I folded the pages and tucked them into the envelope.
It took about two days to mail it. I probably would’ve sooner, but I was nervous.
And I needed a stamp, but whatever.
I walked by the mailbox a few times hoping that it would be perfect, hoping I didn’t forget a page or lose the message I wanted to send. The hardest thing, though, was not getting all the details right. It wasn’t the photos folded amongst the pages. It wasn’t even that it was an expression of love.
It’s that I realized how vulnerable I am. And I hate it.
. . .
When I love, I love extremely hard. There’s something about realizing that you’ve fallen for someone and feeling like if you don’t tell them — if you don’t come out with it already, it may just end up eating you alive.
It turns some of us into crazy people. Especially me. Where you’re checking their socials and reading far too into messages for a sign that you’re not crazy. A sign that maybe all of this loving isn’t for nothing. A sign of hope. A green light.
All the permission you need to just jump in and love them.
Now is not the time for that. While time skips, so does my heart. I re-read a few reminders on my phone. Keep a few words of encouragement. Yet, the pangs in your stomach persist. The days you look down at your food and are so tightly wound up that you can’t eat even though you’re starving.
Putting yourself out there, I guess, is freeing in a lot of ways. There isn’t a heaviness in your chest that you are waiting to let go. But it’s replaced by another heaviness. A heaviness of longing and vulnerability and passion. You know so deeply — no, so badly what you want that it begins to cause you physical pain.
And when he speaks to you, your breath is taken just a little bit. Not out of joy or happiness or contentment, but out of knowing that falling means you may never be caught. It means you may get shot down and have to pick up your own wings, waddle over to the nearest drug store, get some bandages and care for your wounds.
The fear of being vulnerable is what kept me at that mailbox that day. I guess I knew I didn’t have much of a choice. Because to deny those feelings is to deny myself. An authentic, true self.
So I put that letter inside, stuck the flaps together and let it go.
If I get hurt, at least I can say I loved.
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This post was previously published on P.S. I Love You and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Unsplash