Love is an imprecise word. We use it all the time to different degrees and so, it has been said, the word is useless.
Some would say that the vague nature of the word Love is what makes it so useful.
“Oh, I love you,” said a certain way can be easy for one person to say because he means it in a minor way, like loving a broken-in baseball glove, but she may hear that he’s devoting his whole life to her. He loves the glove, but he’d trade it in for a new X-Box signed by Derek Jeter.
To me, love for a person means that you would rather be spending time with that person, or trading messages with that person, or learning about that person, than spending time alone or with another person whom you do not love.
For me, love seems to be forever.
I still love your mother. I know I would enjoy spending weeks on end with her, day and night, hearing about everything that’s gone on in the last years. I still want her to be happy and I still care about what she thinks about me.
Love is not letting yourself be controlled by another person.
But, doing what another person wants you to do is not being controlled.
Thinking v Feeling: Do whatever people want you to do as long as it’s the right thing to do.
You have to decide what the right things to do are.
If you love someone, that doesn’t mean you like everything they say and do. It doesn’t mean you should have to like everything they say and do. It doesn’t mean you’re pledging your allegiance to them, like they’re your lord or king.
Your mom and I dated in high school.
Then I was an asshole.
Your mother told me to take a hike.
She cut her hair off and became somewhat boyish in our senior year (I’m writing this to tease her).
She married a guy after high school.
Her mother died.
I heard her mother died from a friend, my best friend, who told me like two months after it happened. I have frequently questioned that guy’s friendship. I’ve since decided he did things like that because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings or upset me — I sincerely think he does these things because he thinks he’s helping me — still pisses me off though. 🙂
I was so sad. I thought I knew how she felt and I was sad that I couldn’t help her through it.
I didn’t really have a girlfriend between the time your mother rightfully told me to get lost in 1985 and the time she moved in with me in 1992.
I almost had a girlfriend once, but I avoided it by letting her know that I was in love with someone I couldn’t be with. Unfortunately for her feelings, I had previously said that I wasn’t “steady boyfriend material” and she put two and two together and decided that she wasn’t steady girlfriend material in my eyes. It hurt her feelings, but I wish it wouldn’t have, it shouldn’t have, no one was going to be your mother but your little, red-headed mother.
I was so unhappy in college. I was miserable all the time. I was depressed. The winter seemed extra dark…
One night my phone rang, really late, and it was that woman who became your mother. I called her back. My phone bill was like $300 that month. (OH, LONG DISTANCE USED TO COST MONEY… getting like $0.19/min was a good deal.)
That was 1989, I think.
I would blame her for me putting my life on hold but the structure of this sentence should show you how stupid that would be. I decided to wait.
And, to blame her for me waiting would be to blame her for you two beautiful babies.
I never would have decided to have children. I didn’t like life enough, or feel secure enough, to take responsibility for new little lives. Plus, I was sure that marriages always end and everyone is always unhappy.
It’s sad, but life is always a life sentence, in my eyes. I hope you feel differently.
The love I feel for you two is unlike anything else. I can’t describe it.
Not being able to see you, to hear nothing about you, to be completely shut out of your lives is the most painful thing I’ve ever had to live through and I have lived through some pretty painful things.
I pray for your mother’s soul that she insisted on this last protective order because she truly believes this is better for you. If she’s done this just to hurt me, it’s just…
Whatever.
It concerns me that she doesn’t allow you to see my mother’s family. I was told that your mother wouldn’t let you two stay at my grandparents’ house without her there because she was afraid that you, Baby J, would be too nervous. I think it was Christmas. Maybe you two were invited over to open presents with the other great-grandchildren. I don’t remember the whole story. It made me shiver and gag a little… maybe throw-up a little into my mouth.
Baby J, that sounds like your mother describing herself.
I love the woman, but listening to her talking about anything she thinks is psychology makes me just want to puke. It’s hurtful to watch her psychoanalyze (with emphasis on the ANAL part) when she doesn’t really know me. She loved me, but she didn’t know me. The very few parts of myself that I actually liked, she hated.
It’s sad when someone you love doesn’t actually value you. It’s doubly sad when you don’t value yourself. Suddenly, you’re valueless again… and you might freak out… like I freaked out.
It’s possible that what you’ve been told about me might not match up with how things really were or are.
Little Man!! You might not remember me at all, but I’m the guy who used to walk your little screaming butt around the house until you got tired and then let you sleep on my chest until your little screaming butt woke us up. You have the loudest voice that I’ve ever heard on a baby. How’s your singing voice?? 🙂
I love you two.
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