I am well. No, I am not. I am a basket case in this god-forsaken city. I cry all the time now. I never used to. Anytime I meet a man, I get sad. I wonder if anyone can ever show me what you showed me. It is true. No one can equal you. Never have I seen such a display of romanticism. Never have I felt so loved. It is something about your culture, that makes the men so sweet and so vicious. I don't understand it. It intrigued and bedeviled me. It tortured me and made me feel rapturous. It was a mistake to have tasted that.

But I am me, and it was inevitable. Something in my body drove me to that part of the world, to be with men from there. That something was a need at once chemical, biological, emotional, everything. The cells in my body had to experience it, I was just the host who dialed the phone to first speak to you. They had to be satisfied. And you embodied everything that I was seeking romantically. Those cells were satisfied, but now the host is not. The cells are waiting around, cleaning under their fingernails, wondering what's next. They don't know that I took my cue from them.

You don't know this, but one night in Spain...perhaps he hadn't experienced what I had. At any rate, it was too soon for me. Too soon, what do I say? It was fully three years after I had decided to say good bye to you. We went to his parents' summer house. It would have been an otherwise incredibly romantic first time. I suppose I feel that if I couldn't get with it then, then there was no hope for the future. We drove out. I had just days before decided to wait to sleep with him. But when he picked me up downtown that night, I knew we would make love.

He wouldn't tell me where we were going. There was a ferocious storm and the wind was howling. I'll never forget the way the trees swayed and bent. We got there and we went to his room. The rain was pelting the windows. He pulled out the bed. I couldn't stop thinking of you. It was terrible. I felt cursed. I am cursed. I felt terribly sorry for him. I sensed he knew it. I sensed he knew the truth, as I had mentioned you the last time I was in his country. He knew it. He was quiet afterwards. It was awkward. I felt I had deceived someone through the very act of making love to them.

And I had. I continue to deceive men. Over and over and over again. One after the other. Maybe I am completely wrong about this. Maybe he just wanted to get it off, and it didn't matter so much with who. But I thought the silence on the ride back was telling me something. It was all so stop and start thereafter. He missed a date and I was angry with him, and decided not to return any of his messages. Check that one off the list. When will it end? Well now you see, I have you to compare them with. Every single last one of them. My cells do not cry out for them. My cells do not need them.

But I like everyone, need love, and I am not getting it. I have found some good friends now. I am so lucky to have them. I realize it everyday. I do not have love, no. But now that I think about it, maybe I do not need it. Maybe my cells are not crying out b/c they do not need it either. I have the love of my friends. Could it be that that is enough?

I don't know. I only know that I continue to wander about with no purpose. I could do this, I could do that, but what does it matter. I have no inner conviction. My ideals no longer drive me the same way, the way they used to shape my future plans. I still have them, and indeed they are just as important to me as ever, but in a more subtle way. I still believe in them but with less reaction and more certainty, while at the same time I am more flexible.

No, really the problem is with the way I feel inside. I feel a bit dead, if you must know the truth. My body has no need to be touched. Isn't that sad? Isn't that just pathetic? I remember what my brother said about the prospect of having another child. He said that he didn't think he could love anyone as much as he loved his son, and that terrified him. But of course they had a daughter and I would say his fears were quite wrong. He adores her.

Our problem was that me the host - this lively (though I would say, once livelier) woman -and me with my cells, those that thrived loving you, could never get together and live harmoniously with you. There was that great divide, you know. My worry now is that in addition to my usual shyness, I now have you to overcome in this world of men. After such a strong connection, is another possible? Love is a fearsome thing and not so easy to overcome. If it were, millions of poems, books, odes and songs would not have been written to it. It is not that easy, dear. I am learning this, and I bridled once against it with my usual impatience, which is now turning into defeat. I fear that you were it for me. That, afterall there is not all that much to me, I am not this bottomless pit of wonderful complexity that can be explored through various relationships. No, emotionally I'm more simple than that.

Will I ever be able to experience the way a kiss reorders a life in its own way? You suddenly become a different person. You are born anew. This is your normal dull routine, your fears are right there on the kitchen table where you are expecting them. Dinner at 7, then to bed by 10. Your nightmares are waiting for you upstairs. But with a kiss, all bets are off and you smile and go into another blissful realm. You lose your balance but you know that when you fall it will feel good. It is so exciting because it is unknown. Maybe the flip side to incredibly romantic people is a penchant for being mind numb. That only a specific kind of love is the only thing that wakes us up. That is my true fear.

[submitted 07/02/02]