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I
WAS AN ASSHOLE Dear
Mr. _____.: You smiled at me; you were with two other people and you stood in the elevator door and smiled at me. Smiles like that are impossible to fake÷you can pretend youâre happy to see somebody, but you canât fake warmth like that. You, for whatever reason, were happy to see me÷maybe I should have checked behind me, I donât know. And I looked at you and turned away. I didnât catch that elevator. I didnât do it because you reminded me of someone÷your birthmark reminded me of someone÷who embarrassed me in (fucking) high school. You reminded me of him, I didnât want to be embarrassed again, so I was an asshole to you. So, fast forward two years. I find myself in those classes (you know exactly which ones Iâm speaking about, Dr. _____ and all) with none other than that guy I snubbed on the elevator. And, because I was currently giving up being a shallow, petty bitch (that is a fucking hard habit to break, let me tell you, but life was helping me out with that one and do note that I said shallow, petty, bitch, not stupid, shallow, petty, bitch÷stupidity is not a habit, it is a handicap and the best you can possibly do is put yourself through intensive physical therapy and even then, even then·youâre still stupid), I got to know you as this good, warm, funny, smart human being. You reminded me (and remind me still) of Steve Martin. I didnât know why then, I donât know why now÷Iâve really got to ask you about that some time. I thought I had a pretty good handle on where my life was going and who I was going to be and who I was going to be with and all that other bullshit you think you know when you're 21. And then life takes a long, amused look at your silly ass and pulls out the rug. So I looked at you, I got to know you (a little) and I liked you and that was about as far as it was going to go at that point in time (you were, btw, the first person to whom I announced my engagement). The more I think about the person I was then (this coming, admittedly from the person I am now) the more I think I was an idiot. I'm still pretty much an idiot, but I don't walk around exhibiting my idiot-ness quite to the degree I did back then (I remember, with blessed vagueness, the first day of one of our admittedly bullshit education classes÷I don't think I went a day without saying something cataclysmically moronic, but gods, that one, that was a doozy). I also remember, with clarity that only scary coincidence like this can bring, that it was your name I'd say in interviews when they asked if there was a teacher who I admired. On and off over the next few years, you or the idea of you would occur to me, usually from out of no where. And, fuck me, if it wasnât a week or two before I picked up that Post that I read a quote (And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more to that man than perhaps you think for, --Melville) and thought, damn, thatâs -----. So, why do I want you to know this? Youâve got me. The big reason, maybe, is because I think youâre a good person, maybe even the best sort of person, and I canât bear to think that youâre alive in the world and thinking ill of me. The past month has been one of either anticipation of seeing you again or reflection on what happens now that I have. It worries me that this may just confirm whatever it is you thought of me before we met again. The fine detail is that I would find it really, really hard to articulate all this in person÷I'm still a coward, there's really no getting around that. And
anyway, this is yet another letter I'll never mail to yet another person
who should really read it. So, ----, for what little it is worth, I think
you're a remarkable person. And I pray that I don't blow this second chance.
the love letter collection |