A thank you note

I remember that last day at the Inner Harbor, when you told me 'This is how I will remember you'.

It was raining, a drenching soaking misting rain and through it fell rays of sunlight.  I wanted to answer your question, the one behind that comment but as I tilted my face up from under my baby blue cloche hat and smiled at your dark eyes, I couldn't.

Instead I reached up to let my fingers glance down the side of your face, fluttering as they fell and I looked away to the ocean. After a moment I turned back to you, all my thoughts tripping over themselves, my breath heavier than a humming bird's wings; yet still I froze. You watched and smiled reassuringly at my silence until I laughed a little.  So we said nothing more and I let you take my hand as we walked on.

Later, weeks later, I remember your voice.   I was sitting on the floor, my knees pulled in, clutching my phone with white knuckles as I heard the break in the connection, the break in your voice, "Come back- come back to me" and still I didn't have the words to tell you I could not, and why I could not.

Years have passed and that moment still exhales as if it just inhaled.  I wanted to write to you when I wound up out on the west side of the states.  I wanted to tell you about the day I met my sweetheart.  I wanted to call when we were engaged.  I really wanted to tell you about the day I decided to stop being afraid and instead love to fly.

I didn't. 

I didn't because I still did not know what to say.  But I know what I want to say now. The words came unexpectedly, while I was alone on a white mountain in a bright blue day.  They came with an easy understanding that reminds me of looking into clear water. 

I don’t want to interrupt the place I am in and the place you have doubtlessly moved on to.  I do not want to betray our strange and delicate friendship found during such a chaotic time in our lives. But I am going to write all of these badly belated words here because they are a tribute to your gift to me at a time I needed it most.

Regardless if it was because of how I was wired, how society had trained me or the experiences I’d had;  At that time my personal doubts were so all encompassing I could not see anything but them.  I needed a mirror to show me what was above and below; what was inside and outside and this mirror was to be you.  You were my first mirror and when I saw myself as you saw me; everything changed. 

You were the first person I believed who believed in me.  You were intelligent, successful, kind and good looking.  You were in a position of authority and inappropriately and significantly older than me.  You asked nothing from me (except to sometimes hold my hand).  You called me eclectic and beautiful and you told me I could Do Anything I put my mind to.  And because of how I saw you, I believed you.

Over the months, you began to love me, not just the attracted-to-you kind, but the real kind.   I knew you would shield me from the world; you would have showered me with excessive kindness and indulgence.  You would have given me anything I wanted, anything at all. 

I had began to understand the value of the gift you had given me and I began to know there was only one gift I could give back to you.  And that was to leave.

It was your character that made you kind and intelligent; it was your experiences that had taught you patience and given you your insight; Your successes were achieved after persistent attempts made over years and continued after failures.

I was young and I knew I knew very little.  I, wild and thin, I lived on coffee, cigarettes and spontaneous choices.  You had a community, you had businesses, friends, family – you had built a life I should not be a part of.  

Looking at you, I too wanted to gain character to make me kinder and intelligent.  I wanted experiences to teach me patience and to give me insight into myself and the world I live in.  I wanted to learn persistence, perseverance and gain my own success.  I wanted to find a place and choose to call it home.  I wanted to find a man I could grow to belong with and be equal to.

When I look back, now that I am also in my mid-thirties, maybe you only saw my youth, my femininity and vulnerability.  Maybe I made you feel young; Maybe you just wanted to help the broken unhappy girl.

But perhaps you saw my possibility.

Dear friend, here is an update.  While I am still not an ambitious person when it comes to a ‘proper’ career, I am competent and independent.  I paint, and sell my work.  I write and post my scribbles here online and sometimes people from all over the world read and re-read my work.  When you knew me I had never belonged anywhere, and today I have lived in one place with one person for more than ten years. 

I love a man who is everything a man should be and more And he loves me back  We argue, we squabble, we laugh and take care of each other. Because of him I have battled my way to becoming a half decent skier.  I was terrified of water and I learned to scuba dive and make myself swim in the ocean.  I am scared witless by heights, yet I love my paraglider.  I have overcome my social anxieties and I capably manage my dyslexia and naturally scattered self.    

I have taken what you gave to me, what I saw in you and made it my own. Thank you for being my first mirror.