would you rather: relive your first love or know what you know now?

Dear Soulmate,

Lately, I’ve been wandering in love. I’ve been in love three times in my life, which to me seems to be a lot. Each time has been monumental and has changed me in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

I’m happily in love now. But sometimes I wonder what it might have been like if other roads I’ve traveling in love didn’t become dead ends. I wonder what it’d be like to be face to face with someone I was once in love with, now that years have passed and we’ve grown apart, and possibly grown to become different people.

I’ve lived my life believing that love is recycled–that everyone is a product of their previous experience in love. Everyone learns to adapt differently in love. You learn to compromise, to mature, to communicate, and to react to situations with hopefully more grace. And physically, you know yourself better and you’ve had more experience with others in and out of the bedroom. You know what feels good, and you can recall with often precise clarity what certain touches used to make your previous partner react. You learn to adjust to your new partner’s reaction.

It’s bittersweet to believe that nothing is as pure and innocent as that first love when everything was new and untouched. It was unchartered territory. You didn’t know any better. You had nothing to compare him or her to.

So now I ask, would you rather go back to that first love feeling, or would you prefer to have the experience you know now in love?

Love Love, R

how my first valentine pulled off valentine’s day 2012

Dear Soulmate,

Though he’s deeply passionate about certain things, he’s not the romantic type. He finds romantic movies funny, love songs cheesy, and cringes at most everything I find moving.

So then how do you explain how he was able to pull off Valentine’s Day 2012 the way that he did?

He didn’t want to take me out. We’ve been together nearly a year now and we’ve wined and dined almost every night. He also doesn’t cook, though he’s frequently mentioned two recipes that he’s made before that he has yet to cook for me.

I was working til 8 p.m. on Valentine’s Day so I wasn’t necessarily craving anything over the top or out of the ordinary (it was my first Valentine’s Day with a valentine, so that was enough for me).

I remember walking back to his place from my office on the Upper West Side. I was carrying a beautiful arrangement of roses that were tucked into a square vase that had been hand delivered to my office from him a few hours prior. I saw one man struggle to juggle his grocery bags and bouquet.

It seems to me that [most] all men are nervous wrecks on Valentine’s Day–there seem to be a lot of expectations and they don’t want to let their partner down. My guy friends all came at me with concerns about when to make dinner reservations, how to order flowers, and one brave coworker even dared to ask: can I take her out to dinner the day before Valentine’s Day because it’ll be more intimate and less crowded–and that way I could still go to basketball with the guys after work on Tuesday.

While I’ve always considered Valentine’s Day a useless, commercial, Hallmark holiday, my opinion of it changed when I actually had someone to love who loved me back. I suddenly felt an urge to just have a day for us–be it Feb. 14 or any other day. I just wanted a day for us both to recognize that what we have is something that shouldn’t be lost or misplaced in the daily clutter of routine.

When I arrived at his door, he took longer than usual to answer. Finally, he swung open the door, handed me a glass of red wine and watched my reaction. There were dozens of candles flickering all over his dark apartment. There were rose petals scattered all over the floor and on the bed. I was in shock.

“I feel like I’m in a movie,” I laughed in the darkness. I couldn’t believe everything he had done. But the best part was yet to come. He cooked a marinated shrimp appetizer that we shared on the couch over a bottle of wine. We spun our favorite CDs front to back. No TV. And then I got to watch him cook dinner for perhaps the first time ever. He was nervous but it only made me love him more.

And while the whole night may seem like a page torn out of a love story or a scene cut from a cliche romantic comedy, to me it was the first time in my life I didn’t catch myself saying, “I wish a guy would do something like that for me.”

…And now the bar for Valentine’s Day has forever been raised.

Love Love, R

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

a warm kind of love

Dear Soulmate,

It’s autumn in New York. Leaves are turning colors, the wind is growing colder and the days are inevitably getting shorter.

I can’t recall the last time I had an autumn love.

Pulling out the sweaters and throwing an extra blanket on the bed always meant cold nights alone. It meant closing the windows on summer and falling into dreams of the past few months where I was tangled up in warmer nights, starlight, the grass under my bare feet and glasses and glasses of white wine.

And always there was love.

There was the sound of wheels on the gravel drive and the light from headlights cutting their way across the hedge as I would run down the sloping front lawn and climb into the passenger seat. There was the bright light of morning spilling across the hardwood floor and that exciting young rush of realizing you’re not alone under your covers.

No, never alone. Instead, trapped in a world only you two share. An unknown world to the rest of the world. A place you can temporarily call your own.

I don’t recall ever really having an autumn love, until I walked home last night through the winding village streets and felt the warmth of someone walking beside me.

It’s nice, I thought, to not have to rely on sweaters and blankets anymore.

Who knows where winter will find us both. But all I know is that I feel warm, and loved. And that has always been enough.

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

on a bedside table

Dear Soulmate,

It’s midnight in Boston and I can’t sleep. Whenever sleep is reluctant to find me, I usually open my journal or my laptop and begin writing. My grandmother once told me that everyone should sleep with a notebook and pen on their bedside table so that when they wake up they can recount their dreams in writing. I have always found it a nice notion, although rarely ever have I put it into practice.

But tonight I feel like I’m dreaming awake as it has been an exciting past few days. I signed the lease on my first apartment in New York City. It’s small but practical. Already I have begun packing a box of miscellaneous treasures–sea glass, old vases, picture frames and white wooden letters that spell out SAIL when placed accordingly on the wall.

It’s a small space, but it is my own. I have a place in the world now, an address to call mine. It’s not much, one would argue, but it’s something.

Besides, if one had it all, what would they write in their journal on their bedside table?

Love Love, R

coffee and rain

Dear Soulmate,

It’s hard to believe that September is nearly over. Already the days are falling shorter and I can feel winter on the rise.

I spent last week in New York City, running around Central Park, getting lost in the frenzy of the subways and looking for you. I found solace on the benches in the park where messages of love were engraved on golden plaques. It’s always the simple things like reading these dedications that make the madness of even the most energizing city a bit more bearable.

Right now I’m sipping coffee and wondering where you might be. Sometimes I imagine you sitting at your computer in idle thought, other times enraptured in conversation, so removed from your surroundings.

Wherever you are, on this rainy afternoon, I think how wonderful it would be to hear your voice and see you smile.

Missing you, always.

Love Love, R