Once Upon a Daydream

Lieber JP

1,500-word max short story for Letters to My Ex Contest

. 

Lieber JP,

(Dear JP,)

It's been three years since that goodbye at the airport. We always knew there was an expiration date to us and I told myself that I'd be ok with it. I wasn't then, but I am now.

I've been having ghosts of our memories together play from time to time lately. Like an unpredictable nostalgic memory loop, they come and go; some happy, some sad. The first night we met at the brewery tour and spoke on the boardwalk of the river, where you called my denim shorts "hot pants". The snowy trip we took to Chicago for the Christkindlmarkt and I took in a piece of your culture with wide-eyed wonder. The cottage lake trip we took the spring before you left when I cried on your lap in the hot tub at the idea of you leaving and you wiped my tears away soothingly.

I remembered the type of love I thought I wanted before meeting you. To me, love meant an all-encompassing passion, sacrificing myself for the needs and pleasure of my partner. If he didn't demonstrate that to me, or if I didn't demonstrate that to him, it was a failed love. I didn't realize how toxic that was until I met you. I didn't realize how much I shoved myself into a glass box until you freed me.

And the topic of love is such a funny thing. Even though we felt so intensely for each other, we never said those three words during those twelve immersive months. Maybe it was the expiration date, knowing you had to go back, that I was terrified to say something so meaningful to someone so temporary. But I also remember you telling me that you believed those words had to be said sparingly and with full intent. I don't feel bitter about that in any way. In fact, I feel grateful.

Without those words, I had glimpses of those moments, where I could only describe how we felt with some sort of love or affection. They don't mean any less to me without it. To be honest, I can't remember what you said to me or what I said to you. It was like we spoke our own language, beyond the confines of traditional speaking and listening.

I felt it when you strung up holiday lights in your tiny apartment room and we cuddled up to watch "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". I felt it when you leaned in to steal a kiss from me as we waited in line at the amusement park for the dueling coasters, concealed from your friend waiting in the other lane. And I felt it from afar when you called me at 4 AM in the morning back home in Germany, while your mother drove you home after a long night of partying.

Even when you came a year later to visit and my mind swirled with thoughts and ideas of how I could "win you back", I'm glad I never went through with it now. Because what made our relationship so precious to me were those snapshots in time, where everything was perfect and I could feel your heart and mine in sync for even the rarest of moments.

So just like you held me three years ago and wished me the most wonderful love of my life, I wish you another love. Not better or more than ours, but unique, adventurous, and beyond words. I know we both will find it one day.

And even though we aren't each others' anymore, I will end this letter to you like you always end yours to me. Because no matter what we are in each others' lives, I'll be forever yours, in the nostalgic pocket behind your heart. Just as you are in mine.

Deine Michele

(Your Michele)