Love Letter 1

To my dearest darling.

As I sit here on my laptop, way past midnight, to draft my first love letter to you I encounter a writer’s block. Of all the days, today! And that’s when I realize, it is not that I don’t have words brewing inside me, wanting to become sentences, it is that I am overwhelmed by this moment that we are creating. This is nothing short of divine, this alignment, this almost impossible feat we are trying to achieve, and yet, like two insanely curious kids, we are diving into it.

Why?

Because that’s what we do. Dive in – just because it feels right – without any thought for consequences.

So, that’s what I am going to do tonight, with this very first letter – dive in, and invoke everything that feels right at this moment.

How can a love letter be a love letter without the confession of love, something we never really did. So, let’s start with that.

I love You!

There, simple, out in the Universe. There isn’t any explanation to it, just that. Love.

There are too many things I want to ask, want to write, but somehow, I want us also to sit in silence with each other. Just be there in each other’s presence and feel our energies. Exactly like the way we had shared those precious silent moments on that bench, under the tree, in that small park. That silence was sacred, we said so much even in those unsaid moments. I felt my being attuned to yours, protected, like a home. I want this first letter to be the same.

I never asked, but what did you feel that day? I know you loved the way I chose to be with you rather than be in that salon. I didn’t want you to be alone and you sensed that, and yet we were there sitting quietly. What magic did it unfold?

Also, you knew about my past, but not from me, but from someone else. I did spot a hint of hurt in your eyes, asking me, why couldn’t you trust me enough to tell me. I could have, but something inside me told me that showing my broken pieces to you will make you fall for me even harder. Only I know how I had restrained myself during the last few days before you left. It was almost as if even the divine didn’t want us to meet for the very last time, the day you were leaving the city and asked me to come down with the team to meet you. I wasn’t there in office at that time and later when I enquired, I found that you didn’t meet anyone. You just wanted to meet me. And I know, if you did, I would have finally broken my resolute self. I would have confessed everything in that moment, and I knew you wouldn’t have left. Nothing would have made you leave the country, nothing.

I not just feared it, I knew it. And that’s why I kept quiet.

There was another major weak moment. Remember your house party. I didn’t realize when you had sneaked behind me in the kitchen while I was laying out the food and don’t know for what reason you thanked me, because it was clearly not for serving food! You were standing dangerously close to me, I could almost hear your heartbeat, and just for a fraction of moment I slipped, I wanted to bury myself into your arms at that very instant and tell you how it feels so right, to be there with you, and that nothing else mattered.

And that brings me to another monumental moment. That night. The one at the office party where the world blurred for us, where our masks cracked and something raw slipped out. You remember it, don’t you? I had downed three drinks, laughing and dancing, refusing your warning – aaj tu pina nahi. But you stayed by my side like a shadow, like a shield. Not once did you leave me alone. Not once did you let anyone else near. And then, when Atif Aslam’s Doorie wrapped around us like a fog, I hugged a friend goodbye, sat down waiting for my cab and looked up at you. I asked you to hug me. Once. Then again. The third time I didn’t let go, and neither did you. You folded into me and I into you – your arms around me, my face buried in your chest, breathing you in, feeling your heartbeat echo the storm in mine. You hid your face in my hair. I still remember how tightly you held me - like nothing else existed. Until someone tore us apart. Until that moment got snatched back from us. But I remember it. I carry it. I replay it in silence, not because of what almost happened – but because in those seconds, nothing else mattered. Not my past. Not my relationship. Not the crowd. Just you and me, in the middle of it all, wrapped in something neither of us ever named.

This letter, this outpouring, is not about longing for what could have been – it’s about honoring what was, what we felt in that moment. It’s about setting both of us free from the weight of what we never got to say. You don’t have to reply this in words. But do feel this, for me, for you – because for once, I have written it all, without holding back.

And now, back to the almost hug of the house party! That day I maintained my composure somehow, avoiding to look into your eyes. I knew that we would have just carried on from where we had left that night. And, I didn’t want you to sacrifice anything for me – this was an opportunity of a lifetime and I didn’t want to be an obstacle.

I know you, you wouldn’t have gone. So, don’t say anything otherwise.

You anyway didn’t want to go, you were just following a pattern, you knew you would have been miserable in that cold city, and yet, you couldn’t bear to be in close proximity with me, beside other reasons. You knew if we were to be there in each other’s lives for a few more months, maybe even one more month, we would have fallen hard for each other. You could see the collision coming and it made sense that you had the way out.

Tell me I am wrong. I know I am not.

Then tell me, why didn’t you stay? When your heart so wanted to be here, why did you leave? When you could hear my heartbeat, and read my eyes, why didn’t you pluck the courage to tell me exactly how you felt? Not by asking me to check what I felt for you – I would have never told you my real feelings given my situation. But, you could have done that, you knew you could have been vulnerable in front of me, you just had to hold my hands, look into my eyes and tell me “I love you!” It was that simple.

I would love to know what held you back, not to judge you, but to understand what I did to make you unwelcome. This is as much your churning, as much mine.

I know it's bygone, but I also know this was the exact moment when we lost ourselves – the whispering opportunity that the Universe had provided us.

I want us to revisit that moment not out of regret or guilt, but to find out what sacred us. Because, today after so many years we are standing at a similar threshold and how we cross this barrier today would define our tomorrow.

For me, it’s just you, and no one or nothing else. Today, I can leave everything – not as a sacrifice – but as non-attachment from everything – just to be with you, even if it is for a single moment. That’s the kind of crazy pull I feel for you, and that’s what is different for me in this pivotal moment.

I am already on the other side of the threshold. I need to know are you coming along?

With lots of love,

A 💗