Letter from Your High School Sweetheart

I have stared at this screen for thirty minutes trying to think of how to start this letter. And now that I've actually started typing I still don't know how to start, but I'll keep speaking and typing, because if I stop then I don't think I'll ever start again and what needs to be said will go even longer without being said. And that won't be helpful for either of us. Am I being cryptic enough?

Do you remember our our first few dates? Our kind-of courtship? I do. I remember just feeling so trapped by high school and the people I was around and the relationships I was in and then...you were there. To be honest I don't even know how you came into my sphere. We had nothing in common and no classes together, so there was no reason for our paths to cross. I guess it was a six-degrees-of thing that eventually lumped us together.

I remember you being really shy towards me and later confessing that this was a reaction to how confident I was and OH MY GOD that was the cutest thing I'd ever heard in my life. If only you knew, I thought, how tattered my life actually was: a grand production missing all of its players, half the sets, and most of the script. I was confident because it was either be prickly or be utterly depressed. But you figured that out eventually.

We started hanging out in the same clump of friends and you seemed less and less of a weird outsider and I got kind of curious about you. You also had this...I don't really know what to call it...it was like you came from a different country with the same language but a different dialect. Except not that severe. You just had a different way of speaking than the people I hung around with and it was only noticeable once you actually noticed it. If that makes sense.

Then you let fly that you thought I was really smart and at that point I absolutely knew that you were: a.) hilarious and b.) the sweetest boy ever. I love that you were attracted me because you thought I was confident and smart. I think it was really that kind of attitude that made me fall in love with you. Without really knowing me you already respected me more than anyone else I knew. It was, and remains to this day, one of the sexiest things you've ever done.

I also never expected to fall in love in high school, and those are memories I won't ever let go of. I've been in relationships before this one and now I can't understand how they worked for even as long as they did without real love being the glue holding two people together. Do you remember the lengthy discussion we had in bed together? The both of us explaining how afraid we were of saying that we loved each other. How tentative we were...like jumping into the deep end of the pool for the first time. Except we were already in the deep end and we just didn't want to admit it.

Then we both realized that at the same time and we didn't stop saying it for the rest of the night afterwards.

I'm continuing to learn new things about love, though, and one of those things... and goddamn is this hard to admit...is that I've realized that I will always love you but I won't always be IN love with you.

You can't argue that we've grown apart from each other these past few months. We both went off to college and even though we're still pretty close to each other geographically, we haven't exactly been going out of our way to see each other. Homework has taken precedence over spending time with each other. I think we've gotten so used to our relationship that we think that it will take care of itself. And I have to admit that I fell into that trap, too.

It hit me lately, though, that we spend most of our time away from each other now. And when we do spend time together we don't ever ask questions of the other, or do anything other than our usual routine. I like relaxing with you, but it feels like we're doing so just for nostalgia's sake now. Our lives are progressing but our relationship isn't.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to do this, you should know. There's a big part of me that would like to do nothing more but crawl into bed with you and watch stupid videos. But...I've come to realize that our relationship has come to its end. And I don't know how that can happen with me still in love with you, but I do know that this is what has happened. The more I think about it, the more I start to believe that this is how everyone's relationship ends.

It's kind of amazing how little I actually know about relationships. About love. And I'd laugh at the fact that now I'm really learning, but it's not actually funny.

I hate that we've ended up like all of those couples we heard about in high school. The ones that went to college and broke up within a month. I want to believe that we're better than that, that we had more potential than the couples around us.

And I hate, I REALLY hate, that this will probably be the end of our friendship as well. I can ask you not to hate me for this, and I'm silly enough to know that you will even try, but you'll end up hating me for this sooner or later. Because it was me who started it, and not you. And if it helps to blame me, then go ahead.

Now I don't know how to end this. I didn't know how to start and I don't know how to stop. Somewhere in the middle, though, is what I've been trying to get out. Just remember that I will always love you for the years that we spent together. That was an important part of my...of OUR...lives and I won't ever forget that.