noahs-letters

[noahs-letters]

Your words scroll through my head like a broken record. It's been so long, but it seems so close. I love you, marry me. How did we miss it? What lost it? Who ran it away?  Honestly, so much time has passed i dont know if we would even work anymore. Ive changed, youve no doubt changed. Im certain that one way or another, our window is likely lost. That, my love, is perhaps the saddest part of our story. Our glimpse into an alternate life, the life of faith we dreamed of, I am afraid it might be lost. 

Does he give you those things? Faithful leadership, sacrificial love, loyalty to a fault, and steadfast devotion? Or is he a placeholder, an accessory? Source of narcissistic supply? What is it? Help me. Let me see. Let me into your world, your life again just long enough to tell my why i was not enough. I will accept it. Just as i have accepted these 11 years, i will accept it. 

Love,

Noah

[noahs-letters]

And the radio plays, faithfully for us.

[noahs-letters]

A Tired Radio...

Songs play in the distance, repeating painfully through a worn radio from the past. They are our songs, the songs my heart flew upon to find you. The music that brought me home. Music surrounded our love, for the briefest of time. Can you hear the music, my treasure? The radio is worn but it still works in the dusty corners of the past and it is playing for us. I hear it, im grateful for its persistence. Do you hear it? Does it ever beckon you? Or was it always just me that heard its tune. What a blessing it was to know this kind of love, and a horrific tragedy to have to watch it evaporate like mist, proving itself merely an apparition the whole time. 

But why, beloved, does the radio still play? Why do i still hear it, when i know you dont? Will the music stop? Will my heart one day respond to it with indifference, relieving me of this torture of faith? Will i forget, and join you in obliviousness? Tell my heart, beloved, that it was all an illusion. Tell him, so he will stop hoping. Tell him, so he will accept that a world of beauty was only within him and never ever real. He will listen to you, because he wont listen to me. “She knows better” he says, ignoring my rebukes. “She sees my steadfast loyalty, and will come home”. I tell him Allie, every day, to be silent, to be apathetic, to cease and desist but he is defiantly in love with you and my efforts have been moot. Please, relieve him, tell him you weren't real, that you did not love him, that he and I were alone that whole time, deluding ourselves and you were never going to come home, EVER. Set him free, not to love again because he cannot, but to finally accept the bitter cold that is this place, instead of his fantasy of a world of warmth with you by our side. Oh,  but you remain silent. Silent. Silent. For years, silence. 

Perhaps in your world and your new life the things i write of never existed. Maybe i dreamed them. Honestly, i dont even know if im sure anymore. But that radio keeps playing, faithful and true, so I'll listen and believe a bit longer, just a while more.

[noahs-letters]

Allie,

Miles and time separate us, im doubtful you remember our time together, the nights we spend staring into the darkness of night, surrounded by its embrace we were together and there was noone else around. For a few hours each week, nobody knew we were together except us, and our love was the only light for miles. We found something on those nights that others search a lifetime for. We truly did, Allie. I will never understand how you could discard it so. 

As i lay awake, almost 12 years have passed and im certain you rarely if ever think of our time and, though it be the worst reality i can imagine, i suspect you have forgotten most of it. If this is so, then it is now a dream that exists only in my mind, and time will eventually take that away as my memory slowly surrenders to its grip. Tell me love, what of our love then? I will keep it alive as long as i can, but when i lose it, will it be gone? The truth is, it will be. Ive carried its torch for 12 years and when it burns out, our love will have never existed. New people and new places will consume the spaces our love once occupied and time will erode its features. None of them will ever know of a young mans hope that once blossomed there, and the countless tears he shed there when those hopes were shattered before his eyes. Will they know the name of the woman his heart yearned for for many years?  Like so many millions before, this love story will be forgotten into history never to be told again. And I, like countless men before me, will see a beautiful young woman in my heart as i age until my final breath takes that last piece of her away from me.

Allie, why is this the story im telling? Why couldn't you have been brave? Taken that leap of faith, believed me that i would have been right there to catch you. I  would have, my beloved i would have! 

I will write again soon, as i always do. Please find home, i wanted to be your home but im not so please find it. I will never be home. I am a middle aged man now, i am forgotten. Loving you is all the home i have, and i do it totally alone. 

Goodnight Allie.

Noah

[noahs-letters]

Allie,

Time drags on and I hate to say i think of you less. Not that i think of others, just less of you these days. Why you may ask? Another year has almost passed and i have realized that you were a phantom dreamed up somewhere between your brain and my heart. The love, the beauty, the hope, it was all in my head and never real. Falling asleep with such excitement of our coming future was an experience i had alone, meanwhile the reality was you were never going to be with me. You never wanted to be with me. I was a distraction that got out of hand. 

I used to believe in “meant to be”. I told you that “if anyone asked me who my soulmate was, i could take them to her front door”. It was you, my love. You were the one time that every other woman alive disappeared and all i could see was you. None were prettier, none were a better catch, than you. Christmas that year was the last time i ever remembered it being so bright and feeling excited for the holidays. I never have since. My heart is broken permanently. It is lost somewhere i cant go. I pray the Lord will restore it to me, maybe not in this life, but perhaps when i am with Him my heart can be mine again, never again to be lost to anyone like you, only to Him where it will be eternally safe.

I was so sure of us, Allie. How could i have been so mislead? I feel like a fool. Yet as much as i want to, i cant undo what was done. I cant take my heart back from you, or from wherever you abandoned it. You have the answers, but with steadfast cruelty you withhold them from me. I love you, and, if nothing else i just need to hear you tell me you never loved me and we were a mistake in your eyes. Nothing more would be lost, but i would know that i really did gamble everything and lose. That i shouldn't wait anymore for you. I lost on what you promised was a sure bet. 

[noahs-letters]

[noahs-letters]

Dear Allie, 

In the place that i am i hear the drone of a lonely piano in the distance. It is a place we frequented, well at least as much as we could have in our brief courtship. I look around this place and i realize i am the only person around me who cares about a first kiss that happened here, the only person who cares. Not far from here is a bench we sat at one time before enjoying a meal. I too am the only one who remembers it. I fear that one day this place will cease to exist because these places are remnants of a world the younger generation doesnt want. But we loved here, so it will always echo our voice and small places within will be warmed by our love long after we are gone. I remember you here and i come here often to remember, to feel you again even if its only when i close my eyes in this place. I am able to again see a life i dreamed of with you, one that we will never have. It still surprises me to think that its been 10 years. Even now i love you the same, miss you the same, although i do it all alone.

Goodnight Allie,

Noah

[noahs-letters]

Near, Far, Im Here

Allie,

Tonight i write to you, and i recall so many words written before. Where did they go? Did they ever find you, are they still in your heart? Am i writing to nothing, am i sending my love out into a world where it is never recognized. Did i dream it all? In all truth, my love, in many ways i did. You see, i loved you alone and without you. My love enveloped you and spread into every nook and cranny of my world while in yours, nothing changed. I still struggle to believe that i could possibly have experienced something so grand and beautiful while another person is so close to me, and for them to be untouched by it. The love of my heart, it seems, was to be poured out into the ground only to be lost forever. Why the love of some are received by those they offer it to and for others it is discarded, is a lifelong mystery. You my love possess this answer, i wish you could give it to me.

The fact is that as years have come and gone, the questions only multiply. Love is not what i thought it was. Like a mirage in the desert, it eludes me as the further away you are the further away it is from me. Loving you from afar is something i have accepted as inevitable, for my heart will not allow any other state of being. I know, my love, that i will one day go to my grave having never shared this with anyone again and likely never having seen you again. Tragic as this is, it appears that this will be the reality. 

I do hope you might change this truth, as you are the only one who can, but i do not expect that you will. In the mean time i will love you, as i always have.

Goodnight my love

Noah

[noahs-letters]

My Dearest Allie, I know it has been a long time and i said i would not send you any more letters, but this is a special occasion at least for me so i wanted to open up to you once again. Do you remember what today is? I can honestly say i didnt expect this day to look like it does as i believed it would be much more celebratory in nature than it is. In the past, i thought a lot about this day and i believed with such sincerity that it would be day we would mark as a milestone in our lives and a seal of beauty upon our lives. Today, my love, was the day of our reconnection. The night we spoke for what could have been hours in the parking lot. I remember your smile and how you looked at me and those eyes looking back at me that captivated me unlike any before or since. I remember the cool air, i remember the music, i remember the parting ways and the messages the next day that kickstarted what was right for the first time. Today, my love, marks ten years since that night. I struggle to believe it as i wander through the last decade since. I cannot believe it has been that long and that today also marks 4 years since we last communicated which is the longest time since that night. All of these things are very very different than i believed the ten year mark of our reconnection would be. We would have been married 8 years (071013) and together ten. I can say with certainty that marriage to you is the only one i have ever wanted and have accepted singleness now because i never found anyone that could recapture my heart, it was left with you and there it will stay. So i will be a single man ongoing and i have accepted this. I enjoy nature and will be moving out of state to run my business that is doing well and publish the books ive been writing, a sort of early retirement. Of course, the light by the window will always be on for you should you ever return, though i know this is not likely. I think i simply want to say that i am sad. I am deeply saddened that we aren’t together and wont ever be. You made it very clear that you viewed us as a mistake, which was crushing because i never ever saw us that way. Loving you was one of the greatest experiences of my life and i will never be sorry for it. I know that you are wanting it all to just be in the past and thats ok, i don't begrudge you that. I understand and i will always allow it to be. This letter will not be followed by others i promise, i just needed to share with you tonight that i miss you terribly, that there will always be a small piece thats missing, just as there has been every day since you left. So today on this ten year anniversary, please live your life like any other day. But remember me, somewhere in the deep recesses of your mind and remember that my love burns as hot and strong as the day to began 20 years ago. Remember that out there somewhere is a man that will never get tired of your love, your kiss, and that will never surrender his love no matter the circumstance.  I love you dearly Allie, and, should you ever need to share something with me i will always be checking my inbox ready to read your words.  Goodnight, Allie. Loving you always, Noah

[noahs-letters]

Its strange writing you letters you will likely never read. Its been a long time and in two weeks, it will have been 10 years since we re-connected. I cannot believe it still, even though ive written of it in my last few letters.  I remember that night like it just happened. The air was crisp, not cold but cool. It was definitely light jacket weather. Your eyes as you looked into mine were as beautiful as i had ever remembered. I could see home finally approaching.

We spoke a long time in that parking lot, i dont remember how long, but the next day you contacted me. I didnt know it would happen, but it did. The next few months were the best and worst of my life.

The best because i discovered what love was, the worst because it set me on a path i never wanted. You see, the path i was on while lonely, it was assured. I was assured there was noone out there for me. I was assured that being alone was right and good. Once you entered my life i was being offered a meal after many years of becoming accustomed to starving. I took the bait, the meal never materialized, and you were gone forever. The one time you re-entered you were cold as ice, and my heart was forever crushed. 

A decade has not brought me answers, just more perplextion and a decade more of age.  I am finally reconnecting with the man i was the day before November 17th of 2011. Ive missed him, and im glad to get to know him again. But this man while the man of old still loves you and seeks to find you again somewhere in the fog, i will always bee looking. I love you

[noahs-letters]

Just passing by...

Allie,

We are nearby today, though im not sure it matters. Not like it did before. So much time has passed, i dont know if it would even register with you what im feeling right now. I have remained faithful to a phantom, an apparition that was conjured in my own mind. Yet, despite the utter hopelessness, my heart remains steadfast in its love and commitment to you. It is a commitment of a lifetime and one that it seems you dont want. Yet, i cannot stop it, i cannot reframe it into something else in my mind, it just always is. 

Still, my beloved, there is the tiniest part of me that believes that maybe there is a small glimmer of hope somewhere in your heart. A tiny part of you that still believes in the life we dreamed of, and keeps the promises we made. I am banking the rest of my one life on this hope, knowing full well that it likely will never ever happen. Is it worth it? Yes. Being faithful to this kind of love that is so powerful and transcendent would never be a waste. God almighty created my heart to love one woman, and its you. It is truly you, absolutely you, and always you.  I only wish that my love would have been enough to help you come home to me. As i turn in to bed however, tonight, again, and always there is the light only by the window. It is your beacon, your guide to see you home should you ever seek its direction. I will keep it on always, until my body finally lets go of this world. I love you. I wish there were better words because they dont encompass the entirety of it, but for now it will do: I Love You.

Goodnight

Noah

[noahs-letters]

It’s Like you are still here..

How long is your trail of hearts and where is mine in that line? I am certain you wouldnt be able to tell me anymore, as it has been 10 years. But i can assure you its all as real to me as it ever was. 

This year, the holidays are approaching and feel closer to me again. They feel like they did when we were together: complete, beautiful and right. Things that they have never been since. The last time I genuinely smiled during Thanksgiving and Christmas was when we had eachother, or at least in my mind we did. I could have decorated a thousand homes and never lost my Christmas spirit. Thanksgiving was filled with gratitude towards God for bringing you back into my life. Perhaps this was all misplaced love and hope, but i know that my heart finally knew what its missing piece was. The need for the love of a woman that God places in the heart of a man is sometimes filled and other times left empty.  I can tell you that when it is is left empty, he feels it forever even if there is someone else by his side, the wrong someone. I in no way expected you to be as the Almighty, but on the contrary, you were the missing piece that God intended to fill that spot in my heart. A spot that is forever empty now.

You see, you never fit his. His heart, the man you sleep next to, never was filled by your love or you wouldnt have had to battle and work to make things functional like you did. Loving you was EASY, the easiest thing ive ever done. I would have never had to be convinced of it, or work towards it. If you had let me, i would have stepped into that role with the greatest of ease and our life together would have been as natural as breathing. It would today be a beautiful example of success instead of tearful musings in a letter, one day to be forgotten into historical obscurity. I am so deeply saddened by your exit, i will never be able to express it.

I miss you terribly, tonight as in every night of the last decade and in all my days i have left. Goodnight my love,

Noah

[noahs-letters]

[noahs-letters]

Our Anthems

Does he make you sing the songs that i did? Are your days with him filled with music, like ours were? Do you sing songs together like we did? The air is cooling again and it smells like our life together. It is what reminds me the most. That combined with our anthems on the radio, and, well i cant help but be transported back. So much so that I FEEL what i felt then. I can taste your lips against mine all over again. My heart comes alive again, just as it did then and never has since. Love was never meant to be what it has become. Twin flames were to always burn together you see. Sadly your flame burned out. Now she only exists in this place in my heart that is deep, far away from anywhere anyone could ever go. Its in a secret place only you and I ever had a key to. You threw yours away so only i go there now. When there, you are who you always were. You never surrendered your love for me and you smile for me again. That final sunset i watched when you left never happened. You are always my girl in this place, our songs always playing. 

I just miss you, especially this time of year. I miss loving you and how easy it was. I miss being able to love at all. I cant love another because my heart is yours. It will always be yours, forever.  Tonight i declare as i always have, the same unrelenting love that has enveloped me for 20 years in your absence. As i turn into bed, tonight, as every night before and for as many more nights as i have, i leave a lamp burning near the window for you. This so that if you ever decide to come home, you will be able to find your way to our bed and rest beside me once again.

Longing for such beauty,

Noah

[noahs-letters]

Soon, my dearest Allie, 10 years will have passed. I cannot believe it. 10 years since the kindling of our love, since you looked at me differently than ever before, since i lost my heart before i even had a chance to stop it. 

The years of silence from you have been deafening. As much as i love you i could not imagine that you could stay away so long loving me in the same way. Therefore, i had to finally accept the conclusion that while my love for your was genuine, deep, and lifelong, you never loved me event remotely the same. 

How does the heart of a man accept this? It cannot. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, and the years of distance now between us, my heart stubbornly holds on. 

Nobody loves with our passion, nobody talks with such adoration, nobody has what we would have and could have had. you must have realized this at some point. Somehow you must have seen it. Maybe you just lost sight? 

Allie i can never believe we weren't real.

[noahs-letters]

Allie

I wonder sometimes if you were real. It has been so long since we embraced that I can’t remember if you were ever really in my arms. What was I? A distraction? I don’t know if I care anymore. When I reached for you you disappeared. Like a mist you faded away as I grabbed your hand. You were never there. I loved a phantom. For years I awaited the return of a woman who wasn’t real. Ultimately I was the fool. The joke was always on me.

Yet I refuse to believe this of you. Somehow through all of this I want to believe your words more than your actions. I’ll never know, Allie, if you will ever come home.

[noahs-letters]

Sometimes i dont know who I am writing to. I am writing to a ghost, a phantom, a memory. Was she real or did i imagine her? It might as well be either or both. I have these glimpses i remember. Do you remember the glimpse? I kissed her , held her, even shopped with her. These things were real weren't they? My faith in us should have been enough to bring you back, shouldn't it have? The empty bench where we once sat, that was a real place once right? Lively, and filled with our love? Maybe it was just my love. If so, it would mean you didnt love me at all.  Or at least not enough. How can that be true when i loved you so much that my heart would be permanently lost to you? How could i have been so foolish as to give such a part of myself to someone who didnt want it?

I cannot believe these things are true of you, and despite many years, i sadly still believe you loved me just as much. I am so naive, i know this cant be true. But my heart is cruel to me and wont let me believe otherwise. I am faithful to you my Allie, even years into your absence. Perhaps i will die an aged man loving a distant memory. So be it. 

I love you, 

Noah