Love Letter 2

Hey dear,

I didn’t think I would write this second letter so soon, but I felt there was a need for continuation from where I left it last night.

As shaken as you might be right now, so am I.

What really happened yesterday? I bared something that was dormant for so long, and yet it didn’t erupt the way I always feared it would. It was almost poetic, and yet so jarring. It made me calm that finally it was all out, and yet it brewed a new storm inside, that didn’t let me sleep the entire night.

I kept thinking, I could be like this too. This vulnerable, raw and bare. I was shaking while I wrote that letter yesterday, it wasn’t automatic, I shuddered and struggled to often find words. And yet, I didn’t think, I just wrote. That was all me, to the last cell of my body.

That was yesterday, today is a different story.

As I went through my own letter yet again, I was stunned at the vulnerabilities of my own questions. While everything hit home, not just for you, but even for me, one statement really stuck around in my mind – “I know you, you wouldn’t have gone.”

I imagined you responding to that line, that truth in your reply.

“You asked - if I had known you felt the same, would I still have left the country? No. Not a chance in hell. And I don’t say this for some drama or effect or in a self-sacrificing way. I say this because I had also seen this as a possibility, I had already rehearsed this in my mind, that what if she stops me from going, what if we are actually on the same page. Then what? And the answer was simple. The cold, polished corridors of Ithaca would never hold as much allure as your warmth and care. I knew you would have argued with me, wanted me to take up this ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’, but I wouldn’t have let you talk me out of it with your ‘we can figure out long distance’ line. As you know me, so I know you. You would have tried to be noble, to give me space to choose ambition. But what you didn’t realize is that I would have chosen us. And I wouldn’t have regretted it. Yes, sometimes the cloud of doubt would have appeared, the what-if, but seeing you smiling at the corner of our comfy couch, reading Orhan Pamuk, with the latest edition of Cosmopolitan lying open on the table – I knew I would have made the right decision, I loved this contradiction in motion.”

This response was so fiercely you that it didn’t make me feel as if I was imagining it.

And that’s when another thought erupted.

This version is still valid. Maybe just need some upgrades.

And that possibility of “yet again” is exhilarating. Maybe, our story only had a pause, it never really closed, or else why would we keep finding ourselves with each other – in our words, in our silences, in our tiny gestures.

Kyunki picture abhi baaki hai.

I know, can’t help being filmy!

So, here’s a thought.

Be the prodigal son. Come home.

Not for me, not for your family, not for your friends, but for yourself. Come back to your roots, which always nourished you. We don’t need to fix you, you just need to come here as is and your home will heal you, finally and wholly.

Unlike movies, you cannot just pack a suitcase and hop onto the next flight, reality demands planning, exit strategies and closures.

Think about it.

Start the process.

Come home. We are all waiting for you.

Forever yours,

A 💗

PS: I will let you sit with these two letters for now.