I had this box of letters that he wrote me during the summer we were apart, including the letter he wrote when he proposed to me. He talked mainly about his new car and work and how much he missed me. He sent me cards. Once he told me that a certain song reminded him so much of me that he sat in his car in the driveway and cried.

Those were the only letters I received from him, the only time we weren't living together. I guess when you're around someone every single day for years, you don't expect to get letters. I would go through them from time to time, when things weren't going so well between us or I wanted to read something flowery and romantic. When he allowed himself to, my ex could say the sweetest things. He so rarely expressed the love he claimed to have for me.

We didn't have the sort of historical significance that I have now. We didn't start out as friends, but as crushes on each other. I will always wonder if we could have salvaged something by having more to salvage, i.e. a friendship built on something more than what we saw in front of us. To those he knew, he was considered a good friend, just a little too crazy at times.

So now I am tracing over history not yet in the past. Not looking for clues to solve a mystery, but to reflect that yes, we have something laid there, we have a friendship to build on. It jars memories for me, or makes me smile, or makes me realize why I am bothering to have hope. There is a lot to it, isn't it? Maybe more than we bargained for, maybe more than we want. It amazes me how easy it is to forget even a recent past. Until I find the words or locate the memories, it's as though they had never existed. Which is where I feel lost, unstrung.

So much in so little time, 3/4ths of a year. Trippy.

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