An Email.
Ursula emailed me. Actually, has a few times in the past week or two. My responses have been short, for the most part, and not really worth writing home about, so to speak. When she emailed me last night, I intended for my response to be the same as all the others in nature, but it sort of grew. And what it grew into, I think, belongs here as much as in her inbox to rot away, not being understood.
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You were worth more than I could ever have imagined, yes.
But that's a two-way street.
The difference is, though, that you destroyed your worth. You abandoned your friends, abandoned your marriage, lied about every word you ever spoke to anyone those last few months, and are in the process of repeating the whole deal over again. That's your choice, you're free to make it, very likely very much like you did with Carlos. Very probably, exactly like Carlos, finding someone online that you prefer and jumping ship without ever telling him why. Kyle was an excuse, after all, a way to take the blame off of the real culprit. And that's alright. It's not to say he's blameless, only that he was as much a victim of you as anyone else.
The difference is that, instead of destroying my worth, I've continued to build it. My castle may take significantly longer to build, but it is of stone and mortar, not sand to be washed away when the tide comes in. Your sandcastles are works of art, sure, but if you're looking to keep one, you'll only end up disappointed. My castle may not be as grand. I don't know yet. It could be very simple, it could be extravagant, and it's anybody's guess at this point where things will go from here. I've been getting more and more job offers, ranging from the rewarding to the dangerous to the lucrative to the adventurous, all waiting for me to finish school. Other offers may even require me to take a couple of months break from school, as they're just too good to pass up. I'm hoping they'll be delayed long enough for me to get through with it all, though.
But, no matter how simple my castle is, even if it never ends up anything more than a child's fort, it will always be there. I don't have to worry about it being washed away by a whimsical turn of the world. I can count on my family, sure. Everybody can do that. But I can also count on the other things I've been building, since long before you left, even some of it with your help. Putting the stones in place takes a long time. And each one may not be perfect, but it will fit right. And I'm willing to wait. You've known I was patient since ten years ago when I met you.
You're looking for the castle of your dreams. You're very good at looking for your dreams. But you keep building your castles out of sand, and you keep destroying them. The waves of your moods' whims crush your job history, your friendships, your relationships. Everything you worked so hard to achieve vanishes in a fraction of the time.
There isn't a thing I can do about it, either, even if I'm a part of one of your sandcastles. There's not a thing Josh can do about it either, and I wish him more luck than Carlos or I had, or any of the others. I hope that one day, you'll stop building sandcastles and start building real castles. But that will involve growing up, and, to be honest, I don't think you even begin to understand what that involves, much though you will protest that fact.
Learn patience. Learn to see beyond the next two months. If not for me, if not even for Josh, at least for yourself. You can dream and build a reality all at the same time, you know. Or didn't Changeling teach you that? That there is a real world that must accompany the world of fairy tales. Without one, the other loses all importance, becomes worthless.
You lied to everyone. To me. To Jason and Jess. To Kyle. Even to your family, who paid for our wedding because they, like I, thought you were happy.
I don't care anymore. In all reality, I should have expected it, and may even have half-expected it. I just thought that I would be further along before your whims carried you away, so that I'd be able to go with you, to help you to start building your real castles to look like your sandcastles. But you didn't wait that long. That's alright, though. That's in the past. That which does not kill us, they say, makes us stronger.
And, for all the hurt, I'm not dead.
And despite the waves, my castle still stands.
The tops of some towers have fallen, certainly. There is a great hole in it, where the foundation--you--was ripped away. But it's still there. And every day, I've been rebuilding it, just as I was building it while you were here. Just, this time, the foundation is not made of sand. I don't know how big the castle will get. I don't know what it will end up looking like. I don't pretend to. But I know that, for it to get anywhere, I have to keep adding stones, one at a time, and I have to mortar them together. I can't just heap up a billion tiny stones by the bucketful and delude myself that they will stay together when the sand dries out.
How long until your next sandcastle crumbles? The last time you tried this sandcastle you're building now, it didn't last more than a couple of years. Will this one last even half as long? Or will you be off to build another before a year's up? I expect you're already thinking of your next sandcastle, knowing you. And that's alright. Your sandcastles are beautiful things. I just hope that, someday, you build a real castle as beautiful as your sand ones. You, and whomever you build it with, will be very lucky.
I just wish I'd been able to finish finding a cement for sand before the tide came.
You keep asking for my thanks in your letters. You believe I should thank you for gracing me with your presence, for doing those things that are expected of a couple, for following through with your half of our plan for our lives, so that I could prepare for the part where I took over the responsibilities to allow you to pursue your dreams. You keep begging for me to thank you for the things you've done for me. But look at what you've done for me, Ursula.
For five long years--was it more? I don't even remember anymore. I know it was at least five--you toyed with me. You kept me firmly in hand, knowing and cultivating my infatuation with you, and destroying my chances for a relationship with anyone else. Yes, of course, I could have walked away. I should have walked away. But even then, from that first moment I met you, you had my heart. We talked about dinosaurs all night long, and I was horrified that I might not see you again before my family reunion stole me away for the weekend. After that, there was never anyone but you. I dated, but everyone I dated I told up front, "If Ursula changes her mind, I'm afraid I love her, and she comes first."
And yet, nothing. For five years, I waited for those hopes and dreams you offered to come true. I doubt you have any idea how difficult that was. I doubt you have any idea how many nights I cried myself to sleep. I know you know about some of them, for they were nights I cried on the phone to you, all those years ago, begging you to at least let me hear you say you loved me. You never did. I even carried Cowbear with me at all times, no matter where I was, or what I was doing. Rain, shine, sleet, snow, work, play, everything. I know where he is. He's one of the very few stuffed animals that still survives in this house.
Eventually, you did decide to give me my chance. Not immediately, no. Even after you'd left Carlos, you decided to find other guys. Maybe they were simply Kyles, meant only to throw Carlos off the scent, to make him think that you hadn't been planning it for months without talking to him and as some subconscious effort to 'spare his feelings' from you disappearing and finding another guy. I don't know. I don't really care. That was years ago, and I'm sure he's moved on with his life. But I did get my chance.
Then, as for all the years before, I did everything in my power to make you happy, to keep you happy. And I thought it was working. It certainly appeared to be working. You came down here. I went up there. We saw each other, we loved each other. You were happy with me. After not very long at all, you moved down here. Yes, moving to the grimy butthole of the universe was a bad idea, in retrospect. I don't like it any more than you do. But there was a reason for being here far greater than any consideration about something as simple as a measly town: it put me close to you. Anywhere on earth would have been heaven with you there, no matter the circumstances.
It always was, until the end.
But I should have known the end would come. And, in a way, I did. It took you so long to say "I love you." You told me that this was just because you were being sure, but apparently you didn't wait long enough to be certain you were sure. It took you six months to say "yes," when I asked you to marry me. I still have that candy heart, I even know exactly where it is still. It's dirty, and pitted, and the words are faded, but they still read, "I do." And the one I asked you with, in no better condition, I had carried in preparation for that moment for a year.
But you did say those words. And you did marry me. Even though there wasn't anything at all about the marriage ceremony that I had even the remotest degree of say in, it was still you, and it was still me. But we were married, and you were smiling. Our picture still sits on top of the TV, and even through the dust I can see your smile. I didn't even get to say how I really felt about you then, but I did write it out, and I still have those words. They were going to be my vows, until your mom assembled the emotionless wedding drivel from the internet and insisted I read it instead, no matter how I felt about it.
"I promise to love you as I've loved you for as long as I've known you. I'll love you when you complain about work. I'll console you when you're sad or homesick. I'll snuggle you when you're cold or lonely. I'll let you poot on me to mark your territory and I'll put up with your fat ninja cat even when he pees on things, because I love you more than anything, and always will."
I haven't ever broken those promises, not any time I've been aware of. I do even still love you, more than anything, even after all this mess. And even though the fat ninja cat is now mine, and doesn't pee on anything anymore, I still put up with him. He sleeps on my side these days, when I sleep, or close by. Sometimes he even asks to sit on my lap, and I let him. He's mine now.
For a year, we were married, and I thought we were happy. I remembered our anniversary, though we were too broke for me to surprise you with anything at the time. You took that as me not loving you. It certainly wasn't, though of course I don't expect that to change your mind. After that, not even two months later, you told me you wanted to sleep with Kyle. Being the fool I am for you, I even said that would be okay, as long as you stayed with me. Just, please, not to leave. You took that as me being afraid of losing a meal ticket. You never even began to think that it was because I loved you so much that I couldn't even conceive what it would be like to lose you, even when you made me so mad that I wished you would go.
And then you said you were leaving, if I didn't fulfill your wishlist in a week. I did everything. I found a job, even though I'd been jobless for two years at your own request, so I could always be available to chauffeur you around whenever and wherever you wanted. I found a house for us. I found homes for all our animals, for when we moved. All of it, seventy-five miles away from here. Within a week. And when I returned from filling your demands, I was told that even that wasn't good enough, that you were leaving anyway. And when you left, you promised me that you would pay the gas, electric, and water bills the next week, with your paycheck. That you would bring them all up to date, and that you would give me a little money to live on. And then you left.
You didn't tell me that you'd left all the bills, every last one of them, fall three months behind. During the week after you left, the cutoff notices for them all showed up. And you never gave me anything after that, despite the fact that you'd left me with only thirty-five dollars that was in the change jar. Had my sister not stepped in to bail me out of the hole you left me in, divorce papers might not have been necessary.
I'm glad I didn't leave school, like you asked me to in that wishlist.
Not only am I still there, I'm still maintaining a 97%. I'm learning far more than I'd dreamed when I first started, though I'm not learning it in precisely the order I'd expected. And though you think it's stupid of me to continue to say so, yes, the reason that I went to school was wholly because of you. Not because I wanted to. Because it would help me to build our castle, so that you could live your dream.
The reason I went was for you.
The reason I stayed was for me.
You want me to thank you for all you've done for me.
After all you've 'done for me,' you have the gall to think that this is your right, to be thanked for doing your job as a wife, for being supportive of me while I worked toward a position from which I could be supportive of you. You want me to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to spend my entire life at your beck and call. You want me to thank you for allowing me to do my very best to find a way to cheer you up when you got mopey, whether it was finding a new game system to play, a new site to play in, singing a song, doing the dishes, cooking for you every day, or doing some stupid dance with the puppies. You want me to thank you for having the privilege of having my heart toyed with for years on end, while you kept me as a backup plan for the event that your relationship might not pan out. You want me to thank you for deigning to give you the chance to get married, even though you say now that you weren’t sure you wanted to.
Everything I ever was, everything I ever loved, I gave to you. Everything I ever did, I did for you. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe it wasn’t good enough. But it was me, mind, body, and spirit. Everything I did, I did for you. And you took it, and you destroyed it.
You destroyed my friendships here, because they were always friends of yours. You were always enough for me.
You destroyed my friendships with old friends, by destroying my trust in them, by flirting with them online, or by sleeping with them in real life.
Those old friendships you couldn’t destroy, you tried. Despite your best efforts, Jason and Jess and I still talk as much as we’re able.
You tried to destroy my future, by trying to get me to drop out of school.
You left me jobless, penniless, and a thousand dollars in debt, despite your promises.
You tried to leave the bank account overdrawn, too, despite having told me you’d closed it. If I hadn’t taken care of it, it’d probably still be racking up overdraft charges thanks to your taking two dollars out of it that wasn’t there after you’d supposedly closed it out.
And, astoundingly enough, all that is wholly secondary to the fact that you told me you loved me, you told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, you told me that I was the only man for you, and you told me that you were happy with me… and that each and every word of it all was a lie. You never loved me, because if you did, you’d have been patient. Less than a year. That’s how long I had left in school when you left. Less than a year until the world opened up into a bright, fresh, new place full of every opportunity we could possibly have dreamed of. We could go anywhere in the world that you wanted to go. Anything you wanted, there it would be on a silver platter.
But now…
It’s my world to go visit. And almost anything I want, it will be there. Maybe not on a silver platter, but I know now that it will be there, no matter what route I take. Even my least lucrative offers so far have been enough to show me that. There’s really only one thing that I can’t say for sure will be there, that I wanted more than anything, and that’s for someone who loves me, and that I love in return, to be there with me for it all. I had thought that would be you, and that I’d be helping you to follow your dreams, since you’d helped me to achieve mine.
Maybe I should have dreamed of more than your love.
You want me to thank you, Ursula. But there won’t be a thank you. I can’t thank you for the good things you did, because you brought as much heartache into my life as you did good things. I can’t thank you without at the same time condemning your for your selfishness and childishness in how you treated me. You brought me worlds of happiness I hadn’t previously even dreamed existed, but you also brought me worlds of pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone, ever, and the two go hand in hand with one another every step of the way. For all the happiness our marriage brought me, realizing that it was all a childish lie brought equal sadness. Even completely discounting my reasons for needing your support, and the fact that supporting one another is an integral part of marriage, for every bit of support you gave me, you did your best to offer equal destruction.
To thank you for the good things, I would have to spit upon you for mocking those very same things.
And I won’t ever do that. I haven’t broken that promise to love you, as I always did, even though with that love now also comes a sadness that is nearly equal.
When you left, my castle was nearly destroyed, but it did not fall completely. And while you’ve been gone, I’ve rebuilt it, stronger than ever. And when your sandcastle with Josh or whatever his name is crumbles, that’s okay. Let’s hope he’ll be able to rebuild also. Because I don’t see you building anything but sandcastles until you’ve grown up, and that’s going to take a very, very long time. In some ways, that’s what makes you the most wonderful, beautiful, amazing woman on the planet. In some ways, that’s also what makes you the most terrible demon ever to tear the heart from the chest of a man.
I love you, but I will never thank you for destroying everything that was ever important to me. And if, by some miracle, you ever realize what you did, and that you did actually love me, my castle is rebuilt now. The towers are rising to the sky, one stone at a time, and the pennants are ready to be flown in the wind. But it’s no longer our castle, and even if you decide that everything you ever said to me was not the lie it appears to have been, it will be a long wait before the gates open for you ever again.
You could never have been more wrong than when you told me that nothing in this house is irreplaceable. EVERYTHING in this house is irreplaceable. I would not give up a moment of the memories that my time with you, and in this house, have given me. They have shaped me. They have made me who I am today.
They have not killed me, they have made me stronger.
Strong enough to remember you and not cry anymore.
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You were worth more than I could ever have imagined, yes.
But that's a two-way street.
The difference is, though, that you destroyed your worth. You abandoned your friends, abandoned your marriage, lied about every word you ever spoke to anyone those last few months, and are in the process of repeating the whole deal over again. That's your choice, you're free to make it, very likely very much like you did with Carlos. Very probably, exactly like Carlos, finding someone online that you prefer and jumping ship without ever telling him why. Kyle was an excuse, after all, a way to take the blame off of the real culprit. And that's alright. It's not to say he's blameless, only that he was as much a victim of you as anyone else.
The difference is that, instead of destroying my worth, I've continued to build it. My castle may take significantly longer to build, but it is of stone and mortar, not sand to be washed away when the tide comes in. Your sandcastles are works of art, sure, but if you're looking to keep one, you'll only end up disappointed. My castle may not be as grand. I don't know yet. It could be very simple, it could be extravagant, and it's anybody's guess at this point where things will go from here. I've been getting more and more job offers, ranging from the rewarding to the dangerous to the lucrative to the adventurous, all waiting for me to finish school. Other offers may even require me to take a couple of months break from school, as they're just too good to pass up. I'm hoping they'll be delayed long enough for me to get through with it all, though.
But, no matter how simple my castle is, even if it never ends up anything more than a child's fort, it will always be there. I don't have to worry about it being washed away by a whimsical turn of the world. I can count on my family, sure. Everybody can do that. But I can also count on the other things I've been building, since long before you left, even some of it with your help. Putting the stones in place takes a long time. And each one may not be perfect, but it will fit right. And I'm willing to wait. You've known I was patient since ten years ago when I met you.
You're looking for the castle of your dreams. You're very good at looking for your dreams. But you keep building your castles out of sand, and you keep destroying them. The waves of your moods' whims crush your job history, your friendships, your relationships. Everything you worked so hard to achieve vanishes in a fraction of the time.
There isn't a thing I can do about it, either, even if I'm a part of one of your sandcastles. There's not a thing Josh can do about it either, and I wish him more luck than Carlos or I had, or any of the others. I hope that one day, you'll stop building sandcastles and start building real castles. But that will involve growing up, and, to be honest, I don't think you even begin to understand what that involves, much though you will protest that fact.
Learn patience. Learn to see beyond the next two months. If not for me, if not even for Josh, at least for yourself. You can dream and build a reality all at the same time, you know. Or didn't Changeling teach you that? That there is a real world that must accompany the world of fairy tales. Without one, the other loses all importance, becomes worthless.
You lied to everyone. To me. To Jason and Jess. To Kyle. Even to your family, who paid for our wedding because they, like I, thought you were happy.
I don't care anymore. In all reality, I should have expected it, and may even have half-expected it. I just thought that I would be further along before your whims carried you away, so that I'd be able to go with you, to help you to start building your real castles to look like your sandcastles. But you didn't wait that long. That's alright, though. That's in the past. That which does not kill us, they say, makes us stronger.
And, for all the hurt, I'm not dead.
And despite the waves, my castle still stands.
The tops of some towers have fallen, certainly. There is a great hole in it, where the foundation--you--was ripped away. But it's still there. And every day, I've been rebuilding it, just as I was building it while you were here. Just, this time, the foundation is not made of sand. I don't know how big the castle will get. I don't know what it will end up looking like. I don't pretend to. But I know that, for it to get anywhere, I have to keep adding stones, one at a time, and I have to mortar them together. I can't just heap up a billion tiny stones by the bucketful and delude myself that they will stay together when the sand dries out.
How long until your next sandcastle crumbles? The last time you tried this sandcastle you're building now, it didn't last more than a couple of years. Will this one last even half as long? Or will you be off to build another before a year's up? I expect you're already thinking of your next sandcastle, knowing you. And that's alright. Your sandcastles are beautiful things. I just hope that, someday, you build a real castle as beautiful as your sand ones. You, and whomever you build it with, will be very lucky.
I just wish I'd been able to finish finding a cement for sand before the tide came.
You keep asking for my thanks in your letters. You believe I should thank you for gracing me with your presence, for doing those things that are expected of a couple, for following through with your half of our plan for our lives, so that I could prepare for the part where I took over the responsibilities to allow you to pursue your dreams. You keep begging for me to thank you for the things you've done for me. But look at what you've done for me, Ursula.
For five long years--was it more? I don't even remember anymore. I know it was at least five--you toyed with me. You kept me firmly in hand, knowing and cultivating my infatuation with you, and destroying my chances for a relationship with anyone else. Yes, of course, I could have walked away. I should have walked away. But even then, from that first moment I met you, you had my heart. We talked about dinosaurs all night long, and I was horrified that I might not see you again before my family reunion stole me away for the weekend. After that, there was never anyone but you. I dated, but everyone I dated I told up front, "If Ursula changes her mind, I'm afraid I love her, and she comes first."
And yet, nothing. For five years, I waited for those hopes and dreams you offered to come true. I doubt you have any idea how difficult that was. I doubt you have any idea how many nights I cried myself to sleep. I know you know about some of them, for they were nights I cried on the phone to you, all those years ago, begging you to at least let me hear you say you loved me. You never did. I even carried Cowbear with me at all times, no matter where I was, or what I was doing. Rain, shine, sleet, snow, work, play, everything. I know where he is. He's one of the very few stuffed animals that still survives in this house.
Eventually, you did decide to give me my chance. Not immediately, no. Even after you'd left Carlos, you decided to find other guys. Maybe they were simply Kyles, meant only to throw Carlos off the scent, to make him think that you hadn't been planning it for months without talking to him and as some subconscious effort to 'spare his feelings' from you disappearing and finding another guy. I don't know. I don't really care. That was years ago, and I'm sure he's moved on with his life. But I did get my chance.
Then, as for all the years before, I did everything in my power to make you happy, to keep you happy. And I thought it was working. It certainly appeared to be working. You came down here. I went up there. We saw each other, we loved each other. You were happy with me. After not very long at all, you moved down here. Yes, moving to the grimy butthole of the universe was a bad idea, in retrospect. I don't like it any more than you do. But there was a reason for being here far greater than any consideration about something as simple as a measly town: it put me close to you. Anywhere on earth would have been heaven with you there, no matter the circumstances.
It always was, until the end.
But I should have known the end would come. And, in a way, I did. It took you so long to say "I love you." You told me that this was just because you were being sure, but apparently you didn't wait long enough to be certain you were sure. It took you six months to say "yes," when I asked you to marry me. I still have that candy heart, I even know exactly where it is still. It's dirty, and pitted, and the words are faded, but they still read, "I do." And the one I asked you with, in no better condition, I had carried in preparation for that moment for a year.
But you did say those words. And you did marry me. Even though there wasn't anything at all about the marriage ceremony that I had even the remotest degree of say in, it was still you, and it was still me. But we were married, and you were smiling. Our picture still sits on top of the TV, and even through the dust I can see your smile. I didn't even get to say how I really felt about you then, but I did write it out, and I still have those words. They were going to be my vows, until your mom assembled the emotionless wedding drivel from the internet and insisted I read it instead, no matter how I felt about it.
"I promise to love you as I've loved you for as long as I've known you. I'll love you when you complain about work. I'll console you when you're sad or homesick. I'll snuggle you when you're cold or lonely. I'll let you poot on me to mark your territory and I'll put up with your fat ninja cat even when he pees on things, because I love you more than anything, and always will."
I haven't ever broken those promises, not any time I've been aware of. I do even still love you, more than anything, even after all this mess. And even though the fat ninja cat is now mine, and doesn't pee on anything anymore, I still put up with him. He sleeps on my side these days, when I sleep, or close by. Sometimes he even asks to sit on my lap, and I let him. He's mine now.
For a year, we were married, and I thought we were happy. I remembered our anniversary, though we were too broke for me to surprise you with anything at the time. You took that as me not loving you. It certainly wasn't, though of course I don't expect that to change your mind. After that, not even two months later, you told me you wanted to sleep with Kyle. Being the fool I am for you, I even said that would be okay, as long as you stayed with me. Just, please, not to leave. You took that as me being afraid of losing a meal ticket. You never even began to think that it was because I loved you so much that I couldn't even conceive what it would be like to lose you, even when you made me so mad that I wished you would go.
And then you said you were leaving, if I didn't fulfill your wishlist in a week. I did everything. I found a job, even though I'd been jobless for two years at your own request, so I could always be available to chauffeur you around whenever and wherever you wanted. I found a house for us. I found homes for all our animals, for when we moved. All of it, seventy-five miles away from here. Within a week. And when I returned from filling your demands, I was told that even that wasn't good enough, that you were leaving anyway. And when you left, you promised me that you would pay the gas, electric, and water bills the next week, with your paycheck. That you would bring them all up to date, and that you would give me a little money to live on. And then you left.
You didn't tell me that you'd left all the bills, every last one of them, fall three months behind. During the week after you left, the cutoff notices for them all showed up. And you never gave me anything after that, despite the fact that you'd left me with only thirty-five dollars that was in the change jar. Had my sister not stepped in to bail me out of the hole you left me in, divorce papers might not have been necessary.
I'm glad I didn't leave school, like you asked me to in that wishlist.
Not only am I still there, I'm still maintaining a 97%. I'm learning far more than I'd dreamed when I first started, though I'm not learning it in precisely the order I'd expected. And though you think it's stupid of me to continue to say so, yes, the reason that I went to school was wholly because of you. Not because I wanted to. Because it would help me to build our castle, so that you could live your dream.
The reason I went was for you.
The reason I stayed was for me.
You want me to thank you for all you've done for me.
After all you've 'done for me,' you have the gall to think that this is your right, to be thanked for doing your job as a wife, for being supportive of me while I worked toward a position from which I could be supportive of you. You want me to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to spend my entire life at your beck and call. You want me to thank you for allowing me to do my very best to find a way to cheer you up when you got mopey, whether it was finding a new game system to play, a new site to play in, singing a song, doing the dishes, cooking for you every day, or doing some stupid dance with the puppies. You want me to thank you for having the privilege of having my heart toyed with for years on end, while you kept me as a backup plan for the event that your relationship might not pan out. You want me to thank you for deigning to give you the chance to get married, even though you say now that you weren’t sure you wanted to.
Everything I ever was, everything I ever loved, I gave to you. Everything I ever did, I did for you. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe it wasn’t good enough. But it was me, mind, body, and spirit. Everything I did, I did for you. And you took it, and you destroyed it.
You destroyed my friendships here, because they were always friends of yours. You were always enough for me.
You destroyed my friendships with old friends, by destroying my trust in them, by flirting with them online, or by sleeping with them in real life.
Those old friendships you couldn’t destroy, you tried. Despite your best efforts, Jason and Jess and I still talk as much as we’re able.
You tried to destroy my future, by trying to get me to drop out of school.
You left me jobless, penniless, and a thousand dollars in debt, despite your promises.
You tried to leave the bank account overdrawn, too, despite having told me you’d closed it. If I hadn’t taken care of it, it’d probably still be racking up overdraft charges thanks to your taking two dollars out of it that wasn’t there after you’d supposedly closed it out.
And, astoundingly enough, all that is wholly secondary to the fact that you told me you loved me, you told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, you told me that I was the only man for you, and you told me that you were happy with me… and that each and every word of it all was a lie. You never loved me, because if you did, you’d have been patient. Less than a year. That’s how long I had left in school when you left. Less than a year until the world opened up into a bright, fresh, new place full of every opportunity we could possibly have dreamed of. We could go anywhere in the world that you wanted to go. Anything you wanted, there it would be on a silver platter.
But now…
It’s my world to go visit. And almost anything I want, it will be there. Maybe not on a silver platter, but I know now that it will be there, no matter what route I take. Even my least lucrative offers so far have been enough to show me that. There’s really only one thing that I can’t say for sure will be there, that I wanted more than anything, and that’s for someone who loves me, and that I love in return, to be there with me for it all. I had thought that would be you, and that I’d be helping you to follow your dreams, since you’d helped me to achieve mine.
Maybe I should have dreamed of more than your love.
You want me to thank you, Ursula. But there won’t be a thank you. I can’t thank you for the good things you did, because you brought as much heartache into my life as you did good things. I can’t thank you without at the same time condemning your for your selfishness and childishness in how you treated me. You brought me worlds of happiness I hadn’t previously even dreamed existed, but you also brought me worlds of pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone, ever, and the two go hand in hand with one another every step of the way. For all the happiness our marriage brought me, realizing that it was all a childish lie brought equal sadness. Even completely discounting my reasons for needing your support, and the fact that supporting one another is an integral part of marriage, for every bit of support you gave me, you did your best to offer equal destruction.
To thank you for the good things, I would have to spit upon you for mocking those very same things.
And I won’t ever do that. I haven’t broken that promise to love you, as I always did, even though with that love now also comes a sadness that is nearly equal.
When you left, my castle was nearly destroyed, but it did not fall completely. And while you’ve been gone, I’ve rebuilt it, stronger than ever. And when your sandcastle with Josh or whatever his name is crumbles, that’s okay. Let’s hope he’ll be able to rebuild also. Because I don’t see you building anything but sandcastles until you’ve grown up, and that’s going to take a very, very long time. In some ways, that’s what makes you the most wonderful, beautiful, amazing woman on the planet. In some ways, that’s also what makes you the most terrible demon ever to tear the heart from the chest of a man.
I love you, but I will never thank you for destroying everything that was ever important to me. And if, by some miracle, you ever realize what you did, and that you did actually love me, my castle is rebuilt now. The towers are rising to the sky, one stone at a time, and the pennants are ready to be flown in the wind. But it’s no longer our castle, and even if you decide that everything you ever said to me was not the lie it appears to have been, it will be a long wait before the gates open for you ever again.
You could never have been more wrong than when you told me that nothing in this house is irreplaceable. EVERYTHING in this house is irreplaceable. I would not give up a moment of the memories that my time with you, and in this house, have given me. They have shaped me. They have made me who I am today.
They have not killed me, they have made me stronger.
Strong enough to remember you and not cry anymore.