For AJ

For AJ Anthony Jonathan Richard...

My friend, my love, I hope that when down the line you think,
just for fun, to check this and see that I too thought of you
and this page, so that you smile.
no matter hwat happens you always have a place in my heart.
Remember that. Often having that place in my heart makes it more difficult to not worry, not be paranoid and not screw-it all up. I know there is no pressure, but family always stresses me. I hope some day you understand that. g'night my fiend.
love
KWP

I love you til the end of time :-�

August 2002 I love you hun. Just thought, if there was ever a doubt, maybe you'll come across this and realize that I didn't forget and this was a place-away from everything- that I can remind you if ever you need reassurance. I can never thank you enough for understanding and being my friend when the nightmares/flashbacks wake me and frighten me at night. I am so lucky- beyond words- that you are who you are and remain my friend and love when something so life changing has happened and continues to affect us. I am SO sorry. If there was any way I could go back and change that night I would. Not only because of what it did to me and my sense of security, but because of what my reaction to the pain and fear does to us. I am so so very sorry. Thank you for being here and for knowing that I would change if I could. I love you. don't dare ever forget that. love KWP

I�m sorry what I wrote yesterday seemed so confusing, but it�s like what I said on the phone- saying some things (wishes) out loud puts them out into the world where they can be crushed. I love you

dec 13 2001

I miss you SO much. I�ve thought about so much in such little time this afternoon.... wow. I have things I want (with you) that I haven��t let myself admit to myself out of feear that they will never happen. Dreams are dangerous because they can be setting you up for a huge fall and hurtful dissapointment. And especially for me because they involve things that are not superficial with you , soon & later.

��HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

oct 24 2001

I don�t know what else to tell you. I have tried so hard to explain and to hold out hope... and if you dont let me go then I am afraid that you and i will end up how i did with the rest - so far apart we arent even sure where the friendship stands. I will always care and ALWAYS want the best for you. I believed you when you said you didnt understand why i needed this and would let me go. You haven�t let go and are reaching to grab me only harder. it hurts. I dont want to hurt you but the more you squeeze to keep me the more i squrm. I need to get this out of my system and have what stupid stuff i would�ve had had my high school not killed my self esteem. I need that back. If I don�t have it I will always wonder and probably regret. There is nothing worse in life than regret. No pain hurts me more. Not even hearing you cry.

Hey. I�ve read your last post. Thank you.I know you�re there and trying - and finally going to try to let go. I appreciate that and am very happy that you understand that you need to. I knwo you don�t understand fully why you need to, but you finally know what you have to do and are going to, which is what I�ve wanted and needed all along.

You said to treat you on the phone like I would if you were any other close friend... and that is very very difficult for me to do because you don�t have the same reaction as, say, Heather would. My example: you asked me if the guy was attractive.. and how attractive. I can answer that with my girl friends but not with you. Some things really are simply "it�s a girl thing". I�ll try if you are convinced you really need me to do that, treat you like I would be talking to Heather or Douglas(guy friend from home), but beware - MAKE YOURSELF AWARE- it will be neither easy or nice. It�s the nicest thing you�ve asked of me, but I still don�t feel like you will want me to.

What makes me say that? The same thing that made me not want to tell you about my rose.
Guess it�s not fair if I just stop right there and don�t tell you, is it? Okay, okay. Connie and I went out to Calle Betis, the street by the river with many bars and live performances, and were having a few (two?) drinks and visiting and listening to the music. We went from place to place and then sat at the bar in one and talked.We were discussing how guys don�t buy girls drinks here and how it would be nice if they did... and all the while watching this lady trying to sell roses in the bar to the patrons. Connie�s saying how she�d like a guy to buy her a drink all teh while I�m sitting there wishing I would get flowers. The guys next to us bought a few flowers. Five minutes later while Connie and I are talking we�re "interrupted" by Seba (the guy) giving us each a rose. The three of us visited about kind of random things (liturature and sports) until his friend (Jes�s)joined teh conversation, at which point I waas bombarded for being a Betis fan and not Sevilla fan.
long story for a single rose, huh? :-)

Hey there. Yes Pilar gave me medicine, and yes I feel much better. Still not right, but better. Cordoba would have been even more beautiful if it hadn�t been raining, but the mosquita and the gardens were absolutely gorgeous. I don�t know what I�m doing tonight... it�s raining but I really do NOT want to sit home all night.
Thank you for the webpage. I might not have a paper letter but they�re there for me. (Only I have to be at teh internet cafe because cccs server has a problem with the RPI page combined with the page being html. Who knows. I had to put a hidden link to "your page" on my webpage so I could see how i would look to you on the school computers. it�s ridiculous. oh well. All of life is ridiculous. .. except this with the webpages. Somehow this is the easiest and most honest thing for me.

I told you on the phone that even if you couldn�t come I needed you to lie so I wouldn�t be crushed again when you couldn�t come, but it�s too late.
I said it was expensive (like the phone calls) and you said ti wasn�t any of my concern. I told you that passports are a process and take a while and you reassured me that it wouldn�t matter... and no matter how well I knew better I took yourwords to heart. Try like hell as I might to ignore them and listen to my head you know how to touch my heart, and now reality is coming back and yet again biting me in the ass and I�m slightly hurt.

I miss you like crazy, similarly so with my parents, but hearing you say " I want to see you" just makes it harder to face the reality. My parents didn�t come, Jerry didn�t come, and you won�t be able to come... and while momentarily all the "I miss you"s and "wish I were there" from the three of you make me feel loved but they sting as reminders that I have a time to go before any of you can hug me. Sometimes teh truth and kind words hurt instead of heal. I know by your voice that you love me and miss me and wish your arms were around me... and I hope you know the same is true for me. I want the same thing at night - you beside me- but saying that I wish you were here or you want to come doesn�t make it so. Everyone saying they might come is giving me false hope and setting me up for a fall - again. I did a miserable job hiding my hurt from my host family when my parents couldn�t come and barely could manage to be good about it with my parents on the phone.
Please go and get your passport because without it you�re only going to run into more minor glitches down the road, but please try not to talk to me too much about it. It hurts to know you want to come and most likely won�t be able to... so I�d rather not think or talk about it veyr much. Please no more "Can�t wait to see you" I can�t come home yet and you can�t come here yet - That�s life . SUCK IT UP AND DEAL WITH IT, bite back the tears, smile and nod - whatever you find works.
Eat, work, sleep, learn, travel, practice, learn... That�s what I came here for and I can�t pretend much else is going to occur. If you and I hadn�t patched things up I would have felt so utterly alone when my parents couldn�t come, and I don�t want to feel like that again while I am kind of alone. We�re there for eachother. Side by side or a world away we will always care and thath is what counts. We may want more - but sometimes life (as it always seems) is the story of "hurry up and wait". I think we�re waiting. For what I�m not positive, but you�re waiting for me to return and I�m waiting to know ANYTHING for sure. There�s a saying passing down through my family:
"I may not have always liked you
but I always did and will love you."

That will always apply to me and all of "my family". Pain dulls, anger fades but love is never forgotten. No matter how great or small it is always felt.
Yes, even from an ocean away.

I don�t know how to explain that to you. I have always ALWAYS been under someone�s thumb whether they realized it or not. My parents for years, my boyfriends and then even when they were exs they still exerted power over how I acted and what I did and who I was with. Then I left for college and you are right there. Not only did I fall for my best friend the day I wrapped my arms around him, but you loved me so strongly that I never could forget how what I did or didn�t do affected you. It�s not an issue of fault, it�s just the way my life has been. How will I ever know what I want if I have never really lived my life solely for me? That�s why I need this, prolly more than any other reason.

You asked me what the last two years have been, and you deserve an answer. However, my words will not make much of a difference when you feel they have been a waste if I am not with you now. They have been anything but a waste to me. I will treasure times and conversations with you. I was able to trust someone enough to be completely crazy with them. That alone is a truth I will hold dear to my heart. But just because i love you is not enough to say that I should be with you without a break and stay together...

" I now know that time does not heal all wounds. I now know that my "picket fence" is near impossible and I would have a lot to go through yet before I would be able to have it. You have taught me that timing is everything - and if you miss the opprotunity to say or do something the impact may be completely different later. I�m staying here for the semester and not screwing myself over in the one area I have made a decision I know to be right - but if you had said in the beginning what you had said over the phone, from the letter you read last night, I would have been forced to find a way home and try to pick up the pieces of my academic career later. But (as you agree) things happen for a reason. God let you say things in ways that made it more than possible for me to stay here.�"I don�t care if I ever have kids, all I want is you." This is something that once said has an impact. You said things you really didn�t mean as I heard them but they were said at a time that would make me realize I have specific things I want in my life in my future and I am not able to ignore those wishes. It broke my heart to hear the words " pretend the other doesn�t exist... permentantly" from you. I was sick. There is no way anything I have said could have hurt you to the bone as much as those simple angry hurt words hurt me. It killed me to hear you say that. The idea of losing everything you have been to me for so long, confidant, love, lover, family and above the rest being my best friend - to lose that forever, completely and instantyl keeps me crying, even now. You have promised not to foresake me, promised to talk to me and be there to talk to when I return- the words still rattle and echo endlessly in my head like screams in a long corridor."

"The last two years for me have been full of love, but often with anguish in all aspects and love without life. You once said that when the lust fades - as happens - there needs to be something to take its place. You�re right. "there�s more to a marriage/relationship than the first months of great sex" and often I look down the road through your eyes and wonder what you are seeing that would take its place. I can be a blast, but I need someone to draw me out like my friends here do and some of my friends from home used to. I don�t want to be the one who is always talking - and yet so very often it�s become a "job" put on my shoulders- and what I want or have to talk about are things of no interest or even things that disgust you. (because of my views."

"but why now? Now because there are few things I ever promised myself but I do intend on keeping them. I promised if I was ever in the position where I could live my life for myself, even for a short while, I would live it up so I could live the rest of my life without the regret of a missed opprotunity. I promised myself I would never end up with someone who reminded me of my father�s narrow-minded "be like me" bullshit because that bullshit eats away at me and hurts me to the core of my being. I can�t ask or expect you to change - it�s not fair to either of us to ask that (because then things are based on lies), but love... even great love, can not counter my problem with that." Sometimes love just ain�t enough and I am having to face that... away from all the people who love me, who would be a shoulder to cry on... because that is what I deserve.

"I will have children - and they will be brought up to be proud of who they are and where they came from but also be open to differences. I want my kids to be bilingual if they are naturally inclined. And children aside, I can not live with someone I believe to have that in common with my father ever again. If this alone is reason enough for me to live in Troy this summer why, HOW could I let myself end up in that situation in the same pain again? Especially now when I have some control over my life and who I live with? Do you understand that??..."

"... Being a language teacher involves understanding, appreciation and communication of another language and culture - which is perfect because I am naturally interested in these things. It�s a large part of me in many ways - and I am not comfortable with that part of me around you because you are not like that - or at least the part of you that is is very small and VERY selective... I realized when I came back from the class trips from all these amazing sites that I need to be able to share this interest and I can�t with you. ... you wouldn�t care (about them) even if you were here - and that�s the breaking point. This interest is a large part of my future as a teacher - the only thing I know I can do with my future - and without respect and honest interest I can not be with someone the open way I want to be.." Asking me to ignore this is asking us both to lie, and we are too close and know the other too well for that. I could try to keep my interest and openness to myself but "- which means putting on a mask for you - the day I am forced to do that is the day I will no longer love you and you will no longer know me." ... "It is better to have space, be lonely, and be all that I am finally comfortble with it than live in the narrow space between fear and wearing masks. I don�t like being afraid of losing your respect by being myself. Part of my nature is to seek out differences and long for diversity... It�s a nature that clashes with yours (and many many others).... It�s better to be apart than to live falsely and you taught me that. The past two years have been truth - love without thought and many things have been found for better and for worse."
�But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. "
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- I will always love you and I believe that this is the same for you. We are best friends and no matter what happens we know eachother right now better than I think anyone else knows us. But where we�re headed, where I�M headed, I don�t know.
I simply am unsure of everything right now... except I need a hug. I need more than one hug, I need a million.

How am I suppose to know anything about how anyone will act in three months? (including myself) I can't, I can only hope...

It doesn't matter where I go though... you're always going to have a piece of my heart and I will be reminded of that.
And I think you can understand that.
or at least I hope you can.

love,
Kendra Wray

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws