what you have over your ex’s new love

Dear Soulmate,

I once read that any kind of great love can never end well. I thought about this yesterday afternoon as I walked home from one of my favorite neighborhood oyster bars. I was tangled up in my own thoughts, consumed and confused by the notion that someone who doesn’t even know me, hates me.

I’m talking about when your ex’s new love interest despises you for no other reason than your history with that person. I shouldn’t have let it bother me, but it did.

I crossed over 6th Ave and continued on in the direction of my apartment. What difference had it made that I had been part of his past? There’s a reason why I’m not in his future. And after all, it wasn’t my decision in the first place.

But no matter how many blocks I tried to reason with someone who has never even talked to me, I began to think about how I felt the first time I heard about my current lover’s ex. And he has more than one at that.

Having never met her, I know her name, her height, her hair color, and where she’s from. I’m usually one to stand by my motto that ignorance is bliss when it comes to exes but I was curious about this one. They had dated for 5 years, on and off. She was, as anyone who has spent that amount of time with someone, a big part of his life.

When I finally saw his apartment for the first time, she was everywhere.

The entire refrigerator was a collage of their relationship–as if it was a play-by-play into their lives, together. Matching football jerseys, family Christmas parties, Halloween costumes–every relationship milestone was there, staring right back at me. And all I could see was friendship and love.

And, she was beautiful.

My heart sank at all the pictures, the memorabilia, the clutter of her things that she left behind when she moved out.

But what did she have over me?

Time.

That was all.

She had five beautiful years with him–something that may or may not happen for me.

And so that’s all I have over my ex’s new love. Time. We shared a lot of beautiful moments together, in our time.

And that’s the thing about love–there’s never enough time to spend with someone when you love them that much.

Love Love, R

when the person from your past suddenly makes it to the present

Dear Soulmate,

Something unusual happened last night. I met an old friend for some drinks at a bar around the corner from my apartment. We caught up over some wine and beers and then of course, the subject inevitably took a turn toward family.

He is cousins with my first big love… the one with whom there is still so much words left unspoken.

But that was years ago, and I’ve learned how to shrug off any probing questions about it by simply smiling and saying, “It was a long time ago.”

So when I was informed that his girlfriend dropped my name last weekend at his family birthday party, I was a little stunned at how something so far in the past could find a way to make it to the present. It seems a long journey.

My friend said that my name was not only dropped by her, but that his grandmother was asking about me, identifying me by my first and last name.

After drinks, I walked home feeling a little lost. I’ll be honest, although it was a long time ago, I still remember it all as though it was yesterday.

But I don’t think about it. I don’t go back there. I don’t open up old memories like boxes in the attic. Which is why I wonder, why would she?

Love Love, R

raining in new york

Dear Soulmate,

It’s raining here in New York. It’s been raining for an entire week. The streets are slick and the parks are lush in their new green coats. Umbrellas parade down the avenues and rain boots create ripples in the puddles where they stand.

He called me yesterday to see if we could talk. It seems the perfect weather to do so. It’s the kind of weather that’s synonymous with apologies and goodbyes, but I can no longer afford to be that girl who waits for the rain to let up.

Instead, I kept with my routine and went for a run along the Hudson River. An old friend of mine asked me to meet him for happy hour drinks later, and I suggested a bar where one of the bartenders caught my eye earlier this week… much to my date’s dismay.

But if I’ve learned anything from the past, it’s that you can’t let the rain dictate the way you go about your day any more than you can let upsets in love. There are too many beautiful things to look forward to.

And if you don’t believe me, wait until the sun comes out.

Love Love, R

“i hope he’s a really good guy”

Dear Soulmate,

“I hope he’s a really good guy.”

That’s what he wrote to me last week after learning over e-mail that I found someone new. That’s what he wrote from New Zealand to New York.

I sat at my computer, watched the rain fall outside my apartment window, hoping that he would say more than that.

And is he a good guy?

Yes. But this morning he lied about something and the trust between us wavered. I turned over in bed, putting my back to him. He tried to kiss me. He tried to make up for his mistake. He tried to apologize.

Somehow though, his apologies went unanswered, echoing down the long hallway of regret.

We had a cup of coffee and walked to the subway.

I didn’t have much to say this morning. I’m tired and disappointed. I want more than ever to send an e-mail to New Zealand from New York, saying you are the one who has me so completely. You are the one who has me thinking of you on this cold, rainy sidewalk on 7th Avenue, looking into the eyes of someone I do not feel as strongly for.

But I won’t send an e-mail, maybe just this post out into the void, hoping that someone somewhere will believe in love amidst all this noise.

I walked back to my apartment, climbed the stairs to my door. I feel alone again, halfway around the world from love.

Love Love, R

a new love

Dear Soulmate,

Where do I begin? So much time has passed since I last wrote you in January to inform you that I would be moving to New York. As it turns out, three months later, I’ve arrived.

I love New York. I love it for its energy, its passion, its conviction and its pulse. I’ve fallen in love with my Village apartment with its tall windows that lend a view of the backsides of neighboring low-rise buildings. I’ve fallen in love with the sounds from the avenues–streams of traffic humming along at all hours, quieting only in the early morning. I love the rumble of the trains, the frenzy of pedestrian traffic, and most of all, I love the stories that have been created here.

I’ve found a love here in New York too, although I know it is fleeting. He’s smart and funny, handsome and charming, but my heart is sold to the city.

I don’t belong to anyone right now, only to the rhythmn of my footsteps on the avenue that lead me someplace new and wonderful with every step I take, every corner I turn.

Love Love, R

welcome to the bright lights

Dear Soulmate,

I have a new love. It’s one that I never saw coming, but that’s usually how great love stories begin.

I’m in love with New York City, and it’s only just the beginning.

I leave Boston on Friday and will have the keys to my very first apartment in my hand by that afternoon. I’ve only recently been introduced to New York so the move is going to be one of excitement, skepticism and enchantment. As with all new loves, I’ll have to be cautious and play it safe. You can’t fall too fast or you risk losing it all.

But there’s a kind of permanence that’s deeply comforting when it comes to falling in love with places. Places, unlike people, don’t move. They’re always there. They never leave. You can wander, stray and set out for new unchartered paths your whole life, but where you’ve been geographically will always be there for you to return to whenever you turn back around. It’s a wonderful notion.

So for all those who have, are and will be embarking on a new chapter in New York City, like so many who have come before… welcome to the bright lights.

Love Love, R

if you believe everything happens for a reason

Dear Soulmate,

Do you believe in fate? If you believe that everything happens for a reason then you spend the majority of your life steered in a direction that’s dictated solely on the premise of it wasn’t meant to be, or it was meant to be.

I’ve failed countless times in my life. In most instances I’ve picked myself up and kept walking, though I might have changed my direction slightly. When it comes to trying the same course over and over, only to fail on repeated attempts, at what point do we say enough is enough?

To put in perspective, I looked at apartments in Boston during the spring. I found one that I liked and made an offer. The offer was declined and I gracefully accepted the defeat as a sign that Boston wasn’t meant to be. I tried New York–where I set my heart on two apartments whose offers both didn’t go through. Now I’m back to square one, left feeling sad and defeated–wondering if I should continue my pursuit to live in New York, or take this week’s experience as a sign to move in another direction.

Maybe it’s selfish to want a cozy apartment in New York City, to want the job that doesn’t necessarily better those around you but adds definition to your own life. Maybe it’s not the path for me.

All I’ve known my whole life is to give, because I’ve been given so much that it only seems natural to help those around me. Who knows what will be in these next few months, or where I will find myself… but one thing is certain, I’ll always be in love… and never will I ever give that up.

Love Love, R

if you’re in new york…

Dear Soulmate,

I’m writing to you from a New York bound train where I’m comforted by the movement and passing scenery. Am I the only who feels like anything is possible and within reach on a train to New York?

They say that you go to New York with a dream. Well, mine is nothing shiny and larger than life, yet it still feels out of reach. And, ironically, my dream is not one of love, but of passion instead.

I only wish to follow my heart in such a way that it benefits others as well as myself. I have expectations–great expectations–for myself. The challenge will be living up to them.

I know the city lights of New York will pose a temporary distraction from loneliness, but after living in cities like Boston and Dublin, I know that city life breeds loneliness if you let it. The abrasive edges of a city skyline are cold and foreboding. The shuffling of strangers on sidewalks can remind you that you are more alone than you thought you were.

But I’m not taking loneliness to New York, though I doubt that it won’t find me at some point. The struggle is keeping positive, and knowing that no matter how greatly you’ve loved in the past, there’s still more to give.

If you’re in New York now, or are on your way, keep an open heart. You never know what will find you… or who you’ll meet.

Love Love, R

christmas lights

Dear Soulmate,

These days I see people hanging lights up on trees lining busy sidewalks, or on wreaths outside front doors, and sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who wishes they were taking them down and putting them away.

Although Boston sparkles in the fading daylight with its ornately decorated trees, all I see is the glimmer and glamour of the kind of magic that can’t last.

I remember the way he held me last summer and the words he said as I stood in his driveway crying before I drove back down to Boston. He said New York would work, and that I’d be great there. Now, nearly four months later, I’m not so sure. I told him to try to keep in touch from South America and New Zealand, although I’m learning now how wrong I was in my assumption that he would.

So now I’m going down to New York again this weekend, but will be shifting my apartment search into sixth gear. I won’t be returning to Boston until I’ve signed a lease.

I realize though, that nothing lasts. Every year I find myself searching Christmas lights for the kind of warmth that held me from season’s passed. But I know now that months pass, years go by, and lights get put up as quickly as they get taken down.

So now, I’m going to go where the lights are always shining, and I can lose myself in the belief that everything is wonderful and bright, as it should be this time of year.

Love Love, R

hypothetical

Dear Soulmate,

I’m sitting here, outside Boston now, musing over the past few weeks. I’ve been to New York and D.C, visiting friends and meeting new people. Still, it’s hard to forget those last few weeks of summer… and I keep going back to that hypothetical question: what if?

What if you met someone you instantly connected with and after only knowing them for ten days they board a plane and fly to the furthest point possible–not even in the same hemisphere–and promise to stay in touch.

When I wrote my last blog post here, I received a comment in regards to modern communication and how it detracts from that old fashioned kind of long-distance love. But seeing as this mystery man (the time traveler, as I’ve begun to call him), has limited e-mail access and neither texts nor calls, I can’t help but feel like he doesn’t exist.

As the days pass and the air gets colder, it becomes easier for me to lose sight of the magic that once was us. Is it perhaps because it’s been that long–out of sight out of mind? Or is it because people around me are quick to talk me out of waiting on someone who might never come back? Or is it simply because I’m scared of feeling anything for someone who might not feel the same.

The only thing I can be certain of now, is that it was real.

Love Love, R

everyone’s looking for love: true or false?

Dear Soulmate,

For the first time in a long time I’m not looking ahead and waiting for something. I’m not anticipating who I might meet around every city block, I’m not sipping wine and wondering where the myriad of possibilities in my mind will take me that evening and I’m not wishing on every shooting star I see, however rare they may be. I’m not waiting for the perfect apartment or the amazing job to just appear in search engines or through a phone call.

I don’t know what lies ahead, and, for the first time I’m okay with that.

The truth is that I’ve always been rushing. I’ve always been looking so far  ahead toward the next step that I lose focus of where I am. So for the first time, there is no next step. I’m just going to let it happen. I’m going to breathe, settle and hold fast to the notion that everything will work out for the best.

The key though, to letting time settle life’s uncertainties like dust in thin air, is to remain happy and optimist… knowing that it will all fall into place eventually.

So know that just because I’m not looking for you does not mean that I won’t find you.

Love Love, R

p.s. check out the currently featured your soulmate, your letter and don’t forget to submit your own. the reason, you ask? because how amazing would it be to connect people from around the world through anonymous love letters?

it was magical.

Dear Soulmate,

Once upon a time there lived a girl who believed in everything beautiful in the world- like love and dreams. But more importantly, she believed in the most dangerous thing of all: the good in people.

One beautiful summer night this girl fell in love- her first big love. And the whole world looked different. Every moment she spent with him was better than the next. And together they watched the moon spill out over the bay every night, watched stars steal across the evening sky, and even chased fireflies that ceased to die in the morning light.

It was magical.

And then winter came and tested them. Their love had endured another summer. But by the third summer things had changed. Though they were together on the same island off some distant coast, he had a change of heart. And the distance between the two of them could now be measured in hundreds and thousands of miles.

But then that autumn, as the leaves began to fall, this girl lost her grandfather, her lifelong pen pal. With no one to write to, she set out to write to her soulmate- someone who could never reject her love.

But that beautiful house on the hill, on an island far away, that belonged to her grandparents for nearly half a century, was now just an asset. And that nightmare of it ever being sold was beginning to blur into reality.

And so now the girl wakes alone, in a city far away. Summer no longer has its same rhythmn. Love no longer has the same feeling.

But this is not where the story ends… somewhere along the way she finds love again, in some distant land, in pages far away.

Love, R

a letter to the single ones

Dear Soulmate,

As I walked through the winding streets of the North End yesterday, in a desperate attempt to shield myself from the ever-invasive, unusually strong wind, I noticed a wet page from a newspaper that stubbornly clung to the sidewalk from the melted snowbanks.

The headline read in bold words, “Can’t buy me love.”

the best things in life are free

And that is exactly what I thought about as I made my way home. How silly and pretentious it is to buy roses and chocoloates as a means of saying “I love you.”

From my experiences in love, I have always felt that the most simple and unexpected gestures are always the most meaningful. Recall that feeling of finding one another’s gaze across a crowded room and smiling. Or when, in the middle of the night, you feel their hand pull yours closer toward them to rest it on their chest. Or even when they unexpectedly put their arms around you from behind as you read the mail in the kitchen.

These gestures all say, ‘I love you.’

And now I realize, as I have gotten used to sleeping alone and standing on my own two feet without the expectation of someone walking beside me, that maybe we have got Valentine’s Day all wrong.

It isn’t about a day for lover’s- for they celebrate Valentine’s Day everyday, and they do so in subtle, beautiful ways. Valentine’s Day is a day to remind people that they, too, will find that kind of love. It is a day for the single ones.

And while you cannot go out looking for love, you can at least open your heart to the possibility.

And no, no one can buy your love- it is too expensive.

Love, R

p.s. write your valentine today: “your soulmate, your letter”

cheers, to you

Dear Soulmate,

I cannot wait until tomorrow morning when I put on my running shoes and lose myself in the city streets. On Commercial Street there is a pier that I frequently jog alongside that looks directly across the water to the airport. I always ask myself if I could take off on the next flight, where would I go?

The answer is always to where you are.

It is difficult for me to have the desire to do anything but stand still in one place, and hope that you will find me here, waiting for you. I get anxious, though. I too often feel like I am wasting my time in one place, missing out on opportunities that I would otherwise experience elsewhere. There are too many people I need to meet, and for some reason I feel as though I have to go out and find them.

Perhaps it is the natural fear of being alone that makes me not only human but less inclined to believe that people will come to me.

So I ask you: will you come to me? When you first see me, will you be the one who first says hello?

Looking around though I realize that everything I need right now is here. I am so grateful for how beautiful my life has been; so overwhelmed with the joy it has brought me, and so fascinated in its ups and downs that have taught me so much. I have a lot to be thankful for, and what better time to express gratitude than right now on Thanksgiving.

So happy Thanksgiving, my love. I will have much to celebrate in the future holidays when I can raise my glass in cheerful celebration as I look across the table for the one who found me, here.

Love, R

someday

Dear Soulmate,

They put up the Christmas tree in Faneuil Hall. It’s beautiful.

It reminds me of you.

What I love most about when the weather gets colder is how wonderful the streets of Boston become, glittered in lights and warmed by the overhead awnings of glamorous hotel entrances.

I walked across the steps of the public library today and felt a feeling of promise and contentment, like I had all the world to gain. You know those completely blissful moments when you feel as though you are living in an catchy upbeat movie montage? I felt like that today as my eyes mysteriously wandered, searching the city streets for you.

By the late afternoon I watched the subway cars empty passengers out onto the platform of the station as I waited for my train. Everyone was moving, going somewhere, going someplace. You, too, may have been moving in the stream of commuters, but I would have found you.

Instead I boarded the next train with only the thought of you.

Someday, I thought. Someday.

Love, R

in less than a second

Dear Soulmate,

I thought I saw you today. I was crossing the street at a red light when I looked up and through a see of strangers your eyes caught mine. It was just a fleeting moment. Then it was gone and we both walked away, lost into the shuffle of city life.

It was as if we shared an entire relationship in less than a second.

This must mean that when we finally do meet, looking at you for even a minute will feel like a lifetime. That’s the thought that carried me happily home through the misty Friday afternoon.

I cannot promise that I will write to you every day, but I can promise that I will be thinking of you every moment and those in between. You are always with me, somehow, despite how crazy that may seem.

All my love, R

under my umbrella

Dear Soulmate,

Alas, my favorite time of day; when I can sit down at my computer and its just you and me. Although I strongly dislike the impersonality of Facebook, MySpace and other online social networks, I somehow find writing to you on this level exceptionally intimate. I feel so close to you when I write these letters.

As I read the newspaper headlines today I couldn’t help but think that if one man successfully found a way to finally unite the nation across racial lines, then I will one day find a way to you. Anything is possible.

This afternoon I would have loved nothing more than sitting in a cafe with you talking about politics over coffee while watching the rain fall. Perhaps later we could have sat at a cozy bar someplace where the glow of candles reflect off the polished mahogany counter and laughter resonates over relaxing music.

As the days draw shorter and the weather colder, I feel less inclined to pass my time outdoors. On days like today when the wind shakes wet leaves from their trees and sends them to stick to the sidewalks, I feel autumn quickly slipping away, and I am powerless to stop it.

The thought of you walking down the sidewalk with me under an umbrella, laughing and jumping in puddles, instills in me that warmth and beauty of summer that I long for all year long.

And so I watch as the seasons change while I walk alone under my umbrella, wondering where winter will find ourselves.

All my love, R