Month: December 2014

Love Letter To Someone I Don’t Know & Never Met

/ James Browning

Today offered the opportunity to stroll back through some of the blogs I’ve written over the last four years. While pure fantasy and fiction, this one is a favorite and was originally posted on August 12, 2011. It’s filled with hope, fantasy and love for an imaginary person. Hope you enjoy its’ reboot.

“The Love Letter” painted by August Toulmouche

Recently I have read several articles about old love letters being discovered by people unrelated to the writer or addressee.  In one instance a letter discovered was written 50+ years ago and finally made it to the intended recipient.  Another was a note scribbled 200 years ago and discovered folded up tightly in the arm of an antique chair being restored.  In another example a bundle of love letters from World War I were discovered in an antique shop and the finder was trying to locate the family of either the writer or the one being written to.  Reading these stories brought what may be viewed as a silly thought, but one I followed through on.  I imagined a letter I had written being discovered decades after my death.  I decided to try letting one flow from me that I would be pleased for a future third-party to read and what follows is what flowed without effort from within me.

An old love letter never written from a time long ago to someone I don’t know and never met…..

Dear ________ ,

When we met for the first time is as fresh in my memory as one moment ago.  As of today it was exactly one month ago.  So much has happened in a very short time.  My world is permanently changed and I am altered beyond what I can express with language.  If I never saw you again I would mourn that happening deeply.  Yet what has been awakened within me would remain as a permanent reminder that my heart is not yet dead as I had long thought it was.

How do I express the feelings growing inside me without seeming to be lost in some obvious state of delirium and euphoria?  My answer is “I can not”.  Science says the initial attraction between a man and woman creates a sort of partial insanity.  Then that explains it.  I am insane over you my darling and I revel in my madness.

How well I know that life never brings a path filled only with joy and delight.  To think things are so is a true hallucination.  I know what fills me now will be intertwined with challenge, trial and difficulty.  Am I a lunatic to think now that such moments can be borne with grace upon the back of the love I have discovered?  No.  I do not think I am crazy to think that. What is built in the future upon the rock of what we are sharing, can withstand most any force a human can bear.  Of that I am certain.

Yes, I dare speak of love knowing it has not been spoken between us so far.  Am I am a coward for writing here instead of looking into your eyes as the words are formed by my heart and released through my voice?  Maybe so, but my feelings are true.  I write because my poetic soul within is determined to use beautiful words to express itself.  The depths of my feelings demand I can do no less.

Yes, my sweet… I am in love…. with you.  As I write this letter I know as certainly as the moon will rise later tonight and the sun will follow in the morning, what is expressed here in pen and ink is dependable and true.   My restless soul seems to no longer be searching for something unknown for now the purpose of its quest has been found:  YOU!  Without confusion and with complete clarity I say again, I love you ______.   I speak first of what I am nearly certain is within you in like form.  With all my being I hope my perception is accurate!

What we are sharing is admirable and sincere.  Our enchantment is real.  Our bliss is genuine.  I know someday when we share the delight of our selves in physical form our delight will be heightened and multiplied beyond what I ever could have hoped for.  For now I am glad we have resisted what could have happened so easily.  It is a testament that we guard what has been discovered and so want only the best for the gift of love between us.  May we continue to take the time to build a love strong and lasting while resisting haste.

So please know my sweet darling you have touched me as I have never been touched before.  You have reached me on a deeper level than I thought possible.  It has been said by some that loving another makes them feel more complete, yet I question the accuracy of that.  I do not feel more complete by loving you, but I do feel richer and as if I have discovered so much more of myself through knowing you.  It is as if you were the light I needed in order to glimpse who I really am and all I can be.

After reading this letter, I wonder every minute until then how you will greet me when next we meet.  My heart vibrates with hope that you meet me then knowing you have found a match for what you hold inside for me.

I love you my darling,

__________

With much gratitude that I am able to do so, I wrote the above openly and without reservation.  The words traveled from mind to fingers to screen at the moments I thought them just as I thought them without editing.  No longer do I feel the need to hide away any element of my hapless romantic soul.  I no longer fear the real me within and instead here and now express my thankfulness again for it.

A day, a week, a month are past,
Another year is by;
Beside her on the open’d desk,
His old love letters lie.
She reads them till the day-light fades,
And ‘neath the moon-lit sky,
She sleeps at rest, for on her breast
Those old love letters lie.
Auguste Toulmouche

A Heart Most Longing

/ James Browning

19The problem when you are a strong, capable, self-confident person, is that more often than not, people think that you don’t really need things like comfort, reassurance, loyalty and guidance. People are more likely to look at you and say, “She (He) doesn’t need this”, “She (He) doesn’t need that”, “She’s (He’s) already all of this and all of that”. But then the truth is that most probably, you are a strong, capable, self-confident person because you built yourself brick-by-brick into that person; because you HAD to BECOME that person; because you had determination enough to make yourself into the image that you knew you needed to become. At the heart of many strong, confident people, is a heart most longing of the things that most others simply take for granted. C. Joybell C.

Learning to Love Myself

/ James Browning

Reposted from July 28, 2011:  In retrospect I  clearly see a much different past view of myself than the one visible to me today.  Now when glancing in my mental “rear-view mirror” my old behavior is much easier to explain and understand.  Back then were the days when my feelings were frequently about not measuring up.  No matter what I accomplished it was rarely good enough.  Achievement usually felt flawed.  I frequently nitpicked what was good until there were defects in them I created.

In the past I spent so much time wanting to be loved and hoping love would find me.   My yearning was engulfing. I did not see the special love I sought even when it was before me.  I searched past it for something else. I felt empty and lost.  The reason that love I so desperately sought eluded me was because I wanted someone to fill me up with love, which is not how life works.  What I needed had to happen from the “inside out”.

Those were the days when being alone for more than a few days made me crazy.  I was like some battery that needed to be recharged, but could not charge itself.  The shortage was because I did not love myself.  The energy… the feeling… the charge… I wanted so much-needed to come from within myself.  But I did not know how.

Today I know that loving my self is mainly about self-respect.  It’s the only dependable way I have control over creating love for myself.  In the past when expecting love from an external source, and what I got did not fill my void I felt even worse. No one could love me until I loved myself.  I am able to receive no more love than the amount of love I have for me.

Attending church in my youth was just something I was made to do. Thought I got little from it. Turns out though, there was a bit retained.  Once thing I remember comes from the Bible and the book of Corinthians:

Love is patient,
Love is kind.
It does not envy,
It does not boast,
It is not proud.
It is not rude,
It is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered,
It keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
But rejoices with the truth.
It always protects,
Always trusts,
Always hopes,
Always perseveres.
Love does not fail.

In secular expression, similar thinking is found in the poem “I Must Love Myself” by J. Earl Evans:

Before I can begin
to love anyone else,
I have to find a way
to first love myself.
Loving myself should be
an easy thing to do.
If I can pat you
on the back,  I can do
the same for me too.
I have to learn to love myself
this is true.
Because no one can love me
as much as I do.
I must find a way
to give myself a break,
and be able  to love myself
no matter what it takes.
I’m not alone
feeling the way I do.
I hope to one day love myself,
just as much as I love you.

I imagine if I thought for a while I could create a fairly long list of the ingredients I used to fall in love with myself (most days anyway).   Highest on the list would be: forgiving my self!  Only by letting go of wrongs done, failings and mistakes could the blemishes I placed on myself begin to fade. It took saying “I’m sorry” to a lot of people.  Too, I learned in some cases there is no good to come of trying to express regret to those wronged.  For some it only makes things worse (a difficult lesson).

As I think of what I am grateful for this morning, what is on the top of my mind is how I feel about myself today.  It has been a rough and painful path to get here, but I am grateful to have found the route.  I feel the best about myself I ever have.  There is a good measure of peace inside me I never knew before.  My life has been blessed in many ways, but none more so that learning how to love myself.  Many helped me get here.  To all those who have and do love me… thank you for kindness and support that kept me on this path of learning to love myself.

The most terrifying thing
is to accept oneself completely.
Carl Gustav Jung