Curiosity killed the cat. As each day went by I started to believe I was indeed that cat, helpless and totally consumed by a curious force. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what I’m curious about but what would take a logical person, for the reasoning has totally bypassed myself, is why exactly I’m behaving this way. I don’t think I would have been if she hadn’t sent that second letter, said those things that were so out there, so slap bang on the table for me to see without the aid of scrutiny. It just seems to me that everything she said has a question behind it; everything she wrote down in the letter had a question bubbling behind it and I just had to let it rest on the tip of my tongue as if I was going to see her tomorrow and be able to bombard her even though I knew she would clam up and probably refrain from answering. Still, it didn’t stop me wasting my time questioning the out of reach.
’Only two months now Taylor, how you feeling?’ Isaac beamed, slumping in a recliner next to me with a huge bowl of Christmas pudding and brandy sauce tucking in as if it were his last meal as a free man.
’Is there a rule to say what I should be feeling? I’m getting married not having heart surgery Isaac,’
’Tay, Tay what’s up with the hostility? I get the feeling the word ‘wedding’ is a touchy subject right now, you two have a fight?’
’Way to go assuming Isaac, no we didn’t have a fight, were fine but yes wedding is a tense word for me right now, were having a supposedly small ceremony and Nadia and mom seem to think it’s an all out white wedding at a cathedral,’
’Well you know how disappointed mom was when you opted for a registry office,’
’Is this her wedding? No I didn’t think so,’
’You never did tell us why you wouldn’t get married in a church Taylor, what’s the reasoning?’
I paused slightly as I watched my brothers glance intensify whilst he shovelled blindly spoonful after spoonful of pudding in his mouth, no wonder he was still single with that brandy sauce all around his mouth like a toddler, he needed looking after 24/7. But I wanted to reply, tell him I wasn’t worthy of getting married in church, I didn’t want the hassle mainly but I didn’t feel we deserved it. I know how it was working, she had me wrapped around her little finger and strangely I didn’t rebel against that because I loved her, even though I couldn’t tell you what specific event or time caused me to fall so. I still had my doubts, not so much in her, more in myself I just didn’t have me pegged to get married first, I didn’t have me pegged to marry Nadia in particular it just felt after 4 years it was the proper thing to do, we’d been through a lot but I should have known that with Nadia there’s no leaving things, no long engagement as I had thought- I was two months away from standing there looking at her smiling and saying ‘I do’ and I wasn’t as overly keen on that as I should be. I love her yet I don’t want to be saying that in two months, and that is why I am dragging my heals and leaving myself out of the planning.
’I don’t know Isaac, in fact I don’t know a lot of things right now, I have allll these questions but no answers and the last thing I need is for someone else to be offloading their questions onto me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and write a letter,’
What can I say to that picture? I was totally dumbfounded at it, at how accurate, how much effort was evident on the page, I would have been none the wiser had you not sent this, but now I am and reading your words once again Season Mally- I’m smiling and budding with curiosity and I can’t vent either.
Forgive me but, you sounded so absent in your last letter, like you had left a light on but nobody was really home. I’ll admit now I feel the same, the questions have gotten too much on occasion and the nagging query about if you ever realized I did care, and I did want to know you, has now been quashed. I want to state I’d never have look down on you for who you are and how you live, yes I maybe a casualty of society in some respects but in others I’m only human, just as vulnerable and open as the next man and I’m honest to the fact that there’s more to me than only what most people see.
One of those things no one can see, is fear. I may have scared you with my openness, but for once I am in the midst of fear and I don’t know what to do about it. In two months I am going to be yet one more fraction, another to tally up in my life and I don’t quite know how I’m going to take that. Yes, I proposed, asked her to marry me but I don’t remember why or when that decision came about.. Right now believe me when I say I know how you must feel, lost inside of your own mind sometimes, it’s not exactly the best place to be yet it seems the most safe place to reside as the world of weddings and publicity swirl around me. I’m just standing there, watching it all go on but inside I’m alone and by myself and I’m starting to like it, no one has to bother me and no one can pretend to understand me, because I don’t, not if I’m honest, especially right now.
My motives are right and my intentions honourable, but still it amounts to little. My love for Nadia is there, it’s not been lost or misplaced, but I just feel different and I can’t help but think that is partly thanks to you. You’ve helped me get that little bit close to being an individual in a unit, I’m managing to be apart of life and shut myself off all at once and the insight into things is positively frightening and honest, I find it amazing.
In light of all this, our handful of letters and a month full of meetings and musings, I can see what is expected of me.
Season, not a day goes by when something you’ve said or done has provoked thoughts that I’m ever reliant upon and I can’t help but feel even more terrible of my actions what seems like an eternity ago. Over the holidays I thought of you, sitting alone and wondering what you’re dreaming when it came to mind that I really did care, as a friend who wishes to express his love. I have love for you, a special kind of plutonic love and I can’t explain it, but it makes me smile, it’s unlike any other love I have had for another being in my life. That is why I must ask you to meet me once again so I can mend the bridge I so ignorantly burned, to try and reconcile, to heal.
Please reply to me, I will meet when you state and where you state, this is something I need Season, for if I ever do loose myself in society, I want to remain this new individual I found deep inside. I know you can teach me to do that.
Seeing you there in pigment draws a smile, but you can’t talk to me through that, this is all I ask of you Season.
Allow a stupid man to put right a stupid misunderstanding.
Please.
Taylor