondary to doing the right thing.
Girls will always be there. The moment in which we can to do the right thing will be lost forever unless we act correctly.
We will forget the girl.
The lost moment will never forget us.
Scorps, therein the perfect sequel to my comment back to IP, above.
There are more important and lasting things in life than the love of a women. It just never seems so at the time.
As men, it is our job to know this.
But I hardly need tell you that.
"There are more important and lasting things in life than the love of a women. It just never seems so at the time.
As men, it is our job to know this.'
Re- Wombat "These two things ,as contradictory as they may seem, must go together,-manly dependance and manly independance, manly reliance and manly self-reliance"
Enigma, how wonderful to know someone remembers. Smile.
In IP's circumstance, I maintain that getting the girl was of minor importance in his life. It is still true, however, that to live a full life in this world, being with the right woman is important too.
Doing the right thing will always have primacy. Such prioritization will ensure we find the right woman.
That's the way I see it.
Like attracts like, and when the search for a partner becomes secondary to living a fullfiled life, thats when the right person usually comes along.
But you know Wombat, in my experiance its a very rare man that can be with a woman who doesnt expect him to fullfil her, a woman that has her own character, life, interests and passions outside of the relationship,one who is actively working to make a change in the world, who also doesnt expect to get her identity from the relationship, and for him NOT to feel threatened by her on some primordial level,or try and supress her in some way.
Like attracts like, and when the search for a partner becomes secondary to living a fullfiled life, thats when the right person usually comes along.
If only people understood and acted upon this, Enigma! How many problems, how many disappointments, how many sadnesses avoided.
I understand and agree with your assertion about men. Which is why I would like to help men understand this about themselves. We place way too much emphasis on our relationships with women, leading to the behaviour you describe.
We are the masters of our own downfall.
I dont know if its so much men putting to much emphasis on their relationships with women, as them unconcoiusly expecting a woman to be that way, and when shes not, feeling threatened.
I suspect there are many reasons for this problem, Enigma.
Women, too, must share some of the blame. There are too many gals out there who look upon men as hairy women. This is a mistake that leads to bad communication, too.
...I'll try this. Only once. If it fails, I put my pen away again for another decade.
No, don't do that, IP! I need you around here, bloke to bloke.
nice post, quick correction - Flaubert was never married...Louise Colet was married to some other Mr. Colet, and Gustave was one of a number of other lovers... I wonder if that changes how you see feel about the letter?
Why thank you anon, I should have checked that.
I guess it doesn't change the passion evident in the letter, but does change my view of it, yes.
I know it sounds selfish but you have no idea how happy I am to hear that someone else has dating issues too. Also has anyone found any decent single sites out there? I have been looking for activities that don’t cost an arm and a leg? I have been searching the web and I’ve been on several sites looking for local events. The only one I was able to find is http://www.singlesinmotion.com does anyone know of any other?
These are all great Love Letters, thanks for compiling and sharing them!
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a letter here for you :) ?
Letter to Shel, "Last departure" May 13, 2008 Summerside, PE
Hogglette,
I was quite sad when you left tonight, for both of us-and I know I should be joyful in your joy, so I was selfish. Maybe Enya doesn't help. Joey doesn't like it when I have listened to her after you were gone as I always cried. Not that those are always tears of pure sadness. Thank you for the CD's.
After all, we cannot help who we are, good and bad. I should be happiest at your joy of a special summer. Anything else is selfish on my part, so I apologize. You see the world as a ball with bumps, I see a billion dimensions of it. A broken heart makes God cry. An artist feels much more and differently than others. That is what has been wrong with me all along.
I know you feel everything I do but show it otherwise. Thats ok. I had in mind a note I was going to write to you today, as you left, a paper note for you to read there. Then I thought the better of it. I think, as someone very close to me said , that all that can be said between us is said. The rest, if we are lucky, will be in side glances on slight smiles when we see each other. Maybe that is more merciful.
Part of it was about time. Some say time is that ravishing angel that devours us on our course in life. A fine fellow said he disagreed, that time was an eternal friend that went along with us. I guess we will find out which is our truth.
All for most, I am sure in my life, that I have valued every second with you, especially the ones I ignored-now that all 17 years are bright and clear in my mind. On that flight to my demise on March 4, 2004 when I pecked your cheek at sky harbour and was dreaming of a new cheap place by my ancestral fishing spot and a new Army contracting business, my thoughts were separate from you. Far separate. Then when they locked me up, which for years I was actually prepared, I became defensive. My only world were your calls and letters, I was desparate to instruct as to how to preserve our material lives almost down to the last nut and bolt.
Then the day came in there that you told me of your plans. I realized that they had been long held by you and that changed my life. For the first time I really felt alone.
I would trusted my life to you, and you alone..forever.That is the April 17, that day I speak of. I am now very glad you waited to tell me you were leaving me until then. The delay perhaps saved my life there. I was able to go on with the hope of seeing you someday, if God allowed, and most importantly, that you were safe.
Time passed, and over our many calls I was released and went to Rhonda's. She gave me her car, a bit regretful it seemed. Sometimes I really think she had hoped I would love her as I have loved you.Sadly,I think any love the children deeply had for her vanished with my imprisonment. Especially Alexis.
But you told me not to come to the Island. I drove all the way to Boston and called. I was so overcome to hear your voice from that payphone just south of the New Hampshire border, a place so many of our trips here evolved from after a long flight from Phoenix.
But I honoured your request, and headed south again. I was weeping. You would never meet the guy who went freshly through that, and I wanted you to see me. Fit and sober from hard labor, and tough Baptist preachers, I was a good catch!
The trip back I decided to visit my GG-X-Grandfathers grave in Wurtsboro, NY. Its on the Hudson River far above New York City in the Upper Hudson Valley. I went to his grandson's house, built around 1730. It was a big stone mansion not unlike my farm of youth. It was a historical soceity and library. As I looked in the ledgers of the family businesses, many in animal skin, I saw names I knew from my mother and the pages of American history. He was the first anglo settler on the Hudson river. It reminded me of "Last of the Mohicans", and perhaps for good reason. You know the story of his daughter Elizabeth, My G-X- Grandmother.I will not soon forget that short roadtrip, without you.
So the first trip to see you was of a different sort than I had planned.
Later in Yuma , I was lost without you. It was real confusion. I asked God in Portland, Oregon with a bunch of military types what to do. I almost went to the hospital. My message was run home. I left all behind and drove as far as I could.I called and you still didn't want me come to the island.I had prayed so hard to be reunited I almost died.
I languished, sick at Rhondas for almost a year. I lost 10 pounds one month. The doctor said "Great". I was in extreme pain over you. At times I really thought death would come and I would be released from it. I remembered I still had kids, I barely knew, that may need me when their usefulness to their mother waned.
Finally you said come up as a room mate. I waited months, but then R sent me packing (barely escaping jail again) and I arrived here February 3, 2006, after two days at the Towanda motel.That was two years, three months, and fifteen days ago. The trip included a stop at our Wyalusing overlook. Your initial's, "MRM" still barely visible enscribed on the gazebo walls with my children's, made from our trips to the river of my childhood a year or two before.
I was lovesick here too, filthy and disgusting. In pain I missed a beautiful summer on the island in self-torment, suffering for my years of iniquity. That summer of 2006.
I left again to help John Gus start a business which was good only in the fact that I saw the kids that year and we had some very meaninful time. Then I appeared again here. I remain after many abortive attempts to remove me. Frankly, my Shel, I really don't believe the facts of your current situation are truthful. I think there are lies within lies. I really don't care. You will have to answer to higher authorities, not ever to me.
I am glad you are safe and happy in whatever truth you have. I just hope you can live with yourself. I know how bad I have been to my family (that means you too, my kids, sister, and R). I have tried to make up for it, but I am still me, flaws and all-so are you. The shell that houses our soul is not us. Its a blessing or burden, both, take your pick.
You are safe and we help each other. I think I feel a big change coming. I have seen it in the prophesy of my dreams. Of course I will love you always. There is no spiritual question that we were arranged to be together. If we mess with that, then its our burden. I am glad you are happy and safe. If I go away, I am there always. In your heart.
I shall always carry your heart in my heart.
Also, there are no finer men than than the man I will be, or have been, when at my best, for you when your heart cries out......Nor are there better companions for me than you, even when you are at your worst.Love.The only real kind.
Sorry for the weaknesses.I hope I have shown my love in the sacrifices I have made. I am proud of my love for you in a pure way.Its my best, all I can do. You say I never say "thank you". Well maybe I save it for the last. Thank you for the best 17 years of my life and making an otherwise cold and unfriendly world for a man like me a place I hold warm and dear.
with all my love,
Hi hogg,
You said we probably wouldn’t be able to talk on the phone. I guess I will have to wait for your visit, unless you will allow me to go to Borden with you after work for coffee-maybe?
Remember when I got home from PA and you came in -and you ignored me-but you sent a very sweet apology. I was pretty hurt as I never got to tell you about the trip-a trip that so many helped me to do-you most of all.
You know when I was there poor son was a nervous wreck. The fact his mother barred me from graduation was the last straw. Today he told me he wants to live me-but it has to be in PA as he will start college next month.
Alexis does too. You know, I couldn't wait to get home-I mean back here-I was joyful with tears crossing the bridge-yes, I missed you a lot as we didn't talk on the trip which is rare for us-I am so used to talking to you several times a day on all those trips-so I guess I am lonely for you. Sure-I have tried to "be with" other women.
Its just never quite right or the same. They are not my soul mate. You are. But I digress. I really wanted to tell you about that trip-it was really a disappointed-I barely got back, my sister threw me out, and son gave me 200 bucks for gas and a motel.
It was not the experience I really wanted. We did make it to Westline and I really wanted to call you from "the phone". But time was short-I had a pizza coupon and Joey, Alexis and I, along with her sweet best friend Katy ate at pizza hut.
I couldn't wait to leave. Alexis kissed my head, and we had a long tearful embrace. These kids need me-and with you busy and I guess not accepting my proposal, maybe I should bag this and just be a man for once and go back and deal with it. I am now afraid this Alberta job will come thru. I am supposed to do a potential three-city tour the last week of august. They are talking big bucks and maybe a significant cash sign on bonus. How do I not take that. This is my issue. Away from the kids again in the arctic -yes to help you all and get the medical care we both know I need (I mean mental too-i have serious PTSD) If you went with me it be seem ok-even just as a roomie to help me start a new life. My proposal was/is that I just keep this place and you and I live together out west this winter-then you come home-and I make a decision to stay or go back. I can prob save 75K in 6 months and get a small place in PA and start a computer business idea I have that is EXCELLENT. I want to tell you about that too. My wife, I can accept that you don't love me as a wife anymore. But I can't accept your hating me-I really want to spend enough time with you so I can make it all right that is the chance I am waiting for. That was the proposal.
I think if I am working again, I will get better especially if you help. That’s a lot to ask, but its an open offer. I just can't accept that I abandoned my family and made the sacrifices I did for it to end without us staying best friends. Of course, I would like more. But even the genie couldn't grant the wish to make someone love you. lol
A lot of people say I am totally mad to care about you so much. I have extreme guilt over all the years away from the kids-especially alexis. I would love it if you were in her life too.
My son also has feelings for you and I hope u will talk to him someday. So my second point is maybe I should just leave. I can get a job back with the state. It seems demeaning, but should I do that for the kids and deal with all the issues there.
I feel like such a coward. I was fearless with you at my side-now I am soft and hollow-almost an empty shell. You said I was like a ship with no rudder. that’s right-you were my rudder. Do you see why I am so upset-its all in me. You have to live your life.
I think I gave you a fine start. But so much was sacrificed. I have huge guilt. I really think counseling will help me. I plan on starting as soon as I am where I will be.
Hogglette, I find solace in my memories-our places, Mexican food-our pool-the long hours of cuddling. I just can't imagine that with anyone else-its a lie and unfair.
Remember when Wyatt Earp told Josey that he loved a girl and she died, and he could never love like that again-but he was married to Josey for 40 years. That is a brave man to be able to do that. I have a very hard time with that movie-I see my life in that. The drinking, loss, violence-he suffered and recovered.
Maybe I will too. And I have found myself losing my faith. Incredible for me. In one week that Vancouver deal fell thru, and I feel like I lost you all over again. It all seemed right-you stayed over, took the truck-we were getting along. Then it all collapsed.
I was sure I would get the job as I always have, and you might even come along-you said you considered it. My heart was full of joy-showing you off, pacific sushi, and a seaside condo. I was crushed after it was all illusion.
So as always I lashed out, at you-everyone. That must never happen again. You have no reason to trust in me or really honour me at all. I really tried to change, but with all that loss at once, I lost control again. Of course, now I hate myself and am going thru the self-pity thing. Maybe you can help me with these decisions. Maybe I can help you too get a better more stable situation here. I hate worrying about you. Probably way too much. I don't want to draw my last breath thinking you hate me. Nor do I want to leave my kids any longer at the mercy of r and her thug of a man. Do you understand? If I knew we could maintain some kind of rapport-see each other sometimes, it would really help. Please consider these thoughts. "This was on my mind" "I hope you will understand this explanation and accept this apology" lol Who said that? lol I know you may not get this for a while-but I needed to tell you-we used to spend so much time just chatting...now we never do..
I know you are busy and admire your hard work. We had such a good life. I still think you should finish schoolwork on your writing over the winter with me out west. You will want for nothing. I promise. If no, and no, perhaps I should just face the music in PA. Maybe that is the manly thing to do.
I don't want to make the decision without your input. You see why I was mad. I need to resolve this, or I am going to die. I feel it tearing me apart. Thanks for reading this, and maybe we can have coffee-I would really like to see you next week or sooner, before the interview-if it happens.
Thanks Shel. By the way I never had the money for the car work-just credit and I don't think he takes that. Its only a few hundred bucks and I need it to travel for interviews-really. Remember always my home is your home. My heart is also yours, should you want any part of it. I am afraid it will like that until time ends. It truly seems unfair.
I wrote a poem about lost love. how God and all creation cries a tear when real love is lost. John said I was too sentimental and lived life in a romantic haze. So be it. At least I know what love is. I think few people really do. I read your journals and was very moved. I was sure wrong when I said you didn't love me. Add that to my long list of flaws and mistakes.
Taking you for granted in any way, ever-is the single biggest mistake in my life. I have surely suffered for that, and have to find a way home to my faith and love of life.
Hogg
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ooooo
OOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOO!!!!!
Michelle Rene Sexton,
Well that was pleasant. I hope you had a good weekend-I did. You will get your money, since that is all you care about. You sound bitter and mean and that is not the Shel I like. How are you doing on the divorce papers? Did you read the booklet? Why did you take my divorce papers.
If I don't hear from you, I will have to serve you at the only address I have. I am not joking.
Do you know of the "magic mirror" concept? When people are angry at themselves often they start seeing the things they hate in themselves in the people close to them. I know I am not perfect, but at the base I am a good man.
I am a very flawed person too-I can admit my failures -can you? You have been acting this way since you started your new job-I think something is wrong beyond the issue of a few bucks.
If, after 18 years with me across a universe of great experiences all you can do is malign me, turn me into a monster to get attention and help from your friends, and complain about money-I am finally seeing the real Shel?
In fact I am not that different than the hard working loving great provider I was when you praised me in your journals. I gave up my family and to some extent my wealth for you. I ended my career to follow you to this rock and try to be chivilrous and save our marriage-I thought it was worth it and I am proud of my efforts. Most that hear the real story consider me a hero and a romantic.
Yes, I drank, dressed up, and toted guns. I flirted. You hated my work with the military. It was a rough time for both of us.
I was wrong. But the real reasons for your thefts and deception have little to do with that. Your disloyalty is a character flaw-when you weren't getting what you wanted, and I said NO-you pouted and stole my life to get what you wanted, and also tried to destroy me.
What is taken wrongly will be returned. You will see, and I am very sorry for that, but I can't stop it now as you are too far down the shaft.
Remember long ago Rhonda asked you to team up with her, collaborate on proving my adultery with you so she could get the business and all my wealth, and give you a cut? Rhonda wanted me homeless and on a park bench. You have now helped her, but don't know it.
You are both unsuccessful people. And you both blame me, although I am the only person who was ever there for either of you.Yes, I am still on vacation and now even you, are approaching a sea of pain, where maybe you will both swim together.
No you two are not, nor ever will be, me. It is you who have changed. The ugliness of this world has corrupted your heart. I tried to protect you from that, but, like most guardians and parents, I have failed.
I am not the cause of all of your troubles. You are only on this island AT ALL due to my good graces and hard work over a 25 year career., but you forget that. Your troubles are from an abusive childhood, a wanton inattentive mother, and an absent father. Think about that, and try to think in a new way. I am sorry you are not me-a carefree genius with time to kill and a secure hard-earned income, great parents, and a great education- and a big heart. Our 16 year age difference, once the spice of our marriage, now forms a spiritual and intellectual gulf between us.
I tried to correct all that, but you have returned to the person I tried to repair, in some ways, long ago. You don't have to "use anybody, anytime".
Understand your looks and vanity will not get you what you want. I was an execption to that rule. In fact it was your now lost innocence and youth I loved, charming simplicity and virginity, not your looks at all, why I fell in love with you.
I cannot be replaced-in fact, you will never even come close. You continue to deceive yourself. This is clear in your chain of failed, sex-based "relationships".
Providing sex in return for what you want materially or any other nefarious reason is prostitution. Do you think anyone worth knowing would find that appealing?-and all weak men see it right away, hide it, and walk after enough lust is satisfied.
Think of all the men you have slept with, gotten STD's, and each one almost without fail was "Mr. Right" you told me and you were trying to or going to marry them-or did you forget about that. How many since Robert have you infected? Something is seriously wrong, and that is why I protected you.
I am the only person, along with Aunt's Shirley and Karen, and maybe my son who ever gave a damn about you-and you know it. You can't use your sexual prowess to catch and retain a GOOD MAN. Period. If that is all you have and some looks you are as empty as the cold void of space. Fix that now. In fact you think I am weak in my care for you, even after the wall of pain you rained down upon me-I was still there. You can't see real Love as you never saw it as a child, have never seen it, and are now ice cold, calculating, and self-involved.
What you see in me is love, and it scares you, as you yourself and your family overall are incapable of it. You can't love unless you were loved as a child-period. But maybe you will see in 20 years how right and true I am.
What you call "love" is always conditional. Conditional on what you get and want from "it". Can you love unconditionally? Who loves you that way, who would die for you?-be honest.
Yes, I am being stern with you as you have been with me on my issues. I thank you for that.
You should go home, get an education, get vested in the american benefit system. Then get your passport and return here with a full portfolio. That is my advice to you. If you don't follow it, you do so at your own peril. Marcy would help you, and maybe get you a deal at the college in Greeley. A few years off island so that you can get it together is better than the apparent pain you are in now suffering-trust me I know about these things.
I want my friend back-the one I can joke with and talk of good times and travel, and maybe have a good meal with. I want to send you postcards of my travels, and always be there in case of need.
If the Shel I love is lost is some sea of hostility-to the only real family you have ever had-me-then, I don't want anything to do with you. Maybe you need to let go.
Come home (in your heart) to being that sweet girl I love, or go away. And, I want a heartfelt apology for all of your lies, calculations, thefts, and well-planned evils.
A quote for you:
"When a man is looking into the pit, and about fall in, he sees his character. And that is what keeps him (or her) out of the pit"
Lou Manheim
Game over-I win.
October 30, 2008 Summerside, PE "Scrabble Box Letter"
(Placed in Shel's journal box as she was packed and moving her stuff out to Char'town Oct 2008)
Hi Shel,
It will probably be a long time before you see this note. Placed in the scrabble game that was part of the beginning of our romance. Now tired on your part, sad old love as are the dying fall leaves now on our island's proud maples.. This game takes me right back to my "men's room" at the chimney house in Lisburn, PA in 1992 when our romantic journey together was first suggested, and started, in-fact-heart.
I had fallen in love with you that year before, at the Cuckoo's Nest restaurant in Olney, MD when you became my son's nanny-he loved you too. The innocence, the golden hair, the open heart.
What a journey! The best years of my life beyond my childhood dream at our Bucks County farm were spent with you or in the pursuit of you, post HTS. At our loving home in Arizona and even after my fall and your decision to leave me and come here to PEI. Without you I have felt lost, as you said "a ship without a rudder".This was and is true. I had not known you were my rudder, and anchor on the storm swept seas of my life. Maybe our gulf of age caught up to us, as I grey now and you blossom as a passionate mature 36 year old beauty.
Then I just walked away from everything to come to you-to try and save the preciousness. Even at this very late hour when life and breath fail, I still hope that you may know now too that we were meant to be together-always. But I can go on to what awaits cheerfully in the thought of you-always able to go home in my mind to our snuggling, loveplay, beefing, tender nibbles-our weekends in Alpine, Prescott, or Point Loma.
Perhaps this fairwell that you may never read, may carry my message of love for you into the future, as I hope my blogs , diaries, and letters will. Hlette, I will never love like this again. But I go on.Your heart held in my heart. My love of a lifetime. Our song. Please love my memory in a private moment for always. Love is for always my mother said. I shall see you after we part from this world.
your husband
JM
you can find a love letter for every week the last 20 weeks on my blog.
Love letters will remain a most pleasant and romantic way to saying how we feel. There are still creative ways to sending a love letter. http://www.yoursinlove.com. Love letters are a beautiful expression of love yet inexpensive.
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