re: a quick note

Kate: “Do you like me?”

Kate,

Yes. I wonder why you would even wonder. I should wonder why you are so eagerly waiting upon me. I am no catch and you are...well, unbelievably beautiful. You should look for someone more equal to you. I am convincing myself that you will wake from this fugue right soon and be grateful that I have steered you away from being bored to tears by me.

But if you never do—and my heart is crossed on this—then I will do my ever best to maintain that level of faith you have placed in me. But, Kate, honey, did you not read my admission of never having been with anybody. I've never been kissed and I'm still a virgin and I haven't the least idea on how to proceed with something like this. Why did I place my profile? I don't know; maybe I was fugued.

Here is something you must know: I am torn between not doing anything and doing everything. Do you know what I mean? It would probably be better to leave fate in someone else's more experienced hands. I couldn't sleep last night because of this conflict. Only utter weariness will take me there tonight, else I may not sleep again. I could write all night long to you and pretend that you are there and are not yet getting bored. It would be like missing something I've not even had. I miss you already.

Isn't it strange how we can arrive at someplace we've never been and look around and think certainly I've been here before, have I? I want to look in your hazel eyes and believe that they had been there all along, in every day I had been making my way to this one. And if I didn't know it, it was only because I was too busy and not focusing. I can't focus on anything else now.

My fear is that this is the dream and the reality is my erstwhile preoccupation.

But my heart will not beat this rhythm in a dream. I will not love with this abandon in a dream. I will not hope the thing that should not be hoped in a dream. But in a dream you will seem so far away, as you are now, and I may start to understand the dream-language: the dream will never allow these two fires to meet.

I've spoken my heart's truth so far, Kate, but I've given you very little about me. Isn't that the test, after all? "A best friend is someone who knows everything about you and still is your friend." I read that a long time ago in a school counselor's office.

I've been on the go most of today and have not stopped to eat. I've been something delirious and I suppose meals were the furthest from my mind. I do this a lot, Kate. You might have guessed but I live 99 percent of my life in my mind. I am an introvert-transient, or, that is to say, "a mental vagabond." I adopted that phrase for myself a long time ago. I worked for this guy I developed quite a relationship with. In fact, he only hired me because I was a writer. And this was to wash dishes! We'd sit and talk for a bit after work. I would be all jabber-jabber and he would listen. I think I fascinated him. Well, we were talking one time and he stopped me. He effected some thought that what I had just said was a terrific concept. I had referred to myself as a mental vagabond. I would have not given it much reconsideration if he had not stopped me and pointed it out. I have not seen him for years but I wish I could return to that booth and we could have our conversations. I will dedicate a book to him. In the future there will be a collection of me entitled Mental Vagabondage. (Do you see how the end of that short phrase is pointing out that I am a slave to my introversion?)

I talk too much, Kate, and I have not given you the chance to say anything. So...oh, yeah, this is a letter. But I want to talk to you and I want to know you and I want you to know all about me and think I am not so bad and I want to know all about you and reassure you always that you are tops to me. You can never be less in my view than you are now, but only more. Only be who you are.

I am so scared that I am going way over my head. I have never been there before.

I want to believe that something extraordinary is possible.

I want to believe every day up to this day has been the dream.

I want to uncage my ability to love: to love deeply and without fear.

I want to go back to the place I began and know it as if for the first time.

Is this the God who has planned my destiny, any of our destinies?

Please don't hurt me.

John.