Dear... R
Hi. How are you doing?
How long has it been? 15 years?
I think about you from time to time. I wonder if you think of me. Do you still have the ring I gave you? Or the letters I wrote? Did I mean as much to you as you to me?
Things that would seem random to others remind me of you.
Shoe stores. Where we first met while in high school. We connected even for a brief day. I still remember your smile.
Wendy’s. Where I ran into you a couple of years later before I went off to college. We exchanged addresses. This was before email. Haha. For a time we wrote to each other.
Seattle. Where we ended up going to college together. A year after we met at Wendy’s. I swear you must be stalking me.
French fries. I would sit eating fries and remember you would look through your fries and deliberately select a fry to eat when most people would simply grab a bunch of fries or even a single fry at random.
Triangles. I still have the habit of folding wrappers or plastic bags into triangles... something that I learned from you.
Then there are the brief moments when we would meet up when I was in town. We used to joke it was our “annual affair”. It was funny because we were friends simply catching up. Until I realized my feelings for you were something more. You know that gnawing feeling in the out of your stomach? That ache of the heart?
So what does guy in his late-20s do? He writes a card and FedEx’s it. Who FedEx’s a card? Haha.
Your reaction to the card was as expected. You had a boyfriend. Admitting to me you had the same feelings would have been complicated.
So I moved on and eventually got an amazing opportunity to work in Bangkok. I think the day I told you the news, you were going to surprise me with the news that you were coming to SF to visit friends.
Of course I thought I was in the “friend zone” so didn’t see your trip as anything but a friend coming to visit SF until I got your card - revealing your feelings for me. At least that was how I remembered it. But nevertheless it appears the Fates conspired against us.
Talk about rotten timing. Here I am, about to board a plane to fly to the other side of the world and you tell me you have feelings for me?! I should have hopped off the plane and flew direct to Seattle to look you in the eyes to see if we could have happened. But you had a boyfriend so it was complicated. I guess there was really no other choice for me but to fly to Bangkok.
Who would have known you would have visited me in Bangkok a few months later? It was an amazing week. Just escaping reality and spending time together exploring Bangkok and Krabi.
I still remember our first kiss on my balcony over looking the Chao Praya River on your last day. There were fireworks. Literally, from the barge on the river. If only I could freeze that moment. If we were in a romantic comedy that is where the movie should have ended - us on the balcony kissing under the stars and fireworks.
Alas, it didn’t end there. I decided to move back to Seattle to try to see where our relationship would lead. I guess we never really had a chance when reality set in.
But moving back to Seattle was the best thing for me. A couple of years after our relationship ended, I got married and we have a wonderful daughter and dog.
When I look at them, I sometimes think of you and how my relationship with you led me to them. Thank you.