found letter

I’m at your apartment without you, but I’m too drunk to spy, to care about photo albums of your past, to search for love letters, and sad coupons with penned promises.  I’m in your bed, waiting for your return, listening to Damien Rice, and for the first time in my life, I’m not wondering who has been through this bed, as you’re on your way home to me.  “In a cab,” you texted.  I know you’re on your way, but even if you were gone for longer, for hours, days, months… we’d be okay.  I’d never do years, knowing neither of us would do well trying to do alone together.  I’m not built that way, to do alone together.  I wasn’t built for long distance.  I can do sprints, short term, or long term together, but expecting long distance is expecting too much.  Life’s too short for it.  I live mine in a series of moments.  I can do month to month, like a lease, but a long-term commitment when “next” means “months from now”… I’ll never be able to do it. 

“Then it’s not love.  If it were, you’d wait.”  Sorry, no.  I just don’t buy that.  I wasn’t built that way, to sustain on promises of sometime.  I need now, a pacifier, a life for now that will lead into then and them.  I won’t live in sorrow, based on borrowed words for our tomorrow.  I need now, and if you can’t give it, I’m gone, not to punish but to live.  I need to live, and that means now, not tomorrow. 

I spend too much time worrying you’ll die, or I’ll die.  I want you to know, if I never get to say goodbye, that you’re my dreams.  You’re my future.  You’re my family.  And a part of me worries I’ll die before I get to say those words.  That people won’t know how important you are to me, because we didn’t get there yet.  I worry the world won’t know, that you won’t know, that you’re all I’ll ever need.  I want that chance to tell you, to show you, what you are to me, my family in months. 

When we fight, I worry the time is being thrown in balls that hit the plate.  I worry we’ll run out of time, and no matter how right I ever feel in our arguments, feeling adrift always feels wrong.  I need you to know that you’re my equal, and that I want to give you the world.  What scares me most, is not death, it’s dying without your knowing what you mean to me, without everyone knowing that they should love you just as they love me.  I want to spend my life with you, what I’ve left of it.  Philip Steven Beer.  I want whatever I have left, to give and share with you.  But I won’t share this with you because you’ll think they’re words, drunken letters. 

This, however, is everything I feel but won’t say because life is too short, or too long.  As life would have it, I’ll outlive this, these moments of apologies, of declarations, and it won’t matter.  I’ll be the only one to read this.  It would be found; it will be re-revealed.  A love of mine, that perhaps lasted longer than it ought to have, or not long enough.  Either way, the love part is honest.  And it will always be home.

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COMMENTS:

  1. Hi Stephanie,
    That mirrors a lot of what I am currently thinking about my fiance. Hoping that if I died, or something happened, that people would know to love him, just as he loves me.

    Thanks for writing about this.

  2. Stephanie,
    You never cease to amaze me….thanks for this post and for writing a book that was written up in a People magazine that I read while waiting for my Starbucks coffee and then proceeded immediately to find, buy and read. Life changing even from a 51 year old Austin, Texas native's perspective… gracias.

  3. Stepahnie, I am not sure how else to describe it, except to say this post gave me goose bumps. You have again, managed to drown me in your words. Not only the meaning behind your words, but the words them self are beautiful. I particularly loved, "I won’t live in sorrow, based on borrowed words for our tomorrow." This is a great post; I am delighted to start my day with it.

  4. That's beautiful. It actually made me a little teary eyed. One of those days that anything would do it… but especially your deep, heart touching words.

  5. Nice Steph. I'll be thinking about this post throughout the day. Do our husbands, lovers, significant others really know how we feel deep down inside about them? Do you trust them with that knowledge, that vunerability? If you don't then you've married the wrong person.

  6. If you take this "found letter" and put it up for your children to read when you are gone, many many years from now, it would be a wonderful gift for them to remember the deep, unending love of their wonderful mother.

  7. I had to do long distance for a year. Guess it depends on how determined you are.

    "I spend too much time worrying you’ll die, or I’ll die." Too many of us are guilty of this. Of feeling…and then having that feeling snatched away from us in the worse possible way.

    I still feel it. I still worry. And I still hate it.

  8. Two words: purple prose. I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. Your website needs an editor as badly as your book did. This website and your success are both testaments to the fact that people take themselves too seriously. Congrats on the success, but I hope you remember that you're not important and you're not talented. You've found a niche market and sold yourself into it like foot fetishes or trekkies; there will always be dumb readers. I just want to make sure you or your fans haven't fooled you into thinking that you've actually produced something of great merit. It's a disposable novel, to be crossed out of existence immediately after it's conception like the sentence "I won’t live in sorrow, based on borrowed words for our tomorrow".

    I know you won't post this. I don't care. I just want you to read it, and I know you can't help yourself. Now you can have a good cry then call someone to pump your ego back up, stumble into a bookstore to find someone reading your book and forget all about my inconsiderate honesty.

  9. I mirror Buffy's comment above.

    My gosh, you're so good with words. And this was a drunken letter? Beautiful.

  10. This was something I wrote when I was in it. You know how sometimes we're over-dramatic and all syrup and tears? I was all that plus 80 proof. This was written with heart. When I re-read it now, for the writing, there is a lot I'd change. Even more I'd delete. "I won’t live in sorrow, based on borrowed words for our tomorrow" sounds like something I would have written in seventh grade. But this wasn't a display of writing. It's a moment in a relationship, and I'm keeping it, as it was expressed at the time.

  11. To CB….you are not honest, just plain inconsiderate…and in need of the attention you just got by my responding to your comment, silly me. Just quit reading the blog.

  12. CB – it's people like you that make me grateful for people like Stephanie. You're a coward. Otherwise you would've put your real name instead of some fake initials. If you don't like what she writes and how she writes…get the fukc off her blog. Good day to you.

  13. Steph,
    You captured in perfectly…life is about how much we loved and how much we were loved!!! Your babies are soo lucky…

    and buffy is just jealous that this blog is the only place her words will ever be read…

  14. I loved, "I won't live in sorrow, based on borrowed words of our tomorrow.” I liked the way it lyrically rolled off my tongue. Even if you were drunk, you still felt it and meant it. It may have been something you would have wrote in the seventh grade, but at that age you are self-absorbed, everything seems so important and overwhelming. Coincidently, that’s the same effect 80 proof tends to have.

  15. In a falling golden leaf
    The first sign of autumn.
    Sitting on red benches
    We
    Watch a centrepiece of
    Beautiful colours thrown
    By the stemful
    Our way.

    Smudged irregular patterns
    Carpet our walk
    Home
    hand in hand

    feels like the first time
    cause we never
    let complacency get the better of us.

    Stephanie keep writing cause I really enjoy your blogsite. I showed the woman in the bookshop your blog and she will be ordering copies of it…so you will have to make a tour to Oslo and give us a reading soon……..

  16. Ahhhhh, jealousy rears its ugly head in the form of someone signing as "CB". How refreshing. Now that we know your feelings, CB, adios.

  17. What the hell is wrong with CG's comment? He/She thinks the writing in this post is crap and that the novel is also crap. Others disagree. Indeed, others consistently write of how they loved particular posts and the novel, how they were moved, how it changed their life, etc.

    What is wrong with open discourse and a genuine expression of opinion? Those that jump all over comments like that posted by CB are engaging in an insidious form of censorship. Comments that compliment or pay homage to a post or the novel are good, applauded and encouraged. Those that don't are bad and are condemned.

    Shame on you.

  18. If you think these feelings are strong, just wait until those babies show up. This kind of love – multiplied by infinity.

  19. Not sure I understand the post. Obviously a letter of sorts you wrote to your current husband during your courtship, but are you also referring to a past relationship, one that didn't work out because your partner moved away? "A love of mine, that perhaps lasted longer than it ought to have, or not long enough," sounds like something that, whether for good or bad, is now over and done.

  20. Stephanie, please do not be insulted by this, as it is not intended, but I read that and thought it was adorable. Extremely cute. Sometimes I dont think there are any greater truths than those spoken with the help of 80 proof and seventh grade drama As a result of the aforementioned. The Borrowed Sorrow of Tomorrow thing is kinda heavy on the cheese, sure, but it's SWEET! There is nothing wrong with sweet, in my humble opinion.

    That post made me smile, for all of the right reasons. You silly drunk, you! ;)

    Besides, who the heck should judge your emotion? Noone but you and Mr. Beers, that's who. I'm sure he thought it was very sweet as well, regardless of writing quality or cheese factor.

  21. CB – you are a twit. You are a mean, jealous person. It is a B.L.O.G….SK wrote a book stemming from this blog…

    She isn't trying to find a cure for cancer. She isn't trying to compete with Shakespeare.

    If you can't see it for it's entertainment value, then stop reading it and go back to your therapist to work on your anger management

  22. Isn't Stephanie clever to have found a niche market and "sold herself into it?" This is probably Stephanie's greatest strength, yes, to seek out and pander to the "dumb readers." Seems to me that this site began as a blog with no audience, found an audience, and retained an audience. If this has been achieved by means of "purple prose," so be it. In fact, I believe that particular accusation is a puerile cheat; it is the rallying cry of the armchair editor and occurs in tandem with inappropriate feelings of intellectual superiority.

    "Not talented?" It appears Stephanie has not suffered financially for a presumed lack of the stuff. Neither has Tucker Max. Or the guy who writes the fragrance column in the New York Times. And the list goes on, the very long, very purple list. All the way to the bank.

    Geeze, Stephanie, you are making CB blow his monthly budget for blue pencils. Perhaps we should take up a collection.

  23. That's right, Stephanie.
    You are neither talented nor important.
    We are all just stupid women reading your foolish ramblings!

    And it's that lack of talent that causes you to have so many followers.

    I've said it before. I'll say it again.
    You're a badass.

  24. CB- nobody is saying Stephanie is Shakespeare, but her writing is entertaining, often inspiring, and connects well with a great deal of us readers. For that, I say thank you Stephanie for helping me procrastinate my work, and for those often entertaining, and sometimes touching posts.

    PS- the book is a GREAT gift to give to that annoying friend who always falls for the asshole guy…and then calls you to complain about it for weeks. It def shut a few of mine up…for that i say thank you stephanie!!!!!

  25. Melissa–Buffy's not the one who posted the nasty comment; it was CB. Just pointing this out because I like Buffy and she'd never contribute random nastiness to a comment thread.

  26. this is amazing! i discovered this after reading elle magazine a few days ago(romanian edition, because i'm from romania). i'm 18 and the only thing that i've read,until now, that speaks 'straight up and dirty' about a womans feelings and thoughts and i could compare to this is from anais nin.it's like a rough diamond. everything is raw, in its pure state.i
    love it. don't ever stop from 'writing your mind'!

  27. Oh the spying always gets us into trouble. ALWAYS. I say just don't do it. But of course it isn't that easy.

    I am in a long distance relationship and I am always wondering what is happening when I am not there.

  28. I WANDERED UPON YOUR BLOG A FEW MONTHS AGO, AND HAVE READ ABOUT 4 MONTHS OF YOUR ENTRIES. AS A SUCCESSFUL WOMAN WHO HAS RELOCATED FROM NEW ORLEANS TO TX AFTER THE HURRICANE. I FOUND INSIGHT IN READING YOUR BLOG ABOUT EVERYTHING BEING DIFFERENT. I REALLY LOVE YOUR STYLE AND WIT, AND I TOO HAVE ENJOYED HERMES AND SHOPPING ABROAD, AS WELL,AS MEN, SHOES AND CHOCOLATE… BUT LATELY I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF CERTAIN OF YOUR COMMENTS. AND I FEEL GUILTY EVEN BRING CRITICAL, AS I AM CLICKING YOUR SITE. BUT I FEEL LIKE ONE MIN. YOU ARE AN EVERY WOMAN….. AND THE NEXT YOU ARE SO, SO CRITICAL OF THE AUDIENCE YOU WANT TO PURCHASE YOUR BOOKS. I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE IF THIS COMMENT IS OFFENSIVE. I WISH THE BEST FOR YOU AND YOU FAMILY.

  29. my husband and i dated for eight years before we got married. four of those were long distance. we missed out on a lot of the little day to day things – even now I'll say "remember this" and he won't, because it got lost in the distance. but for us, it worked. thanks for this post.

  30. As an avid young follower of both your blog and your book (which, might I add, got me in a bit of trouble with an overprotective mother who judged too quickly and threw away my book, which I rebought, which she threw out, which I rebought–I won!) I want to say your posts touch even the younger generation of women. They make me look forward to loving and living life to the fullest.
    Thanks.

  31. Wow, this was so beautiful, Steph! It’s so hard for us to be vulnerable sometimes. Then, when we drink alcohol, it’s as though we hold this little box within our souls…hiding the truth.

    One drink goes down…

    The box opens up just a tiny bit.

    Two drinks goes down…

    The box opens up a bit more.

    Three drinks goes down…

    You get full honesty. (Depending on your tolerance level of course!)

    I’m not promoting alcoholism here—I’m just saying, that I believe pure honesty comes out sometimes, when we are intoxicated. And with this letter you have, it appears that he was afraid to tell you certain things, but definitely needed to get his message across that he loves you.

    Love will conquer anything…and now look at the two of you!

    God bless!

  32. Thanks for posting it and responding. You stuck by your creed – all in the spirit of straight-up honesty.

    Also, your fans are like attack dogs.

    CB

  33. What a nice moment to have too. At least you live life to the full and have allowed yourself to love and be loved. The best is yet to come too – the love you have for your children, makes life worthwhile and to share that with someone you love.

  34. Wow, I didn't know anyone else really knew about Damien Rice, he is mesmerizing :) Perfect for the mood you seemed to be in, I'd bet.

    Take care :)

  35. Stephanie,
    Since you like girly movies AND Damien Rice, maybe you can help me out. What move or TV show featured his song, "The Blowers Daughter"? I am LOSING MY MIND trying to figure it out. It was the "can't take my eyes off of you…" part.

  36. Erin-
    It was in the movie "Closer" with Jude Law, Julia Roberts, and Natalie Portman….
    Not sure what tv show though… but maybe it's the movie you were thinking of? It was in all the previews.
    I love Damien Rice.

  37. I don't understand the post either. I thought Stephani just got married and moved to Austin and is PG with twins. Or is this a post she dug up from her past journals?

    I think all comments should be welcome as long as they are expressed respectfully.

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