An open letter to Marisha
An open letter to Mistress Marisha:
I was talking to my friend M. the other day about a number of things, and she brought you up in conversation, asking me how I felt about you these days. I didn’t really have an answer for her, but M. is persistent, and she kept asking the question until she had me reveal that I was never really over you, past you and how I’d come running back if the possibility ever existed again. M. came away pleased that she’d gotten the information she was seeking, but it left me thinking about things and while that’s not normally a very good thing, it caused me to realize that I probably needed to discuss some things out through the process of writing.
Our whole time together was much more than just an exploration of the physicality of our lifestyle. To me, it represented a time in my life when I was no longer living in the shadow of potential energy but in the kinetics of actually acting upon one’s desires and motivations. I probably never told you this but before we came together, I was obsessed with a woman where I had been working for nearly seven years. I saw her practically every day, yet even though I would join her for lunch in the hotel cafeteria, I never could muster up the courage to ask her out. But I so wanted to, so badly. But I never did. Then at the end of my time at the hotel, a few weeks out before leaving, I finally pulled her aside and asked her, straight out. She gave me one of those “I’ll get back to you” comments, but in reality I don’t think she actually took the proposal all that seriously because she never brought up the subject again in the few weeks left. So when I quit, I left and didn’t look back.
But something different had happened. I had actually asked her out after all of that obsessing about it. We came together not much longer after that, and even though we started out in a more professional setting, when you decided it was time to switch from professional to personal, I was a much stronger person as a result and was more than overjoyed to say yes.
And that brings me back to you. You are most definitely the most wonderful person I have ever known. You have a free spirit to you that sincerely cares about others and with you it never feels like you’re just going through the motions, but you really do care. In the beginning, and all through our relationship, I was floored by your wisdom and intelligence. Most people are gifted with either a Socratic wisdom or an Aristotelian intelligence, and I found you blessed with both. You could make sense of a complex topic while at the same time analyze a philosophy just for the sake of providing conversation. I am still amazed at some of our conversations, which I would not be surprised if they’ve fallen into the mind-erasing ether of memorial threads.
Every time I think of you, I think of the fuzzy slipper analogy that other people still rarely seem to understand. I brought it up in conversation the other day with a friend, and she was convinced I must have some fetish for fuzzy slippers, until I explained the importance of a state where the woman I am with is comfortable and hopefully in complete bliss. Unfortunately, with the amount of trolls online these days, the definition of “bliss” is quite often tied to physical sensations (like the definition of “service” these days which now means “servicing someone” rather than “service to someone”), and it become much harder to explain what it is I’m talking about. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve become somewhat of the service dinosaur these days.
Which leads me to my question of “are you happy these days?”. It’s hard to explain or construct how important that used to be to me, even though it was often difficult to put into context. Amazingly, after all of this time, whenever thoughts of you come up, and M. helped bring them back to the mainstream again, I still ask myself that question. I still very much care about you and how you are doing. It sometimes shocks me how much that I still do care as it has been going on some time now.
It’s nearly a decade now since I last saw you, and surprisingly, I still miss you almost as much as I did when we first left. I’ve just had time between me to help me realize how significant that loss really is.
I tried to move on several times, but it never worked for me. The summer after we went separate ways, I was working as a drone at the phone company filing papers with a group of day workers who were doing the same thing. It was monotonous work, and it gave me the opportunity to turn off my mind for awhile. I really needed that.
Well, during the first month (of three months) that I was there, I found that the other day workers were some really mean people. There was this young Asian woman named Sally would spoke broken English, and as a result, she was the fodder for insulting behavior from most of the rest of the temporary staff. She couldn’t defend herself intellectually because of the language problem (she was actually quite intelligent but not verbose). So, I started inserting myself between Sally and those that were attacking her. As you probably remember, I’m not an unarmed opponent when it comes to rhetorical discourse, and the group suddenly realized that it would be better off finding another victim because this one had protection. As a result, Sally started hanging around me more and more after this because if I was around, people weren’t going to verbally harass her.
Well, I wasn’t looking for anything at this time. I was still having a really hard time with the end of our relationship, and I felt like battered goods, not much use to anyone else. But Sally was persistent, and at one point she discovered my secret life through a lot of search engine usage. She then decided she wanted to be my dominant. Our relationship lasted about a year, but it fell apart mainly because of me. I kept seeing it as the wrong time, even though she was a wonderful girl. I kept seeing our relationship through this one, and I honestly never gave her a fair chance. We broke up with her very upset at me, and logically, I do blame myself for having let it happen that way.
After that, I decided to move to
I remember when you wrote me, stating you still had my journals. When you sent them, you asked me to email you and tell you I received them. I debated over and over how I could prolong the conversation between us, but then realized that perhaps what was needed for your happiness was distancing me from you and your life. At the time, I felt there were some things in your own life that would probably never be solved if I was still around. I really wanted you to be happy; it just pained me that I wasn’t the one making it happen.
I don’t know where you are today, or even what you are doing. Friends give me sporadic updates that I don’t ask for, like Bill and Robin mentioned they had seen you at one of the flea markets some years back. I don’t ask any follow up questions because it makes me feel guilty to do so when you’ve easily been able to continue with your life while it still feels difficult in mine.
I stopped writing for many years after we went our separate ways. It was only last year that I sat down and wrote my twelfth novel, a humorous Greek epic. It’s actually a wonderful book, and I’m quite proud of it. A few days ago, I was informed I won the local Arts Commission short story competition for a romance story I wrote. It’s been a slow process, but I’ve gotten back to writing, and one day I hope to make it in that capacity. Although you probably never knew, I dedicated my first published book to you. It seemed really appropriate at the time.
Well, I don’t even know if this is going to find itself to you. I know your site is still up there, so one can only hope your email still works from there. If not, this was probably somewhat therapeutic anyway, even if only my pet penguin gets to read it.
