https://www.angelfire.com/art/letters/moreletters.html
writegirl@altavista.com
My Dearest Michael,
George, Kira and their two girls were here yesterday. They asked about you. It was a joy to have them for Easter. I made an entire feast...ham, brown sugar-glazed sweet potatoes, real mashed potatoes and gravy, corn-on-the-cob, and cousin Manny made a dessert of that drunken cake you so adore...yes, English Trifle!
I learned something important. Or at least I think I did. Kira was saying how she spent all of the day before at the mall shopping with Carly. “She was so depressed. I had to cheer her up.” she said.
That stuck in my head all night.
I think we create the people we live with. Let me see if I can make this logical. I think Kira is teaching Carly to be depressed. It’s the old Russian-dog Pavlov trick...conditioned reflex. If I do sometime enough times you begin to understand it and respond. So now I think anytime Carly wants “things” she will act depressed and her mother will take her shopping. Make sense?
And you my love, after 27 years of marriage, I have created you and you have created me. We have learned how to react and respond to one another. We have set up a pattern. There is some comfort in that, sure, but it can also become frightfully routine.
If our pattern gets boring we may end up having an affair (to learn a new pattern from another person), or a mid-life crisis (try to recreate our original selves), or haha! end up watching a lot of Oprah and reading self-help books a la Stuart Smalley.
How would we avoid all of this? I’m not exactly sure. My thoughts run something like this:If two people in love continue to sample, taste, and savor life TOGETHER they will be okay.
Run your thoughts by me. I am hungry for your magnificently lucid brain.
And what would therapists say about all of our separateness? I do know how important your research is to you, but...Come home Michael. I am needing you.
Jill