From Sam to Lexi

The Last Letter

May, the 9th

Dear Lexi,

It’s been a while and I’m a quite proud to say that this will be the last letter I’ll ever write you. Not that it’s a really good thing, but, you know what I mean. Today it’s also a remarkable day; a year ago from today was the day you- left me, so I think there’s a hint of sense in writing this today.

As it’s been around three months since my last letter, a lot has happened.

Buddy is now fully grown now; he runs a lot faster than me, but also eats a lot more. He’s not as furry as he was as a baby, so he doesn’t warm me up much on the chilly nights, but he always sleeps at my feet on the bed, which is becoming a little uncomfortable with him being big as he is now.

Well, I suppose you’re expecting me to talk about Judy, right? I guess I can say we have- made progress throughout the past three months. After turning her down on Valentine’s Day I decided to put my pride aside and man up; I eventually asked her out on a dinner, to see- you know- if there was spark. I feel like I hadn’t given her much of a chance before, but maybe it was because I was so focused on being this sad and lonely figure, that the thoughts of ending this pain kind of freaked me out a little bit. But I eventually came to the conclusion that this was life opening a door for me, and that I had to walk through it and stop being an idiot like I always end up being.

And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all seas and roses, it was hard to truly find a connection with Judy, because my subconscious kept trying to compare everything she did, every move she made, to yours and wondering if you wouldn’t do it better. It’s quite hard to normally move on, but it’s even harder when you know you don’t have a choice. You’re forcing yourself out of something that once was so comforting, and it’s painful to just simply let go.

Anyways, I ended up learning to control my subconscious self by trying to not let the memories of you interfere with my own evaluation on Judy; and once I did, once I relaxed and simply spent a good and fun time with someone else, I was able to breathe. To laugh. To connect.

I focused on the littlest of things she did; she wouldn’t get embarrassed and tell me to choose what to have for dinner, instead she’d grab the menu confidently after me and order her own food for herself. She’d eat slowly, using both fork and knife correctly and she’d never speak with her mouth full, just like a true lady. She wouldn’t speak too fast, but she wouldn’t speak too slow either. She’d laugh at my stupid jokes and man, did she have a great smile.

After that night, we went out again, and that second date turned into a third, and the third into a fourth… Long story short, I think I just overcame the process.

More happy news, just last week I had my appointment with the therapist and he gave me the brilliant news that I no longer need his help. I am healthy and it feels actually pretty good to be back to the old me.

I guess that all this might leave you thinking that I have forgotten about you. That is completely wrong. Even though now I have Judy in my life, I will never be able to forget you. Not that it means that I’ll be thinking about you while I’m with her, but that you were one big important piece in my past and once you where there, part of my life, I won’t ever be able to take you out of it; although you’re in my past, I’ll always carry your memory with me through this very present to the farthest future that is yet to come, even if I don’t think about you all the time.

I won’t ever be able to forget what we had and what we went through- and what tore us apart;

I won’t ever forget that 9th of May, when out of nowhere an argument found its way between us. And I am not lying if I tell you I can’t really remember what started it; it just did. And if its purpose was to make us angry enough to start shooting insults and throw unfortunate issues from the past at each other, then I guess it actually succeeded quite well. I will never forget those words that I angrily threw at you, which I really didn’t mean and didn’t even think about before they were just out of my mouth. And in the end it was their entire fault. The words. If I had just calmed down and thought for a second, you wouldn’t have ripped your earphones from the table, and didn’t plug them in both your cell phone and your ears, so you couldn’t hear me yelling in such an idiotic way.

You wouldn’t have rushed out of the door, desperately trying to get away from me and make your way across the street to your car, parked on the other side; maybe you only wanted to take a ride around the block to calm yourself down before our argument got any more serious, but you didn’t managed to do that. You didn’t get the chance; because as soon as you stepped on the asphalt, a car speeding from down the street didn’t get the chance to stop in time and got you before you could make your way to the car.

I never really stopped believing that it had been my fault; if you didn’t have your earphones in, you’d still be here. And I’ll never really get over with the fact that I could’ve chased you. But I didn’t.

You know people always say that heaven must be a good place to be after you- die. That’s why after a while I started thinking of it as your new home and a reason why you should be happy. I’m sorry if it was hard for you to watch me hitting the bottom down here, but now I’m a lot better.

And look at me; I’ve gone through all these letters without using the L-word as a verb once so far. Truth is, I really loved you; and looking at it, objectively, realistically, I still do. Just in a different way. Once when I used to tell you you were everything to me, I wasn’t just trying to tell you things every woman likes to hear. You were my best friend, girlfriend and lover. So now that two of those won’t obviously work out in any possible way due to the distance, I’ll just remember you as my best friend. I’ll think of you when I feel down or unhappy, or simply when I’m having a bad day. I’ll walk by the train station and remember the day you lent me your umbrella and the feeling I got whenever I looked into your eyes. I guess after all this time I can say I’ve actually found a word to describe that feeling; trust.

After this, I think I have now the courage to visit your earthly home for the first time after I’ve watched you going in there, almost a year ago; I’m going to step into that graveyard and leave you all the nine letters I’ve wrote you for the past six or seven months on your grave, so you’ll hopefully be able to read them.

I hope someday we’ll be able to meet again, somewhere up there, so I can give you a big hug.

Love,

Sam