Subject To Future Me

Dear FutureMe, It’s almost Christmas, 2005 and, of course, I’m haunted the ghosts of Christmas’ past and obsessing about an unknowable future and a ragged past. My present is grim – in a dead, lifeless, loveless and sexless marriage and a very stressful limbo because my hopes and plans for a future with the man I’ve loved for so many years are on indefinite hold. The ghosts from the past continue to haunt me, old pain from childhood abuse and being worn down from the constant verbal abuse from my husband. The question for my future me is simple … If I am finally with my lover, is it working the way we hoped and planned? Are we anywhere near as compatible as we think we will be? And, OHMIGAWD, after 15 years of NO sex at all, what’s it like to finally be able to make love to and be made love to? Have we both been able to outrun and get beyond our fears, our past abuses, get past all of that to find a sane and loving place for ourselves? Have we found our way back to each other? Does our fairy tale have a happily ever after ending? Have Drake and Nell survived? How about Andrew and Beth? They're so real to us now, I wonder how they will have evolved in the next two years. If we’re not together – why not? Is Penny still alive? Did our love wink out, like a hot burning candle? Or, worse, far worse, did it finally die from a lack of face to face, belly to belly, open robe hugs? We've held so tightly to each other for so many years, its simply not possible for our hopes and dreams and love to die. I don’t want to think of other possible reasons – his death or my own, for example. And, if we’re not together, did we finally give in the inexorable pull of that Paris of the Midwest, Wichita? As I write this, we’re separated by 33 years and a couple of galaxies. My heartfelt hope is that on the day I open this email, I'm looking out over that lake, that Bruce is reading over my shoulder (or nibbling on my neck ...) and that I can turn to kiss him and be kissed in return. Don't forget to love yourself... You're worth it. You're one of a kind, an endangered species. ~~ Past You