you are something great

Kate,

I am awake now and the night seems like something I had dreamt. Which part was the actual dream and which part did you play in that made my heart beat as it never had before, the part where you said you loved me. I didn't dream that, but my mind isn't sure it can separate the two. It needs to hear your voice again, and read your heart, and feel your skin. It shouldn't need to have this material evidence, but it thinks it does. Perhaps it is greedy and just needs to drink up more of your physical reality. Love me, Kate; that's what it wants. It doesn't want to let you leave me alone. I need you in my heart.

I opened my eyes this morning and for the longest moment I wanted to think that you were here, and if I opened them again, maybe you would be. So, in your absence, I comforted myself with the passionate possibility of your someday being. Oh, how I yearn for Kate. She is the blood that makes my body animate. She gives me reason to survive. I want to hold her warmth next to mine and exchange my breath with hers. I want to mend the wounds that have existed privately with her. I want to give her my eyes, my smile, my energy to the dark canvas of her thoughts. I want to watch as she paints myself into her life. I want to be with you always, Kate.

I think most people may view what we are going through and say, they are going too fast, speed bumps, speed bumps. They would have us believe we should slow. But what do you think? I know what I feel and it feels right. Undoubtedly, everything won't always go perfect. I can't even guess what those things will be. But we will face them and we will grow through them. I need to think that we know what we are doing. I've trusted my heart all my life. I need to trust it here. I won't abandon you. I won't ever make you regret loving me. Yes, those are awfully big words, but for me it's like a contract I've signed: what kind of Liptow would I be to reneg? I love you as if I've never really known how to love. I want to love you for the rest of my life. Let us quietly slip away from the nay-sayers and smile with a secret understanding only we have. They wouldn't understand.

All my love,
John