Dear Alex, your letters to me...

20th July 2013

Dear Alex,

Sun sets after a long day bathing in the sea with the kids. Their smiles radiate more vividly than the sun.

They are tucked up in bed and I sit on the beach with a wonderful friend. Just her and me. I have a bag, full of all your letters from the years we have been together. We talk, watch the sunset and the waves crash. One of your letters talks of the beach at Whitby, you are life guarding and sat in 'gale force winds' you write, in Summertime. At this point, out of nowhere winds break open in their force on the beach. I too, find myself sitting on a beach in the middle of summer with forceful winds...

The bag with all your letters has a few photos in. Huge blue eyes, long dark ringlets, mouth open wide smiling in our first months together...you. 

My Alex.

My you...

I have wanted this, I have been so afraid of this, that somehow reading the letters means I am admitting the truth, you are no longer who you were once. That somehow in reading them would open a sore that will never heal. That in reading them it would finalise the 'never again'...

But now in bed and writing this, it did not. I am ok.

I expected to cry, expected it would mean I would never be able to face our life as it is now, again...that it would fill me with a despair of the finality of what has happened...

But I smile, it brought back so many memories. Beautiful and raw. Memories of what you used to call me, of places we lived of dreams we had, that you had...

And I don't really understand why I didn't cry.

And I still await the tears, the raw emotion and the tears...but none of it came.

I wanted it too, it is a place we always used to go, the beach you surfed a million times. The beach we trailed litres of water, tents to shade babies, picnics, the dog, swimming costumes, towels, sun cream in gallons...I was safe, too, to 'feel' what we have lost...

But I think I still can't.

Maybe it's that?

That I have spent nearly 2 years living what we live, nearly 2 years blocking off an 'out of limits' area with an iron door firmly shut on top of the fact that you as you once were has truly gone.

I don't think I will ever be brave enough to face that.

Ever.

They are read, the letters, for the first time in nearly 2 years. It's done. I did something I was truly afraid of doing, and strangely I feel ok. Despite not being able to make sense as to why...

I miss you honey,

I will be back in a few days, then it will be but weeks until we move...

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx