Sunday, August 10th, 2008...8:34 pm

Maudlin

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The other day Knute was digging through my night table drawer (no this is not allowed) and he stumbled across a letter.  He pulled it out and wanted to know what it was.  I picked it up, filled with shock as I glanced at the aged handwriting and 1995 date.  I told him, “This is a letter Daddy wrote to me a long time ago, sweetheart.” For him, that was enough to make it less than thrilling - it wasn’t a secret treasure map, but for me, it meant I just had to pull it out and read it.  I needed to reminisce.

I know I often complain about Puppy’s rocket scientist/engineer mind keeping him on tangents quite far from romance (more often he’s thinking about classified lasers) and me.  But, once upon a time, quite a long time ago, he was rather romantic in his own unique engineerish way.  Despite loathing the phone, he dutifully “talked” to me for hours a day during the entire four years we were long distance.   I believe it was the distance that forced our relationship into a maturity I don’t know if either of us had intended it to take for our young age.  We revealed ourselves and our feelings either in pen and ink, on the phone, or about a year into our relationship, email (I can only fathom the way Knute will laugh in about ten years when we tell him we dated before there was such a thing as email!) and IM.  I look back, smile & blush at the way our innocent flirtation moved from puppy love into something deep and lasting.

I reread the letter Knute found and it still fills my stomach with little butterflies of joy to read words like “I just want you to go (this is in reference to college) where you think you will be happy.” What a wonderful Puppy he is/was.  Always encouraging me to try harder and be a better person.  How lucky I am to have found a 19 year old male willing to say, “I miss spending time with you.  I love you, Holly.  I miss you.”  Those words make my mind remember the agony of the separation the distance created for us.  How sure of our feelings we were.  How confident.  And, I am inspired in that confidence.  Because, of course, having found that first letter, I had to go to the Rubbermaid filled with sentiments exactly like that one.

Granted, only about 25 letters in the 25 gallon container hold letters from Puppy, but what does it say about him that he kept every single one I ever wrote him?  Four years of letters, cards, stickers, confetti totaling in the hundreds, possibly thousands.  And, do you know what I found on the very first one of mine I picked up?  I signed it HV_ - the initial of his (now my) last name.  I have no conscious memory of doing that.  How profound, prophetic.  I always knew. 

How could I not fall in love all over again with the man who says, “The high point of everyday is reading my mail.  All week I look forward to the weekend, so I can say it’s one week less until I get to see you again.  I know I don’t tell you enough, but I love you.   I’m yours as long as you want me.  Please don’t keep  doubting my love.  (I questioned what college boy would be faithful to a high schooler 2000 miles away)  It’s real.”   So, to my wonderful, amazing, and sometimes romantic husband:  Know that I don’t doubt your feelings, I know they are genuine.  That’s why I’m still here.  You still make my heart smile.  And, I love you, too, sweet mooses of mine.

*****

Where o where is Carl you ask?  He just finished a whirlwind tour of DC: HERE  He’s expected HERE any day now.

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Filed under Getting Older and Wiser, I love the Puppy, I'm such a freakazoid, My life BC (before child)

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