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

 

looking for the one

Dear Soulmate,

If you found “the One” would you keep looking?

This is the question I’m forced to ask myself as I drift from day to day, thinking about that guy from this summer who felt like the better half of me.

He fit. He fit in my life–in the way few people can; in the past, present and future. I felt at home in his arms and in his eyes. If I got lost or my thoughts ran astray he pulled me back again and reminded me who I am, who I want to be.

It’s scary though. There are always risks involved with love. But this isn’t just any kind of love. It’s a breathtakingly honest kind of love that purifies even the most doubtful, unbelieving heart.

I want him here with me, even though he’s more than half a world away and I haven’t heard from him in months.

I don’t want to keep looking for what I’ve already found…

Love Love, R

am i crazy?

Dear Soulmate,

It’s cold here in Boston now. The streets are blanketed with snow that finally fell after swirling around on the backs of frigid gusts that have finally quieted.

Christmas has passed now, without any word from someone half way around the world who meant everything to me for ten beautiful days this summer. I still can’t stop thinking about him.

Should I feel hurt? Should I feel neglected that the holidays passed without hearing from him? Or should I just accept that he left and we’ve fallen out of touch.

I miss him. I remember how he told me that I gave him something to come back to. Now I’m not sure he’ll ever come back from New Zealand. I want to cry. I want to crawl into my bed and forget I met someone so wonderful who was so good to me, for such a short time. I want to start over.

My parents and friends are surprised that I haven’t spoken to him in months. I’ve defended him and said that he’s difficult to get in touch as he’s been traveling. He doesn’t have very much Internet access, and he doesn’t have a phone.

But in the quiet moments I keep to myself, I wonder if I’m crazy for giving him so much slack. They say if you love someone that you should let them go. But if this is all I do–all I’ve ever done–will I ever find love that really lasts?

…Something to think about.

Love, I suppose, R

i wish i had a river i could skate away on

Dear Soulmate,

Sometimes I feel like Joni Mitchell’s “River” says all there needs to be said about winter. I’m watching the snow twirl around outside my bedroom window and feeling so homesick for summer, a time when the world was alive and in bloom. Now, all is quiet, silenced under the weight of freshly fallen snow that buries the tracks of summers barefoot steps.

On gray days like these in Boston, I feel like Joni Mitchell when I say that I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

I close my eyes and remember little moments, little memories of love. I remember the way his hands felt in mine, how they fit so beautifully as through they were made for each other. I remember the way he introduced me by my full name to his father. I blushed and smiled.

I remember the way we painted his mother’s shed. I stood in his clothes covered with splotches of white paint on my tanned bare arms and legs. I laughed as we drove to the lake in the afternoon heat. I watched him dive headfirst from the rocky cliff into the water below. I stood in my bathing suit with my hands on my hips, hesitant about jumping into water whose depth seemed uncertain. Still, I dove in anyway, testing the waters. When I surfaced we both laughed and he pulled me toward him under the water.

When I write, he comes back to me. Little moments like these held in time. It’s all I can ask for on days like these when I only wish I had a river I could skate away on… and be brought back to you.

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

love and money. what gives?

Dear Soulmate,

My parents met each other when they were in their early twenties–when they were younger than I am now. My dad only had a few dollars to his name. He dropped out of college and was driving aimlessly across the country when my mom met and fell in love with him.  She knew instantly that he was the one she was going to marry.

This summer I met someone wonderful. He loves to travel and we both share a lot of similar passions. I didn’t tell my parents that I fell in love with him in those few days we spent together this summer. I didn’t tell them that he was it for me. I didn’t tell them that no one has treated me that well, ever. In fact, I’m only telling this now.

Consider it a confession of some sort–one of those thoughts that goes out and gets lost somewhere intangible but has the potential to be heard somehow. It wasn’t until today that I was reminded of how much I love him for who he is when my mom stood in the kitchen and ushered some remark about how my future husband will have to be a very patient man. She went on to say something about how he will have to make enough money, be financially well off, and be capable of supporting a family.

In the heat of the moment, I told her that I loved him. I told her it didn’t matter how much money we made, so long as we’re happy we’ll make it.

Isn’t she being hypocritical in encouraging me to suppress my love for him when she was in the very same boat?

What does money even have to do with love anyway? If you can answer that question, you’re a lot smarter than I am.

Cheers, R

i loved you.

Dear Soulmate,

I loved him. I loved him from the moment I saw him. I still recall the way the weight of the summer air hung around us, trapping the twilight long enough for us to call it ours. For a few rare moments, the world seemed to stop spinning.

Where is he now? Where did he go? Why did he leave?

I just learned recently that he is considering staying in New Zealand indefinitely. I’ve always felt that New Zealand would be a terrific escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the States. Lately I’ve been all over trying to find that one place where I feel at home.

When the wheels touched down in Denver last week, I wanted to feel a sense of relief as though I had finally arrived in a place where I belong. Last weekend I touched down in San Francisco… with no sense of belonging, nor urge to return.

I’m back in Boston now, finally realizing that home is wherever love is. I’m at a loss for words because I’m in love with someone who might never come back to me… for no other reason than I was not enough to make him stay.

Love Love, R

never been here

Dear Soulmate,

I’m in a place I’ve never been before. Love is one of those bizarrely gray areas that is never entirely black or white.

I am suddenly torn between meeting someone I fell absolutely in love with instantly–even if only for a few weeks in the summer–and missing someone from long ago.

The reality is that this person from the summer is traveling now. He’s in New Zealand and doesn’t quite keep up with modern-day means of communication… e-mails are few and far in between.

So I’ve gone back and forth, between wanting to be with him and going back to who I was before–the girl who only dreamt of someone like him. I never quite imagined though that someone like him would leave. I suppose now I’m looking for someone who will simply stay.

Is that asking so much?

It’s hard too because I am reminded of the times I’ve been let down before… That familiar feeling of being left behind comes back to me every now and then–just enough to make me feel heartbroken all over again.

Love Love, R

p.s. i love reading your letters, dear readers… they’re lovely and they make my day. i will continue to post and share them here on the site soon! love always.

living in the present

Dear Soulmate,

Yesterday I went up to Vermont to clear out my grandparents’ newly sold house and hopefully clear my mind.

As I sat on the floor of the pantry, delicately wrapping each ornately decorated plate with tissue paper, I began to think about all the beautiful meals that were once served on these plates, then passed around the table where conversation poured as eaisly as the wine.

I became instantly nostaglic for those quintessential New England Thanksgivings in Vermont when my holiday was quite literally dictated by that old song, “over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go.”

But with both my grandparents passed away, their home is now just a house and it feels like the party is very much over. And though it hurt with unimaginable pain when my grandfather passed away two years ago, it didn’t quite hurt to go back to his house just one last time.

I walked through the hallways and rooms swept clean of furniture. I tried to find a moment to call my own.

“A new beginning…” I kept saying as I carried boxes out to the U-Haul truck on the curb. “Change is good,” I kept reminding myself.

I’d always feard change, but now I was  unusually comfortable about it. Was I desensitized from thinking anything would last forever? Had I become so insistent upon living in the present that I neglected my past and future altogether?

These thoughts followed me back home to Boston where I crawled into bed under a full moon and wondered why I was even content to belittle my feelings for that wonderful person I met in the summer… writing it off as just a summer romance.

Living in the present can have its drawbacks.

Love Love, R

let love be.

Dear Soulmate,

It’s one of those gray overcast days in Boston, and although the leaves are changing it’s hard to see their beautiful colors under the weight of my thoughts.

I’ve gone back and forth a lot in my thinking these past few days. I realized today that if all I have were those ten days with that perfectly lovely kind of love at the end of summer, I’m happy.

I’m not holding out for him–that was never my intention. I don’t want anymore promises from him, or anyone, saying that the time will be better down the road.

For the moment I need to let love be, and walk away. I’m not giving up on him, I just cannot hold onto something, or anything, right now.

I’ll admit that it’s hard to share the joy of a long-distance love story with others. I always let their judgment cloud my own. When people tell me that things won’t work out, that he doesn’t deserve me, that I should be with someone who wants to be with me, I always rethink our time together–those summer nights and days when we were inseparable and wanting nothing more than to be with one another.

Part of me wants to be able to go to bed at night without thinking about him or anyone. How simple that would be.

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

knock on my door

Dear Soulmate,

As promised, I will share with you a story that I have kept safe and set aside from some of the other wonderful memories I have made in the past few weeks.

It happened on one of those few rare days on the coast of Maine, when the humidity and haze engulf the harbors in blankets of heat that can be felt in warm pockets upon crossing the bay. Despite that it was nearly 95 degrees out, I was dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt–already prepared for the sun to sink west and take with it the day’s unbearable warmth.

It wasn’t long before I was standing on the dock beside him, holding his hand, waiting to board a boat that would take us to a restaurant on a nearby island.

In what seemed like moments later, we were sitting beside one another, sipping wine and sampling oysters on the half shell. I remember the breeze that lingered in through the open windows of the restaurant, offering a much anticipated relief to an otherwise uncomfortably hot day.

By the time we boarded the boat en route back to the mainland, the stars were sparkling overhead, illuminating the water in dancing specks of lights. He put his arm around me as we sat on the bench by the stern. I remember each moment unfold as easily and comfortably as his fingers interlaced with mine.

A few minutes later, a woman in her mid-60s approached us. She sat down on the vacant seat on the far corner of the bench where we were sitting. Without so much as an introduction, she said, “I just wanted to let you know that you two are beautiful–and you’re beautiful together, beautiful to watch. I couldn’t leave without saying so.”

I ducked out of the spotlight from the overhead stern light to find that not only had we caught her attention, but had been the focal point for most other people on the boat who were staring in our direction in silent agreement.

“Wherever you two go, please knock on my door in a few years–I want to see both of you together again.”

It was a simple statement, but one that I will remember forever.

She ended up giving us her address, and I doubt that him or I have forgotten it.

Love Love, R

a moment at the cove

Dear Soulmate,

I put on my running shoes Monday morning and let the rhythmn of my feet against the dirt road carry me a few miles down toward a familiar cove.

When I arrived, I stood breathless, watching the morning sun spill out over the calm bay. The water appeared smooth and silky in the morning glow that hovered through wispy layers of clouds overhead. I recalled the cove as it was the day before, when the sun was at its highest point in the sky and the rocky beach was decorated with two pinstriped towels–one for me and one for him.

So much has happened in the past few days… so much has changed but so much has stayed the same. I have so many stories to divulge… the first of which I will in the next post.

Cheers and Love Always… Always Love, R

one morning in maine

Dear Soulmate,

I woke up today to one of those beautifully quiet mornings in Maine. It was the kind of morning where the fog hovers over distant islands and enraptures them in mist.

As I was out running I couldn’t help but imagine them unveiled in the afternoon sun, their rich green coloring reflecting against the contrast of the blue sea. In my head I made out imaginary inlets and peninsulas, although I have memorized each point of every distant island by heart. In the fog though, you can create your own scene as if the horizon offers a blank canvas for you to paint upon.

This is when I think of you. There are so many uncertainties up ahead. I have no idea when and where or even if you will come into my life. I can only imagine the possibilities, where each road may lead. I cannot anticipate the moment when the fog will lift and I will see things more clearly.

But I am certain that it will. Just as the fog burns off into a more beautiful day–the sea dotted once more with triangular sails–there is the certainty that something beautiful lies in the unknown.

The secret is being content enough in the present not to the let the beauty of even a gray morning, leave you feeling like the future will be absent of color.

Love Love, R

p.s. be sure to check out your soulmate, your letter page soon for an upcoming letter! more words are on their way!

i’ll be seeing you/in all the old familiar places

Dear Soulmate,

There are certain people and places that bring you back to yourself–that ground you and make you feel whole once again.

Last night I caught up with an old summertime friend over dinner and a bottle of wine. I hadn’t seen her in nearly a year so we had more than enough to talk about. The more we fell deeper into conversation and laughter, the more I felt like I was coming home.

I cannot articulate the feeling I get when I reunite with old friends from home. It’s strange and beautiful to be overwhelmed with a kind of happiness and love that seems to sweep away all the wintertime cobwebs that tangle my heart in its coldness and solitude–leaving me feeling lost and vulnerable.

And just when I feel at a loss for words, I am swept off my feet by the feeling of going home. It’s really a love affair I have with this echanting place where I return to every summer.

Home has a way of bringing you back to yourself. Whenever I feel lost, I find myself there.

There is something so rich and rewarding about returning home after a long year away. Reuniting with familiar faces, running down my favorite dirt road, tasting the salt on my skin and feeling the weight of the summer sky overhead remind me that anything is possible. And I wonder now, as I write, is it possible to be seduced by a place? I think so.

But even more than that, it is completely and wholly possible to be seduced by love.

Love Love, R

p.s. I had to change my ringtone (for perhaps the third time in my life) to Mat Kearney’s “Closer to Love.” Why? Because that’s the song I love listening to most when I drive home. Kind of an odd thing to do, but isn’t it crazy that something as simple as a ringtone can bring you such happiness sometimes?

the end of summer… love.

Dear Soulmate,

“I’ll miss you forever…” was all I said to him. Simple. Honest. Bittersweet. And as I held him one last time I knew it was really over. And I knew I had to let him go.

Another summer drawn to a close. The northern wind now sweeps across the cold moonlit bay, swinging the boats on their moorings one last time before being hauled for the winter.

But even as I move on… I will never forget how different things may have been had he never let me go.

Love, R

in no-man’s-land. literally.

Dear Soulmate,

Though I probably shouldn’t, seeing as I am at work, I can’t help but to write to you. For some reason I have already written several emails to friends and even some song lyrics to put some chords to when I get home.

I am not even sure anymore what I am trying to articulate with my words. I wonder sometimes how far they will go- how far they will take me.

Perhaps the beauty of writing is simple: it takes you places.

And right now I feel like I am standing in “no-man’s land.” As I was out running this morning I began to think about how ironic my actions were.

Why do I always feel like I am running from something and at the same time feeling like I am standing still?

When something is amiss in your life, the best advice is to change it. And I have. My life, up until this point, has been built around routine. It was always Maine in the summer and Boston in the winter. And with these seasonal transitions I would reunite with the same people.

But now, for the first time, I have no desire to go back to Maine. Instead, I have decided to stay in Boston where I have taken up a new summer job.  I have also met new people through an impromptu acting class I joined in the spring. I have plans to head to Dublin, Ireland in the fall to study for the semester. And I have spent a weekend in perhaps one of the most remote countries on Earth: Iceland.

So with all these changes… why do I still feel the same?

Love, R

first love

Dear Soulmate,

Summer has always been my season. As I sit here and write to you I can feel the morning sun pour through my window, begging me to come outside.

Summer also reminds me of young summer love- the invincibly, passionate and naive kind that makes you believe anything is possible. I was talking with a friend at the beach the other day about how first loves have a way of making other relationships less glamorous.

And I won’t deny that after things ended on rough terms with my first love, it was natural for me to feel somewhat jaded and cynical about love. I realize though that it was unfair for me to assume that all love can be that dreamlike. and without any consequences.

But when you combine your first love with summer love, your expectations for future relationships will most likely result in disappointment.

I have yet to look out to the ocean without thinking of him. Most everything I do in the summer reminds me of him, of us.

And if you knew just how it felt to sneak out of the house to meet someone you were crazy for down at a dock lit by the full moonlight… then you would know the whole story.

Love, R

p.s. share your summer love story!

just me

Dear Soulmate,

If you want to know who I am, it can best be explained through how I spent my weekend. 

I woke up Saturday morning and went for a long run along the Charles. All of Boston appeared to be glowing across the river in the morning sunlight. Sails were being hoisted and rowing shells were being gracefully pushed through the water by long sturdy oars. Onward I went, carrying summer with me in my stride.

Later, after a brisk cool shower, I exchanged my running shoes for my flip flops. I slid into my summer clothes- the ones I usually only dream about wearing and instead have to don heavy sweaters and wool jackets. But not this weekend. It was 94 in Boston!

Then I headed out with a friend to the beach for the afternoon. In the car I stripped the sunroof back and played Kenny Chesney… letting my mind switch gears into summer mode. The ice cubes in my iced coffee rattled in the center console as I shifted gears and headed north on 95. 

It was a beautiful day.

On Sunday I went back to the beach again, this time absent of company. Instead I gathered a stack of my favorite magazines and set my iced coffee in the sand beside me. I watched the waves curl in front of me and felt the mid-morning sun soothe away any anxieties. 

I looked out to the Atlantic through my aviators, as far as my eyes could reach. It still was not enough to see you, though. But I will be forever looking.

Love R

p.s. check out this week’s “your soulmate, your letter”

in the spring

Dear Soulmate,

It is easy in the Spring to remember what real love feels like. I often find this time of the year incredibly exhilarating and enchanting. Everything from the vibrant gardens to the blooming trees remind me that it is time to begin anew.

But I wonder, why is this energy so difficult to find in other seasons? Do we just grow unphased by life’s simple beauty as the seasons wear on, or do we simply just forget about how it once felt to see new life blossom?

To say that I am in tune with the seasons is an understatement. My mood and outlook is often determined on the sun’s position in the sky, the weather outside, and of course the month of the year. And as I sit at my desk and look at my calendar that is swung open on the wall to reveal the grid of April days, I begin to ask myself what it is about this month that makes me feel so different?

I have so much more hope in you than I did just a few weeks ago. Around every corner I feel like we will spontansoulsy meet, and when I find that we do not then I happily carry on regardless. And I never feel alone.

Of all the uncertainties that come with the changing seasons, there is one thing I do know. The storms I have weathered in the past have made me stronger. The cold lonely nights of winter have made me braver. And the beauty of spring has made me more optimistic.

Who knows what summer could bring…

Love Always, R

p.s. check out “your soulmate, your letter” next monday for the next letter!

“love is a long road”

Dear Soulmate,

You know that feeling when everything is brand new? When you don’t know how many siblings they have, where they go when they want to be alone, what their favorite movies are, or how it took so long to finally find them?

I’m alluding to that beautiful feeling of blind infatuation.

And it’s funny, too, because I have always found comfort in those relationships where I have grown up with the other person. I have stubbornly resisted those people who have only witnessed my life in the one-dimensional, such as only seeing me in my school-life, for example. For some reason that I can only attribute this habit to the fact that I am a romantic and refuse to let go of my past, even at the expense of meeting new people who may become my future.

But when you involuntarily develop intrigue for another person, all rules seem to get broken. You find yourself looking ahead, dreaming, wondering what may become of your newfound love interest. And this is a beautifully enchanting outlook.

So for the first time, in a long time, I have found myself looking ahead with optimism rather than dwell in the shadows of my past where love took different turns and led to changes of heart. And the difference between either direction feels like lifetimes.

The road ahead looks sunny, the kind of road that is periodically splashed by the shadows of trees whose summer canopy’s shade the road. It is the kind of road you just want to drive with all the window’s down and the radio turned up to your favorite song.

It is the kind of road that you envison yourself driving while your lover sits beside you, just enjoying the ride.

Love, R

the green light

Dear Soulmate,

Where are you? This is the question I ask myself when I suddenly feel hopeless and have doubts that you actually exist.

In my first class this morning I heard someone call my name from the row behind me. I turned around to see a face I knew I recognized, but was unsure where I was the last time I saw him.

Then he mentioned my street name, in Maine. And then memories of starlit nights, warm sunny days, laughter with old friends, and the belief that things would always remain the same suddenly came back to me. And then, just like that, I was in love all over again.

And when I asked who he hung out with the most up in Maine, he mentioned the name of my most memorable and epic love- the one who had a change of heart, who left me with so many unanswered questions, words left unsaid, and sleepless nights.

There are 6 billion people in this world. What are the odds that in my 9 a.m. class that I would hear his name and then be dragged right back to square one?

I think I’ll move to Australia.

If all we are taught is to move on, to leave things behind, then how can we ever say we are really living at all? Isn’t the past where we look to, as a reference of learned lessons and a place where happiness and love used to be?

F. Scott Fitzgerald got it right in The Great Gatsby- we beat on boats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into the past.

How beautifully cruel.

Love, R

p.s. i’d love to hear your story. check out the new page “your soulmate, your letter” http://letters2soulmate.wordpress.com/your-soulmate-your-letter/

peace of mind

Dear Soulmate,

If meteorologists get it right this time then we are in for quite the snow storm. Or if you are a like me and desensitized by New England’s seasonal snow squalls, then we are in for a mere “dusting.”

footprints in the snow

Right now though, the view from my window looks promising for a blizzard ripe with the potential for dumping a foot of snow on Boston.

This is not the kind of snowfall that is terribly romantic. Rather than fall delicately it instead swirls around, lost in the biting wind before finally settling on the pavement- much to a shovler’s dismay.

White out conditions remind me a lot of the fog. My mind lingers back to that mysterious lingering mist that hangs over the islands in Maine where the pine trees cast errie silhoutetes.

In the midst of winter, I am reminded of summer.

It is in this same fog and whitewash where I feel slightly trapped but slightly comforted. The beauty of this contraditiction is felt in the silence I feel in both situations.

When it snows, the city silences itself. Traffic becomes less frequent and even walking down an unshoevled sidewalk feels like trespassing. The city pauses for a few moments to breathe.

When the fog rolls in boats drop their sails. The once windy bay is motioness, calm and untouched like a mirror.

Both of these scenarios lend me tremendous peace of mind. But more importantly when I am standing on the dock of a fog shrouded harbor or walking down city streets blanketed by fresh snow, I find forgiveness for things I cannot change.

The fog and snow teach you to look at the present moment, neither ahead nor behind. The restricted visibility allow you to concentrate on the here and now.

So I wonder, why aren’t you here now?

All my love, R

timeless

Dear Soulmate,

Rainy, mildly warm days like today make me want to stroll through art galleries and museums- or at least wish I had the time for such endeavors.

It’s always amusing how the end of the year turns into a frantic shuffle- like we are all trying to pack the rest of 2008 into a few jumbled weeks of running errands and making sure we find that perfect gift for everyone who made our year so special.

The end of the year for me is more of a quiet time, a reflective time.

Because a lot goes on in a year that no one really remembers until it’s over.

Picture your new year’s resolution, your birthday, where you went for valentine’s day, or even that perfectly wonderful, ordinary day where everything fell into the right place. Where were you when spring shifted into summer? Do you remember the conversation with an old friend that made you laugh and made you think how grateful you are to have them in your life? Think back to the telephone calls, the e-mails, the letters you may have not expected to arrive in your mailbox, addressed to you.

In all of this, I bet you remember love.

Because it’s timeless.

I hope that as the year draws to a close that you remember more than just the holidays- that you remember everything so that you may look back on 2008 with fondness and recall all the wonderful things, however great or small, that made your year truly spectacular.

Love, R

you’re hot then you’re cold

Dear Soulmate,

You know that summer is officially over when your iced coffee freezes after a brisk five minute walk outside.

In effort to keep some traditions of this sunny season alive, I still wear flip flops around the house just to hear that familiar and comforting rhythm of summer tapping against my heels with every step. I’ve been known to flip open the cap of an old tube of last summer’s sunblock just to be reminded of that summer scent.

Why, you may ask, do I live in Boston then?

My life is very much a contradiction in the same way that you may hate to love love or love to hate love.

I love the summer but not in Boston. I love Boston but I don’t like the winter. I drink iced coffee all year although my hands are always cold- even in the summer. I have never dated nor been in a relationship but I have been in love.

Call them lovers, if you will.

Seeing as my generation is going through a phase where people are more inclined to “hook-up” with one another than be asked out to dinner and a movie, I do not see my lack of being in a serious relationship as excluding me from the dating scene. Welcome all to Gen-Y dating- hook-up first, date later… that is- if you pass the hook-up test first.

If I sound less enthused by the hook-up culture, understand that I am simply trying to make sense of it.

Life is full of contradictions- but should love be?

Stay warm, R

stay warm

Dear Soulmate,

If you were in Boston today you may have been just as unpleasantly surprised as I by the dramatic shift in temperature that finally cast all my doubts aside that winter is finally here.

Much to my dismay the wind did not make any direction for walking favorable. The wind even chased my footsteps down the stairs of the subway and underground I finally found relief.

Sometimes Boston in the winter can feel very much like being stuck in a dark subway tunnel. This is when I would much prefer to hibernate.

But then there are those moments when in the passing of strangers you comiserate with one another. With expressions of unenthused understanding you say you would much prefer to be walking in shorts and a tee shirt that having your visibility obstructed by hats and scarfs that hide your face.

Perhaps now would be a good time for me to tell you that I hope you enjoy the winter. This way you may enlighen me with the more glamorous side of winter that I tend to overlook in my anticipation for summer.

Tell me how you used to play in the snow for hours when you were younger. Tell me how much you love the sun on your face when you close your eyes as you ride the charlift. Tell me you love the sound of freshly fallen snow crunching beneath your boots as you walk. Tell me that you’ll keep me warm despite that my hands are always cold.

Tell me that you love me and I’ll stay warm forever.

All my love, R