"My Dear Sweet Daughter,
You should know that I think you are amazing. If I have ever given you the impression that I think you are too young or naive, forgive me. I do not think this. I am simply honored that you share your feelings with me, although sometimes you cannot and I understand. The things you’ve expressed in this letter to me are the things every human feels when faced with love lost.
It is easy to pontificate and advise to forget and move on. It is not at all easy to do. In fact, it may be impossible as you suggest. Like the lovely poster that says, “If you love it let it go, and if it loves you it will return.” I always loved and at the same time hated that poster, for I am one of those that cannot let it go. Like you said, once you love, you love forever. It leaves you scarred and yet sweetly satisfied somehow. When I think of loving moments spent with my first girlfriend in high school, it is with fondness and sweet memory, but it is also still as if it were still happening almost 50 years later. Our culture calls such love “puppy love”....but I do not believe it is puppy love. It is love. And no matter how old you get, it is still the same. You will perhaps some day find another, I know I did. But for weeks, even months and years I was ill at the loss of that first love. I still wonder what she is doing and how she is. Is she still alive? Is she happy? Would I have been happier if we had married? How would life have been different? But contemplating such things is like trying to picture yourself standing on the moon, ...while you can picture it, it can never really be real unless you’ve done it. That path was a path not taken and the path I took I would not choose again, except for one thing....YOU. If I had married her I never would have gone to the Philippines and met your mom. So everything is good as it is and can be no other way, because I would have it no other way.
Nataliya and I have discussed this as well. She scolded me for saying that I was foolish to make such choices in life, because if I had made other choices she would not have known me and her life would have been the poorer for that. She says such sweet things, and yet, I, like you, am faced with loving someone who does not love me back.
So what I am saying is, “You have to follow your heart wherever it takes you.” You cannot second guess life, you cannot contemplate moving on or “just decide” to move on, it just happens or it doesn’t. Life just is. We can try to shape it and we can be decisive like that and “just move on” but I do not know any perfect answer for this. Here I am almost 70 and I could have written the very same letter to you."
You should know that I think you are amazing. If I have ever given you the impression that I think you are too young or naive, forgive me. I do not think this. I am simply honored that you share your feelings with me, although sometimes you cannot and I understand. The things you’ve expressed in this letter to me are the things every human feels when faced with love lost.
It is easy to pontificate and advise to forget and move on. It is not at all easy to do. In fact, it may be impossible as you suggest. Like the lovely poster that says, “If you love it let it go, and if it loves you it will return.” I always loved and at the same time hated that poster, for I am one of those that cannot let it go. Like you said, once you love, you love forever. It leaves you scarred and yet sweetly satisfied somehow. When I think of loving moments spent with my first girlfriend in high school, it is with fondness and sweet memory, but it is also still as if it were still happening almost 50 years later. Our culture calls such love “puppy love”....but I do not believe it is puppy love. It is love. And no matter how old you get, it is still the same. You will perhaps some day find another, I know I did. But for weeks, even months and years I was ill at the loss of that first love. I still wonder what she is doing and how she is. Is she still alive? Is she happy? Would I have been happier if we had married? How would life have been different? But contemplating such things is like trying to picture yourself standing on the moon, ...while you can picture it, it can never really be real unless you’ve done it. That path was a path not taken and the path I took I would not choose again, except for one thing....YOU. If I had married her I never would have gone to the Philippines and met your mom. So everything is good as it is and can be no other way, because I would have it no other way.
Nataliya and I have discussed this as well. She scolded me for saying that I was foolish to make such choices in life, because if I had made other choices she would not have known me and her life would have been the poorer for that. She says such sweet things, and yet, I, like you, am faced with loving someone who does not love me back.
So what I am saying is, “You have to follow your heart wherever it takes you.” You cannot second guess life, you cannot contemplate moving on or “just decide” to move on, it just happens or it doesn’t. Life just is. We can try to shape it and we can be decisive like that and “just move on” but I do not know any perfect answer for this. Here I am almost 70 and I could have written the very same letter to you."
While you were curled and sleeping
And I wandered far beneath a concrete star
And slept along the highways
But even though I am lost all the time
I've got hooks in my sides that you left there
But you're not the same, you died along the way
Now we're ghosts and we're praying for winter
Well, I found a wheel that squeaks and squeals
And I left it on your doorstep
Because I heard that you might be broken, too
And I thought it'd keep you company
But even though I am lost all the time
I've got hooks in my sides that you left there
But you're not the same, you died along the way
Now we're ghosts and we're praying for winter
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