I am a romantic. I have loved, but I don't think I can confidently say I was in love with anyone I have ever dated. As I've matured and learned what healthy relationships look like, both platonic and romantic, I now realize that things were lacking. Please don't hear that I'm saying love had to or has to be perfect. I am saying love should be interactive. I am saying give me a romantic love that has an effect on both of us. I have cried over men that were not meant to be. The lesson that I learned is that you know what home feels like, and you have stayed many nights in hotels. Always choose the one who feels like home, and I pray that I'm blessed to experience that one day. I am a romantic. I hope you enjoy this short story I wrote this morning about on waiting for love.
Love Letters Left
We become more and more aware of how wrong something is the older we get. Consider yourself lucky if you look "okay love" in the face in your younger years and have the jet fuel to take a flight out of there. On my 45th birthday, I woke up to no happy birthday, not a scrambled egg, not even a silly birthday card. You would think as long as we have commonly shared this space, this room, this recycled air from my lungs to his and back. You would think that he remembered and cared for me, especially on a special birthday.
I had been waiting on love for a very long time, is what it felt like. I had been waiting on my time when Lincoln came along. He wasn't really my type, but at thirty-seven, the aunties started to make me feel like a granny goose. They urged me to give him a chance. Not many chances were being requested of me in that season of my life, so I walked along with what they were saying, pushing away the faint feeling of wrong turns.
Lincoln was a nice man. That's what the aunties said. He didn't have any children from his previous marriage. He didn't steal, kill, or beat his first wife. They just decided to part ways. He had been working at the plant since the week after his high school graduation. We had lived in separate parts of a town with two high schools, three if you count the sewing school that girls went to who said they wanted to be housewives. I didn't really know much of the man he was in his younger days or who to ask around so that I could learn. I was taught to trust the elder's advice, but old age doesn't always mean wise.
At the peaking in of my thirty-eighth birthday, I accepted Lincoln's request for a date. He picked me up in his car, which had some miles on it, you could tell but clean. He opened my door. Ordered for me what he said would be good. We talked about the weather, complimented how nice each other looked, and how good the food was though I thought it was really just alright. That new Gladys Knight and the Pips played on the radio as he drove me home. He said he would pick me up for church in the morning, then opened my door and kissed me on the cheek goodnight.
Saturday nights, we would put on an outfit and share a meal. Sunday, we would put on our smell goods and share the end of a pew. Weeks and weeks of this repeating itself, and then shortly after my thirty-eighth birthday, he asked me to share his place. It would be easier for both of us. This was not at all the love I had waited for, but I sadly assumed this was the love I would be getting—a man who wanted to wake up next to me each day. We would share laughs, a bed, and maybe one day, children, though that topic had never come up in conversation.
I felt his side of the bed that morning, cool to touch. He must have picked up an early shift at the plant as he sometimes liked to do. We lived a little better than comfortable, yet he always jumped at a little bit more. I had taken the day off from work as my mama used to do. Well, mama would just call in sick, but women had grown to get a little more freedom, nothing close to equality, but my boss was happy to give me the day off for my birthday. I decided to treat myself. I went and put on a pretty dress and went on down to the shop for some fresh curls.
It was evening time when I returned to our shared space. Lincoln freshly showered and in bed. I knew before I stepped foot into the room because of the half-smoked cigarette that still lingered and the sweaty beer can that he had only taken one sip out of. This was his routine, a dirty habit for such a clean man. Today was a special day, and though I had let his niceness blanket my affections for love, romance, and four walls that feel like home, I couldn't shake this.
I let him sleep. I allow him to run on his rabbit wheel peacefully. I started not to leave any sign other than the last little bit of recycled air. The kindness in my heart just couldn't do that. So in the letter, I wrote, "Dear Lincoln, You are a very nice man. Even dependable on most days but not in the needed ways. I've tried to be okay with these past seven years, but I remembered I'm not built for just a life of okay. I wish you the best. I left you a piece of seven up cake in the fridge to eat tomorrow when you wake up, enjoy your birthday." I placed the letter underneath the ashtray, and in the ashtray, I put my ring from the marriage that never happened. Still, I trust and believe for me one day it will. One day I will know what it feels like to call someone's warm arms my home.