Tara Quinn - The Holiday Visitor

You are my best friend. My soul mate. If you’re married, have a lover or a girlfriend…or boyfriend, if you have a child, I want to know them, too. Don’t you see how crazy this is? I have a best friend who I know nothing about?

We’ve created something unrealistic here, James. The semblance of a perfect relationship. Anything real, anything here on a daily basis, grinding through the boring parts of life, would have to seem flawed in comparison. Wouldn’t they? How could they possibly compete with total acceptance and support?

Look at me. I’m spending New Year’s Eve alone with a pen.

Maybe we were both damaged by the incidences of our youth. Maybe we have had some vital part of our ability to give wholly and completely permanently stripped away.

Or maybe not. Maybe we have to end this fantasy to free ourselves to love in the real world. Maybe it’s time we grew up and got over the past.

Please, James, can we meet?

Monday, January 1, 2007

My dearest Candy,

My hand trembles as I write this to you with hopes that it finds you well. Would that I could be there with you as you begin another new year. It’s been almost three weeks since I sent my last letter and I still have not received one back. It’s never been this long between letters and I hope and pray that you are well. I miss you greatly, my friend. I rely on your words, your presence in the tapestry of my life.

I need to know what you’re thinking—that you are well.

As expected, the holidays were a struggle, though, as life would have it, not exactly the struggle I’d envisioned. As for the questions I asked in my last letter, I have discovered the answer. And I felt compelled to share it with you, lest those questions kept you from answering me for some reason.

I suspect, from things you haven’t said, that you, too, find yourself unable to open up and give completely and I would hate to think that my ramblings and soul searching in any way made you doubt yourself. I want to give you strength, not take from you.

So…the answer. Yes, it is possible to feel deeply, to open up and give of self, beyond, or in spite of the tragedies of the past. I cannot tell you that the emotion is enough to sustain relationships as expected by the general population, but I do know that my capability to reach that depth still exists. This I can promise you with absolute certainty.

I found that out this holiday season.

I know, too, that you, that this very rare and special relationship we have here allowed me to risk going outside myself. I always had you, this, as a safety net—a place where I would be all right either way. If I could feel, then great. If not, well then, okay, too.

You know, one of the things that makes us so special is that there are no expectations between us. I don’t have to behave a certain way, say certain things, do certain things, in order for you to feel loved and wanted. Nor do you. We just know, without thought or question, that, no matter what, we are there for each other.

Our friendship (such a stale, weak word for what we share) does not require any action other than an occasional pen to paper, so there is so little chance of failing at it. You know?

I’m not feeling eloquent today, but needed to get this off to you as the thoughts are raging through my mind. You are raging through my mind.

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