heart warming

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

The Longer I Hold It

/ James Browning

635891798176670878-1214980745_GlassThis story has made the rounds on the internet for a while now, but it’s meaningful enough to pass along again.

A speaker walked around a room full of people while teaching about stress management.

To begin he grabbed a glass of water and raised it above his head as if he was going to propose a toast, and instantly everyone expected they’d be asked if the glass was half empty or half full as part of the lesson. Instead, with a smile on his face, he asked “How heavy is this glass of water?”

From those attending came answers “6 ounces” and “10 ounces” but he shrugged them off.

He replied, “The actual weight doesn’t matter. What really matters is how long I’ve been holding it. If I hold it for just a minute it feels very light. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a whole day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. Any longer than that and I will be very tempted to give up and drop it. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

Those in the room were all blown away by the simplicity yet truth of this lesson.

However, the speaker continued, “The stresses and worries in life are like this glass of water. Carry them for only a short while and they’re manageable. Worry about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if we think about them all day long, or longer, we can begin to feel paralyzed and hopeless – incapable of concentrating or focusing on anything else.”

The speaker added, “It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses whenever possible. As early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night. This can certainly be easier said than done in some cases, but in many cases it’s actually quite easy if we’re mindful about it”.

If the problem can be solved why worry?
If the problem cannot be solved
worrying will do you no good.
Śāntideva

Look Closer

/ James Browning

old manI came across this on-line and knew nothing of its authenticity. So I did a little research and found generally the free form poem is considered a “hoax” and not necessarily written by a “cranky old man”. Regardless of who wrote it and why, there is wisdom contained within. As one transitioning from the late fall to the early winter season of life I was touched by the realities highlighted many old-timers have quietly thought and felt.

Amongst his belongings, the memories of an entire life, they found this poem:

What do you see nurses? What do you see? What are you thinking, when you look at me? A cranky old man, not very wise, What are you thinking, when you look at me? A cranky old man, not very wise, Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes? Who dribbles his food and makes no reply. When you say in a loud voice, “I do wish you’d try!” Who seems not to notice, the things that you do. And forever is losing… a sock or a shoe? Who, resisting or not lets you do as you will, With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill? Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you see? Then open you eyes, nurse.

You’re not looking at me. I’ll tell you who I am, as I sit here so still, As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will. I’m a small child of 10, with a father and mother, Brothers and sisters, who love one another. A young boy of sixteen, with wings on his feet Dreaming that soon now, a lover he’ll meet. A groom soon at twenty, my heart gives a leap, Remembering the vows, that I promised to keep. At 25, now I have young of my own, Who need me to guide, and a secure happy home.

A man of thirty, my young now grown fast, Bound to each other, with ties that should last. At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone, But my woman is beside me, to see that I don’t mourn. At fifty once more, babies play ’round my knee, Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my wife is now dead. I look at the future, I shudder with dread. For my young are all rearing young of their own, And I think of the years, and the love that I’ve known. I’m now an old man, and nature is cruel, It’s jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart, There is now a stone, where once I had a heart. But inside this old carcass a young man still dwells, and now and again, my battered heart swells. I remember the joys, I remember the pain, And I’m loving and living, life over again.I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast, And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people, open and see: Not a cranky old man, Look closer, see ME!

I wept for relationships not possible
due to denial and dreams locked
in the back of people’s minds,
all of the bits of life
that lay dormant until
the babblings of televisions
and nursing homes sweep them away.
It makes me wonder how many of the dreams
we had originally have already been forgotten.
Christopher Hawke

No Greater Blessing

/ James Browning

Two-Guys

True friends are rare. They are are the family we choose and those who choose us. There is no blessing greater than a true friend.

My Best Friend! by Jana C. Souder

I can’t give solutions to all of life’s problems, doubts,
or fears. But I can listen to you, and together we will
search for answers.

I can’t change your past with all its heartache and pain,
nor the future with its untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.

I can’t keep your feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall.

Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your laughter.

Your decisions in life are not mine to make, nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you,
and help you when you ask.

I can’t prevent you from falling away from friendship,
from your values, from me.
I can only pray for you, talk to you and wait for you.

I can’t give you boundaries which I have determined for you,
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow,
room to be yourself.

I can’t keep your heart from breaking and hurting,
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces
and put them back in place.

I can’t tell you who you are.
I can only love you and be your friend.

For the true friends who came and went, I thank you. For the true friends who came and stayed, I thank you ever more.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
Henri J.M. Nouwen

Like a Hand Sewn Quilt

/ James Browning

lldIn June of 2011, I began a blog titled loveletterdaily.com that is still active on-line. It is/was one of three blogs that were a part of healing from past heartaches and turmoil and a tonic for restoring my belief in romantic love. For several years, near daily, I posted an personal thought about the beauty of loving and being loved, followed by an image and a borrowed quote or poetic line. What I wrote was fiction the vast majority of the time and originated from hope, aspiration and belief in the power of the human heart.

For close to three years I contributed regularly to loveletterdaily.com and the statistics on visitor traffic (back when I checked such things) showed the blog visitation grew slowly, but consistently. For the last couple of years I have contributed occasionally, but highly irregularly to LLD and had not looked at the statistical info on traffic in a long, long time.

Recently I have been re-inspired to begin writing and posting to three blogs I was dedicated to for several years (this blog – goodmorninggratitude.com – loveletterdaily.com – brokenheartsanonymous.com ). Only in the last few days I became curious and checked out the stats for the content posted on all three. While the number of visitors and page views them have grown beyond anything I ever considered possible, the usage of one now blows my mind!

My writing has always been largely self-administered healing and I never felt like I was writing for any other reason. Just this week I discovered loveletterdaily.com apparently has over time found an audience whose hope, aspiration and belief in love is something of a match for mine.

Stats about loveletterdaily.com I found a few days ago that are mind-blowing to me:
Approximate average daily visitors over the last six months: 1,000
Approximate average monthly visitors over the last six months: 25,000
Number of visitors in 2015: 230,838
Number of page views in 2015: 605,528
Read at over hundred times in 62 countries
It’s difficult to wrap my intellect around the popularity of something created only as self therapy.

The gratitude I feel for the support of loveletterdaily.com is near overwhelming. It seems there are lots of people who identify with romantic love in similar ways as I do. I hope many have borrowed lines and from the material I have posted in their own expression of love for someone special. To be a small portion of others’ romances is so sweet to my heart and mind. Thank you. I am deeply grateful for the validation and promise to become more consistent in my contributions!

Love should feel like a hand sewn quilt made by grandma,
wrapping you up on a cold winter morning.
Carroll Bryant

You Bring Me Joy

/ James Browning

Originally posted September 3, 2012

The years have not caused me to forget. Still there are remnants of feelings strong beyond explanation. You cracked me wide-open and I was never the same again.Was it because you loved me so unwaveringly deep and passionately?

Was it because you were so exotic and intelligent that you were able to enter my heart so easily?

Was it because I filled your need to be loved?

Or you filled mine?

It was all these things and a hundred more. There was a time we found ‘home’ in each other’s arms.

Once in a great while a feeling of loneliness for you, and you only, still touches down to the quick of my heart. Always I smile with hope that you are well and happy. You married in your 30’s and our contact appropriately stopped not too longer after.

Maybe my memory has elevated what we shared to a fantasy beyond fact. Although our love covered a lot of years it was not long when measured in the actual length of time we spent together. But in weight of what was shared we took a trip around the world.

Times change.
People move on.
Some grow together.
Some grow apart.

Some like we knew each other at the wrong time. I was still a boy in a man’s body pretending he knew what he wanted and needed. I pushed you away because I was afraid to be cared about as much as you loved me.

Hidden away safely, even for the time being from myself, is the only physical memory I have of you: the gift you gave me of a small music box shaped like a heart with a beautiful photo of  you inside. It will go to my safe deposit box once I find it again.

I will always be grateful that once I knew you and for the space you occupy in my memories. The pain has long evaporated and today only a sweet memory remains. There has been no greater love in my life. I’m grateful that whenever I hear Anita Baker singing you always come to mind…

If I can’t see your face,
I will remember that smile
’Cause you’re the finest thing
I’ve seen in all my life.
You bring me joy.
From an Anita Baker’s “You Bring Me Joy” by David Lasley

What I Learned About Love the Hard Way

/ James Browning

First posted on August 10, 2011  

 1 – Who you marry will affect your life more than you can imagine.  Your life may be better for your choice, worse because of your choice or both at different times.

2 – Divorce hurts more than you can imagine.  If love is truly present it is a kind of death that takes forever.

3 – It really is not difficult to fall in love; it is difficult to stay in love.

4 – There is NO one “soul mate” for each of us in the world.  As a person evolves, grows and changes there are many possibilities over time.

5 – Being swept off your feet by another person is more about what you feel inside about yourself than what the other person feels about you.

6 – Intimacy takes a long time to grow and develop.  It can become very strong, yet it will always be very fragile.  What takes years to build can be destroyed in seconds or with a single choice.

7 – Forgiving is a choice and one you make just as much for yourself as the other person.  Often forgiving someone else is far easier than forgiving your self.

8 – Some of the greatest growth of our lives is in love relationships and a good deal of it comes from pain and heartache.

9 – Just because a good relationship does not last forever does not mean it did not work.  It just means it lasted for its time.

10 – Be sure to learn from a past bad relationship.  What you do not learn will be a lesson taught to you again.

11 – If someone is worth your love, then love them without reservation or restriction.  Give your complete heart.  Don’t hold back.  Give your all.  Giving only part of yourself will only get you a part of the other person.

12 – Every time you loved and were loved there is no mistake.  It was a gift no matter how things may have turned out.

13 – There are few ways in a loving relationship to hurt someone more than being unfaithful.  The wound may heal but there will ALWAYS be a scar.

14 – Don’t fall in love with who you think a person might be someday.  There is a good chance they never will be.  Only fall in love with who someone is now.

15 – No matter how much love is present, you will have bad times.  You will fight, you will disagree, and you will have problems.  It is the human condition.

16 – You can’t love someone you don’t like.

17 – Scars from past love only tell you where you have been.  Be careful judging a present relationship with them.

18 – No person can be everything to you, nor can you be everything to any one person.

19 – No one is perfect.  If you can’t see past some imperfection and bad habits you will be miserable in every relationship.

20 – Everyone wants to be loved, but some people do not know how to love you back.

21 – If you are not a good listener in a relationship, you won’t be heard when you speak.

22 – Secrets are poison and will damage a relationship at the very least and at the most, destroy it.

23 – Let unimportant things go.  Give in.  Forget about it.  If you don’t, you’ll end fighting much more than you should.

24 – Loving someone does not make them a better person.  It makes you a better person.

I am grateful to know these things now.  Lessons learned the hard way, are lessons learned best.  There is deep thankfulness for the ones who loved me who were my teachers.

There is no remedy for love
but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau

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

/ James Browning

This entry was first posted on August 12, 2011. It is the by far the most read blog of the over 1000 I’ve posted. 

“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.  It was exactly one month ago.  So much has happened in a very short time.  My world is permanently changed. 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?  “I can not”.  Science says the initial attraction between a man and woman creates a sort of “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 delight.  To think so is a 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 this love I have discovered?  No.  I am not crazy to think that. What is built in the future upon the rock of what we begun to share, can withstand 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.  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, 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 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. The purpose of its quest has been found:  YOU!  With complete clarity I say again, I love you ______.   I speak first of what I am nearly certain is within you too.  With all my being I hope my perception is true!

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 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.

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 you read this letter, I wonder how you will greet me when next we are together.  My heart vibrates with hope that you will meet me then feeling as I do for you.

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

Traces…

/ James Browning

my-window-night-rain-c2fb9be2-177a-40c3-8af6-fb082d1f8731Faded photographs
Covered now with lines and creases;
Tickets torn in half
Memories in bits and pieces;
Traces of love long ago
That didn’t work out right;
Traces of love with me tonight.
Buie/Cobb/Gordy/Lee

“Our time” will always be remembered with great reverence. I’ll cherish your expressions of love forever. Your gifts will be treasures that grow perpetually in value. I’ll never stop holding on to “us”.

Did you know I once saved strands of your hair? And then there’s the music I’ll never be able to listen to without memories of you filling my mind while love surges in my heart.

I have felt love for others, but paltry compared to what I felt/feel for you. Amore never blazed so brightly as it did in our embrace. The flame of our great love remains safe within. Curse or blessing, it always will.

Maybe our love was too much for two people to successfully bear.

Maybe we were too different in spite of all we had in common.

Maybe we were not supposed to find our way together.

Maybe we found each other at the wrong time.

Long ago I spent so much time being lost and searching; confused and uncertain of myself. Only when the damage seemed irreparable did I realize the destination my heart wanted and needed had moved out of reach. But that’s okay. the beauty of the lesson remains.

Thank you for loving me. Please keep the memory of our once upon a time love safely tucked away. What’s in my heart for you will always be there in a space reserved for you. Loving you so many years back was one of the lasting lessons that taught me how to love. Thank you.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
Edna St. Vincent Millay