The last letter

My Dear Sailor, 

   
I often wondered what would it be like to write to you, for the last time? Trust me , all the emotions that rushed to me then, are nowhere in sight now. I am not overwhelmed, nor am i trying hard to silence my sobs. On the contrary, I am sitting and writing to you, calm as a sea. I don't exactly remember the number of times I have written to you.. it must be in hundreds, i suppose. I miss that dreamy feeling, though. 
Ah apologies,  this is not how a lady should start her letter. I must greet you first. So tell me darling, how have you been? Away from the city lights, in the chaotic oceans.. How have you been, distanced from the longing of an aching heart? 
Tell me Sailor, does it still excite you, the going away?And do you still keep it a secret .. when are you leaving or where... or do you now let her in on your secrets? 
puft! pardon me. I am off the track again. I am not here to remind you of how you used to be..  I am here to talk about how I used to be  ... 

Every time you told me about your ‘classified voyages'. I always looked at this picture. 

It seemed most appropriate .This picture was my thousand words. But  I could never muster up enough courage to give you the picture or to say those thousand words. Our lives together, was almost like being on opposite sides in a desert. There was a vacuum of silence between us, engulfing us.  In the summer of 96, the day you told me that you were leaving, I could somehow feel you slipping through my fingers. I dont know how or why, but it sounded like the final good bye. 
Your voice still rings in my ear.. heavy with unsaid emotions, your words laden with moisture from your eyes, your broken rhythm .. I wanted to touch your hand Sailor and I wanted to cry .. with you. 'Have faith...' my insides shrieked. But instead, I just let you go. 
It was a very bad time, trust me, because I had only just now started to trust you. I had started to embrace the fall but the tiredness in your voice sliced my heart. I realized that the sweetness of the words that i had in store for none but you, would drown you. It dawned upon me that I, may have overrated a few phone calls.
Is it that you fell out of love with me? Did you see me too closely ... and thought you are not ready to risk your heart for this ..yet or maybe forever!?

If only you would know the longing in my heart, how one part of me still awaits and yearns to listen to your voice. How I dream of meeting you .. accidentally , round the corner of an old bookstore and sit down for a cup of coffee. I imagine listening to your version of this immature love story while the smoke from our coffee mugs form different shapes .. of us.. tangling and untangling.. slowly dissolving in the air. And when we leave after the sun has gone down in the sky, we realize that none of us touched the coffee mugs and its cold as ice now... just like the love between us.. 
However, the elder and mature part of me knows that this is not happening. May be, I took a bit too long to respond to you. After all, you were but a weak man, tired of waiting. Then, all of a sudden you became too busy... letting me know how bad it feels when your feelings are not reciprocated. Thank you for exposing me to this pain.

I am not trying to play a blame game here nor m i trying to prove that you are the beast . I am just trying to analyse the situation. What went wrong?

We had it all.. didn't we Sailor? A beginning neat as spring sprouting in summers in Himalaya, straight from glaciers.. Pure, clean, untouched, sacred… and yet we gave it up .. We were young , naive and so much in love. It puts a smile on my face even now.. after many many years .. I often wake up to a familiar tranquility .. the hush that stretched between us while we both waited for the other to speak... The vacuum was laden with emotions, do u remember Sailor? 
Have you kept my letters? .. I hope you have because 50 years from now people are going to want to read them .. and may be cry for the writer who was numb with affection for a guy who traveled all the time.. You were my Romeo, Sailor.  It just came back to me, just this instance while i am scribbling away my past, unburdening my heart.

It all got messed up… too bad. 

^ouch^

I sound almost apologetic throughout this letter or do I? I am swinging between emotions, you see. For the early part of all this , I was angry at you of course but over the years I have concluded that I was to be blamed equally. I had always been extra sensitive about how I was being treated. Unnaturally touchy about myself,which reflected in my demeanor. Whatever happened , I know it was not something gruesome,heart wrenching, shattering.. nothing that I regret... nothing that disgraced me.

I didn’t want to remember the broken image of yours,ever. You were the person who gave me something to smile about, the one who made me laugh and the one who waited for long hours so that I would speak, the one who made me feel loved, the one who forced my heart into trusting him, the one I, finally, wanted to confide in.. and the one who I wanted to be with.

So when the time came to let you go and move on, I made myself believe that if I see the good in people, it would help me increase the good in me. and you my darling were not good, but the best!  

I leave this here .. Even though a lot of memories are still untouched but You see, i am going round and round in circles, stating only that I loved you in as any ways as a human mind would decipher... Probably because that's the only memory I care about. That's the converging point of my past.. so i stop here... 

Take Care Sailor. Take care of yourself for it would pain my soul if you don't.

Always ... 
Maureen 

He received this letter on the day when the last  flower perished in his garden.