May 2, 2010

To the person who broke into my car last night

6

You stole:

  • My Apple ear­buds, which I didn’t care much about, cause they’re shitty and feel like stale muffins in your ears. The only rea­son I had these in the car was to talk hands­free while dri­ving. Which was prob­a­bly only three times a year, but very use­ful when needed.
  • About $20 in change, which is more than I need for park­ing, but this was also the spon­ta­neous junk food fund.
  • My GPS charger, which was in case the bat­tery dies on the road (cause I hate dri­ving with it plugged in). I don’t keep my GPS in the car when it’s cold to pre­serve the bat­tery, and I haven’t needed it since the win­ter. I’m pretty sure you would have stolen my GPS if it was in there.
  • My iPhone charger, which was brand-spanking new, and used for long road trips.
  • My aux­il­liary audio cable, which I use to play my iPhone tracks over my car stereo. I was think­ing of replac­ing it any­way cause it was way too long and the bunched cable looked like clut­ter, but I was still annoyed by the fact that I had to drive 10 min­utes to the near­est Circuit City to buy another with­out being able to lis­ten to the music I wanted.

You didn’t steal:

  • My wheel locks, which would have been no use to you with­out the key, and annoy­ing for me to replace. So…thanks?
  • My assorted music CDs, which I needed an excuse to clean up any­way, so you not tak­ing them didn’t do my any favours. They were also really good songs, and not steal­ing them prob­a­bly means your taste in music sucks.
  • My model cat, which I keep in the back seat and has been get­ting mixed reviews lately. About 50% of peo­ple are fine with it, and 50% are really creeped out because they think it’s real and refuse to sit in the back unless I put it in the trunk. But it was a present from my uncle in Hong Kong, so I’m really glad you didn’t take it.
  • My emer­gency blan­ket and can­dles, which I felt like you should have taken, because I can’t imag­ine you being very warm if you’re a petty crook.

I have to won­der if you were so upset about not find­ing any­thing valu­able that you decided to steal things that aren’t even worth sell­ing or fenc­ing, out of spite. It wasn’t enough to make a claim on my insur­ance, so I have to buy this stuff again. But I don’t really need any of it, except for the aux­il­iary cable, which I replaced with a fancy new retract­ing set and with which I’m much happier.

Just this week I was read­ing about that colonel being charged with a string of break-ins to steal under­wear, and how the peo­ple in that neigh­bour­hood felt shaken at the news. I empathized with them, and felt lucky that it didn’t hap­pen near me.

But when I came out of my house and found the con­tents of my glove com­part­ment spilled onto the pas­sen­ger seat, I was reminded that this is a fact of life every­one is forced to accept, because no one is immune. It’s a nec­es­sary evil, to remind peo­ple that putting too much value in our pos­ses­sions means we only have more to lose.

The only thing that both­ers me is that I feel vio­lated. I’m pretty sure I locked my car, but there’s no sign of forced entry, so I won­der how you got in and whether you now have free access. I can’t change my park­ing spot. My car will always be there, so now I need to keep any­thing valu­able out of it. Not that big a deal really, but it’s less con­ve­nient to have to remem­ber to bring change any time I want to park down­town. Also, in the spring I like to keep all the win­dows of my house open, and now I won’t feel safe doing that when I’m sleep­ing on a dif­fer­ent floor.

But I still con­sider myself lucky. Lucky you didn’t make out with more than $100 worth of stuff. Lucky my first expe­ri­ence with theft was rel­a­tively minor, and an inex­pen­sive les­son learned. Lucky I’ve been feel­ing good lately and that this inci­dent is only a small blip on my radar.

I can only hope that you used the change to feed your­self, because if you’re steal­ing ran­dom shit from cars, you prob­a­bly need the money more than I do.

But, please, don’t do it again, cause to be hon­est, I’d rather it was me eat­ing those McDonald’s french fries on Friday night.

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February 10, 2010

Letters to Girls Mothers

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I’ve been try­ing to write a let­ter to her mother. Something like this:

I was going to stop by on my last trip to Toronto, but part of me real­ized it may have made things com­pli­cated, since it’d be the first time since we stopped talk­ing to each other. Not that I was scared you would take a side, but because I didn’t want you to think I was forc­ing that deci­sion on you.

All I want to say is that I miss all of you ter­ri­bly, she was spe­cial, and it’s a pity things didn’t work out. But it was much beyond our con­trol. I don’t know if either of us will ever grow out of these dif­fer­ences that hold us back.

The last time I came to visit, it was almost 2pm on a Tuesday and you were both at work. I scratched a note on the back of a notepad to let you know I stopped by, and she told me you liked me so much, you stuck it on your fridge. That always meant a lot.

Thanks for everything.

But all of it comes out sound­ing defen­sive. I wish I could explain how I’m not angry but sad, which is a tes­ta­ment to how great they were. I can’t fig­ure out how to put the ball in their court, to let them know that if they’re okay with it, and she’s okay with it, we can still be friends. I really don’t know how appro­pri­ate that would be anyway.

Sometimes, the hard­est part of giv­ing up the girls is giv­ing up their par­ents too.

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September 22, 2009

Protected: The Penultimate Letter

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July 30, 2009

A Letter To The Officer Who Made Me Drive Into A Ditch

2

(If you haven’t seen the pic­ture.)

Maybe we have a few things in com­mon. We were both dri­ving back to the office at the end of the day (me to drop off the cases I had picked up, you to do more paper­work). Both five years at our jobs. Both with­out prior acci­dents. But I’m actu­ally in mar­ket­ing, not deliv­ery, and if it wasn’t for the fact that our so many of our dri­vers had called in sick, I wouldn’t have been on the road at this par­tic­u­lar time on this par­tic­u­lar day.

It was actu­ally a few fac­tors that led to my dri­ving into the dirt shoul­der, and even­tu­ally, set­tling in a ditch fac­ing the wrong way in the grassy median. You drove from the onramp directly into the pass­ing lane — where I was — with­out check­ing your blind spot. Or sig­nal­ing. I didn’t real­ize you were com­ing into my lane and about to hit me until it was too late. I didn’t have time to brake, so I had to drive half onto the shoul­der. As I steered back onto the cement road, it caused a dif­fer­ence in trac­tion between my left and right tires. It made me veer left, and I tried to cor­rect it by steer­ing right. Then the same thing hap­pened in the oppo­site direction.

Read the rest of this entry »

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April 29, 2008

Making A Difference

3

Over the last while, I’ve been receiv­ing some very nice let­ters and com­ments.

Two, in par­tic­u­lar, touched me. This one:

I stum­bled upon your blog a few days ago. I’m read­ing all your archives right now.

One of your entries moved me so much I had to pass it to my best, most initi­mate, most sensitive/sensual girl­friends. It wasn’t a big group, but a group I felt could hear what you were say­ing in your entry. It was about find­ing the spot on a woman that should be kissed.

I read your blog every day because I can’t believe there is a man out in the uni­verse who is this intu­itive, in tune, so aware of him­self emo­tion­ally and phys­i­cally. I wish you had gone to my col­lege — you would have been so loved and admired.

So this entry dis­tresses me, and I don’t even know you. I under­stand lon­li­ness — I’ve never had inti­macy, or rather, I’m very afraid of it. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this because you don’t know me either and you won’t care, but this entry hurts. You must know by now that some­one thinks of you every­day. Maybe it is your mom, maybe an ex-lover or girl­friend or male friend or co worker.

I think I’m more in shock that you can write so hon­estly and openly. I’m jeal­ous of that.

well, I just wanted to let you know that. And that I have a crush on your blog. Can a per­son crush on a blog?

Please take care,
Zaira

And this from a few months ago:

Hi Jeff,

you don’t know me and we will prob­a­bly never meet. It’s sort of inter­est­ing the way the inter­net has changed the way we can know someone.

Allow me to intro­duce myself, since you have already bore your soul in a very real way that has moved me to write to a com­plete stranger-something i have never done.

I am a 30 yr old inte­rior designer, a born and bred new yorker cur­rently liv­ing in brook­lyn. It’s been slow at work lately, so to pass the time I have taken to read­ing blogs mostly design related, but some­how i read a com­ment that you had made on a ran­dom blog, look­ing back i can’t remem­ber which one unfor­tu­nately, and it led me back to your per­sonal blog somehow.

you see I am not like you at all. I feel sim­i­lar feel­ings, and even have sim­i­lar beliefs, but I don’t have the guts to put myself out there in that way. I dont even have a blog, and i can barely talk to my friends about the way im feel­ing. so for me your blog is very ther­a­peu­tic and refreshing.

like most peo­ple who blog, im sure, you won­der if any­one out there is read­ing. Well just wanted to let you know that I really like your blog and will con­tinue to read it.

I have added you as a flickr con­tact and i see that you have reciprocated-*armadilliz* I am not a stalker / crazy per­son, or any­thing like that, just a fan, so rest easy.

Take care,

–Liz

And while peo­ple tell me how much they appre­ci­ate me being open and shar­ing myself, it’s noth­ing com­pared to what they share of them­selves in these let­ters. I don’t know what com­pels some­one to write to a total stranger, but it’s a warm­ing ges­ture, some­thing that inspires me when I’m feel­ing closed and self-conscious.

So I want to say thank you.

Thank you to the peo­ple who’ve writ­ten me. Thank you to the peo­ple who share their own prob­lems and issues and lives. Thank you to the peo­ple who let me know that I’ve inspired them to start their own jour­nals. Thank you for sup­port­ing me when we’ve never even spoken.

It’s your words that make me feel like I’m not so alone when I’m sit­ting in my house, won­der­ing what to do with myself. It’s your kind­ness that gives me strength when the world is falling down around me. It’s know­ing that I’ve been able to make a dif­fer­ence that keeps me going.

Thank you.

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April 27, 2007

Letter From An Ex-Girlfriend

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Jeff

Where do I start? I can’t even begin to recount the last six weeks of my life, and really if I were able…Im [sic] not sure you’d want to hear it. I won’t say the “let’s be friends” email was a sur­prize [sic]…I sup­pose I just needed to hear it.

I find a let­ter in my mail­box, wrapped in a gold foil enve­lope, teal let­ters on a white page.

The let­ters are blocky, square, with no regard for case. She used to write me notes with her Es as three par­al­lel lines, count­ing on the eye to draw an illu­sion of a ver­ti­cal bar, and her Os dot­ted in the cen­tre. It was one of her things, one of the details she used to be unique.

Now she’s aban­doned all that.

I’m already skep­ti­cal, on my guard.

It’s hard though…I had my chance…I sup­pose you had yours through our relationship…you couldn’t be what I needed then and now look at you — the sub­ject of my fantasies…watching from afar…wishing I’d have saw [sic] these things then — won­der­ing if maybe I had looked through less skep­ti­cal eyes, I could have saw [sic] who you are today.

I’m reminded of why it ended. Of how hard I tried to make it work, of all the things she did to hurt me.

Now she points out her faults. The mis­takes she made. She flat­ters me. She lets her guard down. I’ve never felt her so vul­ner­a­ble, and this is how I know she’s changed.

You lead the struc­tured life I always wanted, I don’t know if you have a coun­ter­part in your life…I don’t know if you’re con­tent now to struc­ture your own world and not yet some­one else’s…there are few things I do know about you…but what I do see…Im [sic] sorry I didn’t before.

Truth be told…Ive [sic] dri­ven all the way to the east end on a few occa­sions and turned back. My inten­tion was to fall at your feet…to kiss them as I had in the past but with a renewed respect for you and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of myself. But I was affraid [sic].

I’m reminded now of what drove me to achieve what I have now. To cast off that part of my life, to buy a house, to live on my own, to move on. I may never have had any of this if it wasn’t for her.

I’m sure you’re shak­ing your head now…maybe laughing…maybe not even read­ing this any­more. You’re done with me it seems. i’m [sic] okay with that…afterall [sic] it’s my own fault. I had that chance and I couldn’t take it.

i’ll [sic] get to the point: on the next page is a short fan­tasy I had pass through my mind yes­ter­day and so I wrote it down in my jour­nal because lately some­thing has changed in me — I never assign a name or face or…person to my fantisies…lately you’ve been front and centre.

I’m reminded of how intensely sex­ual she was. The nights we stayed up, alive in flame, con­sumed by our con­cu­pis­cence, push­ing the lim­its of our bod­ies. There were times when I never felt so alive.

Before you read this next page…know that if you had wanted me at your feet—Id [sic] be there in a heartbeat—even still—what an hon­nor [sic] it would be to curl up at your feet while you read this—

Okay now Im [sic] stalling—because Im ner­vous at the thought of you open­ing your eyes to my want…for you.

Her words aren’t enough. Not enough to change my mind or what’s past.

Too lit­tle, too late.

Note: The sec­ond page, the fan­tasy, wasn’t included, for fear that it would give away the iden­tity of writer. It reads like some­thing from l’Histoire d’O; noth­ing vul­gar, but flat, dry, and devoid of lit­er­ary devices.

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April 20, 2007

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Bronwen

12

I love you too much baby
For you to be with me
I love you too much baby
I gotta set you free

—Shea Seger, I Love You Too Much

You were the clos­est I’ve ever come to per­fect in a girl­friend. In fact, you raised the bar. Now I know there are girls out there who are funny, intel­li­gent, open-minded, car­ing, sane, and I’ll always be look­ing for the same now.

Making love to you was fun because you’re so damn cute. I loved to look into your eyes, though I wish you’d be able to keep yours open.

In so many ways, we worked. My love of dark choco­late and your love of milk choco­late meant that we’d never have a prob­lem fin­ish­ing off an assorted box. You’re so easy-going, while I’m so uptight. All the lit­tle things, like puz­zle pieces made of clay.

Even though it’s been months since we’ve bro­ken up, our video is still by far the most played item on my iTunes playlist. It’s such a beat­i­ful mem­ory, and I’ll always cher­ish it.

I still miss those notes you used to leave me about what you did dur­ing the day and when you’d be back. Those times we’d take the bus, and you’d rest your head on my shoul­der. Those times we’d wres­tle and fall asleep in a pile, right there, from exhaustion.

I miss all these things, but the fact is that it didn’t feel right, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to keep going. You deserve to be with some­one bet­ter. Someone who will fully appre­ci­ate you and the things you do.

I know I never said it in our rela­tion­ship, but I loved you.

And I still do.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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April 13, 2007

Letters From A Prisoner

2

I’m not going to deny it any­more. It’s always been you. But I under­stand, you don’t need to explain, I get it. Work, our lives, we’re busy. You’re about to go off on a grand adven­ture. And I can see why you think that a rela­tion­ship with me and that adven­ture are mutu­ally exclu­sive but I just want to say my piece. Getting lost with each other could be the great­est adven­ture we’ve yet to embark on and I just want to say that if you want to get lost with me I’ll always be here per­pet­u­ally lost with­out you.

I read his let­ters, some dated, some titled with expres­sions of for­lorn hope. Familiar words that cut me to the bone.

They’re beau­ti­ful. I never knew he was capa­ble of such poignancy, such emo­tion. It fills me with envy.

Sometimes I just want to be noticed. Not often, but some­times late at night when I’m think­ing about the “what-ifs” of the day. Being too obvi­ous would be dan­ger­ous though and so I slink away, back to my cave to think, rather than do. Such a cow­ard, I loathe myself. You’d say no, every ratio­nal sce­nario I’ve played out ends with that.

He’s trapped, per­pet­u­ally lost in the thought of another. This time, I’m on the out­side, look­ing in. It’s all new for him, and I can hear in his voice how much he detests it.

His angst is unbe­com­ing. He’s not a writer, but he writes these let­ters, hop­ing the cathar­sis will save him. I’ve been here enough times to know that it’ll be alright, but that there’s also noth­ing I can do to help, so I resign myself to helplessness.

And now I’ll be pre-occupied and jeal­ous for the rest of the week­end. Me, jeal­ous and not trust­ing myself to speak, me. Not me, any­more. This love is like lep­rosy, pieces of myself are falling away. It’s ablative.

Yet his tone is so unfa­mil­iar, so unlike him. Me, he writes, Not me, any­more. He doesn’t even believe it him­self. The san­guine friend, reduced to an enfee­bled state he wants des­per­ately to cast aside. Even with the wis­dom I’ve gained, it still sur­prises me how attrac­tion, infat­u­a­tion, love can make one so irrational.

In these let­ters he shares his feel­ings, wholly, as if to say, “Here is my heart. Please hold it gen­tly”. The words would strip him bare if he spoke them to her, so he writes them where no one but me will read.

A pris­oner, he lives in this cage, caught between the will and the risk of express­ing to her how he feels.

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December 18, 2006

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Louise

11

The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday

—BB King, The Thrill Is Gone

Our rela­tion­ship was a night­mare of ups and downs.

You had the amaz­ing abil­ity to make me feel good about myself, by say­ing the right thing with intel­li­gence and eloquence.

Yet every time I felt like I was mak­ing progress, progress that took tremen­dous effort and energy, progress for you, you would put me down. Every time I took a leap of faith and put myself out there, you would hurt me. It wasn’t even a case of bru­tal, tact­less hon­esty; you would insult my pride for no reason.

I think it betrayed a sub­con­scious inse­cu­rity. Something you would do to make your­self feel bet­ter. Like your con­stant need to prove that you’re busy and mov­ing on. It’s as if your life is empty, void, and you’re des­per­ate to fill it with something.

I had to end things when you went too far.

There were no regrets, because I did my absolute best to make things work. Even though I suf­fered, I ignored the pain, and tried work­ing through it. I only gave up when you proved too stub­born to change or understand.

The rela­tion­ship wasn’t a total loss. It was an inter­est­ing intro­duc­tion to the sub­cul­ture. It was pas­sion­ately sex­ual. It also made me more con­fi­dent, although I real­ize now that it wasn’t because of you. You barely gave me any trust, and every step for­ward I made, you pulled me back two. It was me who fought through all the inse­cu­ri­ties and rose to the occasion.

When you came back in January, with­out a word of apol­ogy or men­tion of the wrong you did, I had no inter­est in con­tin­u­ing the rela­tion­ship. After that, I thought of you when­ever I heard the song Buried Myself Alive by The Used.

Then, with all your let­ters and your apolo­gies and your tears, two years later, you asked “nicer than that”.

Unfortunately, it was at an unsta­ble time in my life, so I asked you to back off and wait. Your idea of back­ing off and wait­ing is leav­ing me creepy com­ments and dat­ing to fill the time. I just can’t under­stand how you keep mak­ing these mis­takes. It’s almost like you pur­posely sab­o­tage yourself.

I don’t want to be involved in the drama any­more. Nothing is ever sim­ple with you. Even though you say you’ve changed, it’s not worth the risk to me. You had your chance, and it was a damn good one.

You’ve wronged me too many times. The last time you left my house, not know­ing when or if you’d come back, I felt nothing.

I knew then that the thrill was gone.

A few other things:

  • On the phone, your voice could be so cute that it would make me weak and for­get every­thing you did.
  • Out of all my girl­friends, you were phys­i­cally the least attrac­tive, yet you were the most con­ceited about your looks.
  • It was very much appre­ci­ated when you brought me flow­ers at work, and the times you’ve dropped off food and other good­ies at my door. No one else has done this for me.
  • The way you would remem­ber events was often com­pletely wrong. It wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t com­pletely con­vinced that your inter­pre­ta­tion was cor­rect. It made things rather scary, like dat­ing a schiz­o­phrenic. You could totally fab­ri­cate how things went, the way you wanted to remem­ber them. The root of an argu­ment would turn into my fault, instead of yours.
  • You were a knock­out in bed.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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December 11, 2006

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Jackie

8

Am I not your favourite gad­get, no more?
How come my lit­tle baby?
Am I not your favourite gad­get, no more now?
How come not anymore?

Since you bought me, I feel lonely
Since that day things are wrong
Could you not repair me, honey
Is my war­ranty guar­an­teed gone

—Ellen ten Damme, Gadget

There was always some­thing about you.

Your voice. Your Joisey accent. Your hair style. Your always-on choker. Your pierc­ings (I was always a sucker for brow rings and tongue studs). Your taste in music. Your off-the-wall personality.

It was all so excit­ing. Something I’d never expe­ri­enced before.

But you were a total drama queen too. You would get upset over the most ran­dom, innocu­ous things. I could never tell if you truly believed the ridicu­lous things you said, or whether you just said them for atten­tion. Either way, I hated it.

You could also be as imma­ture as a teenager. I hated how you would do things like leave in the mid­dle of a game and storm off to the other room because you thought you would lose.

I put all my feel­ings aside for you. I would always let you have your way, but you’d never even con­sider mine, and I hated it.

Most of all, I hated how you meant so much to me, while I meant so lit­tle to you.

Even though I knew it wouldn’t last, even though I knew you were com­pletely wrong for me, like poi­son in the blood­stream, I couldn’t end it. Sometimes I still won­der if you ever think of me, or whether I was just another thing you used to occupy your­self in the sum­mer, between boyfriends.

I’ve writ­ten more entries inspired by what hap­pened than by any­thing else. I don’t want to give our rela­tion­ship any sig­nif­i­cance, but the truth is that I can’t deny how impor­tant it was. What we had wouldn’t even count as a rela­tion­ship, if it weren’t for how much it affected me.

My pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ships were never sat­is­fy­ing. It felt like I could never fall in love or appre­ci­ate my girl­friends for who they were, and I always believed it was my fault. Then I fell in love with you, and it helped me learn that the fail­ures of the past weren’t anyone’s fault, and sim­ply the result of incom­pat­i­bil­ity. If it wasn’t for this real­iza­tion, the suf­fer­ing and the heart­break wouldn’t have been worth it.

You were the only girl to ever break up with me. It was the short­est rela­tion­ship I’ve had by far, but for some rea­son, it was the longest for me to get over. My heart tells me you were spe­cial, but my head tells me you weren’t spe­cial at all.

You were only the one I couldn’t have.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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December 4, 2006

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Christie

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I can see the pain liv­ing in your eyes
And I know how hard you try
You deserve to have much more
I can feel your heart and I sym­pa­thize
And I’ll never crit­i­cize
All you’ve ever meant to my life

I don’t want to let you down
I don’t want to lead you on
I don’t want to hold you back
From where you might belong

You would never ask me why
My heart is so dis­guised
I just can’t live a lie any­more
I would rather hurt myself
Than to ever make you cry
There’s noth­ing left to say but goodbye

—Air Supply, Goodbye

Over four years ago, I started this blog because of you. I felt like you never under­stood me, so I needed a place where I could express myself with­out any inhibitions.

I had a lot of hope in you, being drawn to your youth and inno­cence. A lot of hope in us. I always thought you were like clay I could mold. Someone who would even­tu­ally com­plete me, but you never changed or showed improvement.

It took me a long time to real­ize how wrong it was for me to do that. How wrong it was for me to want you to be a dif­fer­ent person.

I never appre­ci­ated you for who you were, and you never deserved any of it.

I hope I didn’t hurt you. I heard from your brother that you’re already on your Masters degree. I hope he’s healthy and happy. I hope your par­ents are doing well, that your dad is retired and they’re trav­el­ling out east like they’ve always wanted when you started university.

There are a lot of fond mem­o­ries of our time together. I won­der if you believed me when I said that I wanted to marry you. It was some­thing I hon­estly felt at the time, until things started falling apart, and I went through one of my phases again. It wasn’t your fault.

I had to end it before I led you on any further.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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November 27, 2006

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Michele

5

Why should I stay and pre­tend?
You make me laugh again
My dar­ling, truth is we are not even friends
Love comes and it goes
Where your heart stops no one knows
How did I wind up in this mess, here with you?

Just a moment of weak­ness
I should exam­ine my head
Just a moment of weak­ness
I never meant a word I said

—Bif Naked, Moment Of Weakness

The first thing about you that caught my eye was your plat­form shoes. More specif­i­cally, the lanky way you walked in them with your plaid skirt on. You had such a funny gait that I would study when I was walk­ing behind you in the halls. Sometimes you looked like an injured fawn, vul­ner­a­ble and awk­wardly run­ning away with your long, slen­der legs. It was the very def­i­n­i­tion of sex­u­al­ity to a depressed, hor­monal teenage male.

Those shoes gave you an extra cou­ple inches, and I resented every time you sub­tly knelt so you wouldn’t be taller than me in any pictures.

I only have a sin­gle good mem­ory of our rela­tion­ship. You were sit­ting on my lap in the jacuzzi at Cammy’s place. It was February, and there was snow all around us, but we were warm and wet. Every few min­utes, we would dunk our heads under the water, then style each other’s hair, the win­ter air freez­ing it within seconds.

The more I got to know you, the more I learned that it was all a big mis­take. I stuck it out because I didn’t want to break up with you in the months lead­ing up to your exams. It was espe­cially hard when Lisa started show­ing inter­est in me, but I couldn’t do it.

You were a sex­ual bore. No sound, no reac­tion, noth­ing in bed. Your friends were all snobs. Your thoughts were trite, and your inter­ests were shallow.

You never knew it, but I had to decide between dat­ing you and Marina. It tore me up for a week, know­ing that one of you was going to be hurt. I chose you in a moment of weakness.

It was the biggest mis­take of my high school career.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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November 20, 2006

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Ashley

4

The lovin is a mess, what hap­pened to all of the feel­ing?
I thought it was for real; babies, rings and fools kneel­ing
And words of pledg­ing trust and life­times stretch­ing for­ever
So what went wrong? It was a lie, it crum­bled apart
Ghost fig­ures of past, present, future haunt­ing the heart

—Belle & Sebastian, Another Sunny Day

Our rela­tion­ship has always rep­re­sented the inno­cence of my youth.

The Friday nights, play­ing with can­dle wax in the dark, learn­ing how our bod­ies worked. Or the rush of worry and excite­ment about par­ents walk­ing in the door. Olfactory sense has come to mean a great deal in my rela­tion­ships. From those nights we made love with Beth’s voice com­ing through your tinny speak­ers, I get turned on when I lis­ten to Portishead.

I kept the bot­tle of Gap Earth you used, some­thing dear to me since it was dis­con­tin­ued. Every time I smell the noz­zle, it brings me back to the time we were together.

Out of all my other girl­friends, I thought you would be the one to end up in a D/s rela­tion­ship. I never real­ized it until my own intro­duc­tion to the lifestyle, but the things you did were the most nat­u­rally sub­mis­sive. The way you wanted to be tied up with our belts, the enjoy­ment you got from pain, your desire for me to be in con­trol, the way you would take my hands is yours so you could kiss my knuck­les. To this day, I won­der if you still like these things.

I’ve always tried to fig­ure out why I’m never sat­is­fied in my rela­tion­ships. It’s usu­ally not the fault of the peo­ple I date. Sometimes I blame my par­ents for their failed mar­riage, and how this has made me feel that’s it’s nec­es­sary to find the per­fect per­son so I don’t end up like them. Sometimes I think it’s because you were the first, and you came to define what was “right” or not.

Why then, did I break up with you?

I wish I could explain. I thought things would last, because you never hurt me in any way. In fact, you did noth­ing wrong. Maybe we were just too young. They say you shouldn’t marry the per­son you can live with, you should marry the per­son you can’t live without.

And I knew that I could live with­out you.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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November 13, 2006

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Introduction

16

An ex e-mailed me out of the blue the other day. She blamed it on the fall weather, caus­ing her to rem­i­nisce and Google my name. We hadn’t seen or spo­ken to each other in over five years.

After feel­ing each other out for the first part of the exchange, we caught up on each oth­ers lives. She’s been mar­ried for three years. Moved out to Kingston after liv­ing through the pol­lu­tion and over-stimulation of down­town Toronto. She has a full-time job while work­ing toward her Master of Education part-time. Her husband’s an artist at heart, she says, try­ing to make a liv­ing off cre­ative writ­ing. No kids yet, but instead, two cats, Emily Wednesday and Shadow.

Me? I moved to Ottawa for uni­ver­sity, bought a house, recently got out of a rela­tion­ship, been work­ing as the mar­ket­ing and IT man­ager at a den­tal lab­o­ra­tory. Oh, and I have one cat, but I’m think­ing of a second.

There were some things I’d been mean­ing to ask her for a while. Going through a series of rela­tion­ships since ours has changed my per­spec­tive, and I’ve always won­dered whether she’s grown in this way as well. I put a few ques­tions to her, but she told me, in an ami­able way, that she wasn’t com­pletely com­fort­able indulging my curiosities.

What she had no prob­lem talk­ing about before was now taboo and off lim­its. Was she afraid of upset­ting her hus­band by dis­cussing such per­sonal things with an ex-boyfriend, or did she sim­ply change so much?

There are a lot of things I’d like to say to my ex-girlfriends, but the nature of a break-up can be that of ran­cor. Communication breaks down. People lose per­spec­tive. I’ve always had a tremen­dous need to express myself, per­haps to the detri­ment of my rela­tion­ships, but dig­ging up what’s past and buried for the sake clo­sure seems a bit self­ish. After hav­ing this ex tell me that she was uncom­fort­able, I real­ized that it may have been rather inap­pro­pri­ate of me.

It’s only here that I can say what I want.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
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October 10, 2006

Letter To My Mother

6

You didn’t know it, but for years I’ve come close to burn­ing the bridge with you. It was a heavy step to take, because in doing so, I knew that I would never be able to go back on such a dras­tic decision.

I appre­ci­ate all the finan­cial sup­port you’ve pro­vided. It’s been more than I can ask for. Unfortunately, what I wanted and needed the most was emo­tional support.

I’ve always played the role of the sub­mis­sive son. Your boy who’s always done what you wanted and agreed with what you said. When we exchanged tears on the phone in August, I let you know how poorly I was treated grow­ing up. I’ve always put up with it, but the way you acted last week was the straw that broke the camels back. I keep giv­ing you a chance, over and over. Seeing you over those few days was the last one. Even if you say now that you can change, the risk isn’t worth it. The poten­tial mis­ery, frus­tra­tion, and anguish you may cause me aren’t worth it.

Normally, I would be sen­si­tive about the tim­ing — the fresh divorce, the tran­si­tion — but I don’t care any­more. I’ve put my feel­ings aside my whole life. You pushed me too far, and now I have to con­sider myself.

Don’t con­tact me again. Not even if some­one dies. Any calls, mes­sages, e-mails will be ignored. This is not an easy or a brash deci­sion for me, a deci­sion I’ve made after cool­ing off and calm­ing down, but from my point of view it’s for the best.

You give me noth­ing but pain and money, and the money doesn’t mean a thing.

From now on, I don’t have a mother.

And you don’t have a son.

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