Dearest Mary Angel

I quit my weekend job this morning. I simply blew up and began shouting at my boss. She does little but harangue and belittle me the whole four or five hours I'm there each Saturday, but this morning something snapped. I said some pretty ugly things, only once attacking her personally. One moment I'm just trying to do what she's told me to do, mumbling under my breath (those were personal) and the next moment I'm shouting...

Interlude: When it gets to the point where you begin to mumble under your breath about your job or employer it's time to quit. There's simply no point in working for a person you have no respect for.

...I could feel my heart racing, and it worried me. I never shout. At anyone. She just pushed too many buttons over the last four years.

I did say one thing that wasn't particularly nice, despite it being absolutely true; I shouted "You treat your mother and father like shit! They may let you get away with it, but you're not going to talk to me like that!" And she never will again. The one thing I do regret saying was how I had to put up with the same crap "day in and day out at home" and I wasn't going to put up with it there. I hate that I aired my personal troubles in front of her. I hate the circumstances of my own home life, but I'm powerless to change it at present. Financially powerless.

I'll admit to you what I don't talk very openly about to anyone else. I am living with a woman, but not how you might think. She has her room, I have mine, and there's no hanky-panky between us. I've asked this woman to marry me more times than I could count on a dozen sets of hands and feet. I've known her for 21 years, and have wanted to marry her for almost as long-- I'd marry her tomorrow morning if she'd say yes. But she won't.

She was emotionally brutalized by her father from eight years old (when her mother died of cancer) to the moment she ended up on my doorstep asking to sleep on the couch. I could have said no, and that might have been the end of it. But I couldn't stand the thought of her sleeping in her car or in a cardboard box somewhere. So she slept the night on the couch and she's been there ever since, metaphorically speaking. It's not simply that she won't marry me, she won't marry anyone.

I stayed with her the first ten years because I wanted to prove to her that not all men were like her father, that some men had honor and could treat her with respect. However, no matter the amount of respect or honor I gave her, she continually pushed me away.

The next decade was spent with her simply because we got used to living together-- our finances were married if we ourselves were not. With the economy what it now is, saving money to get moved out is proving difficult if not impossible. I know I said I'd married her tomorrow if... but actually... I know she'll never love me the way I need to be loved. She will never respect me enough to not trample all over my feelings 'day in and day out....'


So I clocked out and left the little flower shop I had worked at for over four years.

I was on the verge of tears. I got to the house, stripped, laid down on the bed and began to cry... and I prayed. When I felt better (a little better at least) I got up and sketched. I deliberately shut off all music (I didn't want any songs imprinted in my mind or upon that moment) and refrained from every impulse directing me to write. I swiped twenty dollars from our mutual piggy bank and fled. Two hours later and fourteen dollars lighter I'm back. A little lighter in spirit, but not by too much.

Forty extra dollars a week is not much to lose. I can live without a forty dollar paycheck every Monday morning.

I hate that she pushed me to that point. I hate that I wasn't strong enough to withstand the abuse, yet again, for another week. I truly regret accusing her for the way she treats her parents. I know part of me wanted to hurt her.

Why, you ask? Because she prides herself on the education she got at a bible college. She doesn't honor her father and mother. She drinks, drugs, parties, gets piercings and tattoos. I know I shouldn't judge her for that; look what I've done. But for all she spent four years at a bible college, I have more of an education in God's word than her having never even graduated from college, bible or otherwise. On top of this, she voted for Obama (no, that had nothing to do with my blowing up this morning. Promise).

If truth be told, I am a little worried for her. You know, there is such a thing as false conversion. She may think she's saved, but our Lord said many will say on that day, "Lord, Lord..." and He will tell them "Depart from me... I never knew you." I don't understand how so many people are deceived. I am by no means perfect. I have many things I need to deal with-- and I'm trying very hard --but why is it I can see the truth while so few others seem capable of the same?

I know you are Catholic (though, unless memory fails me, you were not always so), but I find much to fault in Roman Catholicism. I also find much to admire-- I spent two years in a Catholic school. I'm just thankful you haven't joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm not as dogmatic as you might think, having gotten to this portion of my letter, but God has given His son every person who will ever believe. They hear His voice and they follow Him. Even out of religions with which I, in my own faults and judgmentalism, find fault. There won't be any Baptists in heaven. No Pentecostals, or Lutherans, or Catholics or Episcopalians.... only blood bought believers in Christ, and they will have been drawn out of every religion and faith in the world. Who am I do judge or question God? Better to praise and thank Him, and ask that He change my heart.

God loves all His children (even my ex-boss). And what He has in store for you and I and all those who believe and trust in Him is beyond human imagination or comprehension. I love you Mary Angel... as a memory, as a person, as my sister in Christ. I love your husband and children, though I will likely never meet them this side of eternity.

And I've strayed into territory I had no intention of straying. I didn't want to write today, but I needed to. The Lord knows I needed to. And I thank God for you, especially since besides HIM I have no one else but you. I spent time with Him, but I still needed a good cry, so I hope you don't mind that I turned to you.

I pray that God sends me a woman like the you I remember, and the you you've become... a Godly woman, whose heart and mind are on the things of God. Who is generous, kind, and both understanding and forgiving. Your husband is truly a blessed man. Though I do not know the you you've become, in my heart and mind you epitomize Proverbs 31:10-31. If the Lord would only bless me with such a woman I could address all my letters to her, and rejoice in Him for the treasure He would have given me, just as I know you are a treasure to your husband.

Apologies to you dearest Mary Angel. I've meant to offense to you.

God be with you, and God be praised.


With love,

Eric

Dearest Mary Angel

I was stumbling across the internet this morning and came across a wonderfully insightful quote by C.S. Lewis, which speaks to recent developments and fears in my own present life.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

I hate the thought of being vulnerable, yet greatly desire opportunities to be vulnerable. And this is what I'm trying to do even now.

Lunch yesterday was wonderful. For Her it was a working lunch; She fielded texts and a couple calls while we enjoyed each others company for the first time in almost six weeks. I confided to Her how much I enjoyed the time we spent together, telling of my conversation with the other Eric to whom I said I would rather a relationship with Her that promised nothing more than friendship to the situation I current find myself in. I told Her that in Her company I had freedom to be myself, and speak my mind and heart. With the other I must hide who I am, and zealously guard the gates of my heart from her; she doesn't respect my heart. Over the years I've come to realize I can trust her with a great many things, but not my heart. I hate that I've allowed my life to get to this point but I am thankful I have matured enough to both see where I am, and find strength enough to do something about it.

Lunch with Her is a very public statement for me. It says I am doing something about who and where I am. Again, should nothing further ever develop between us, I am happy to have a friend with whom I can enjoy spending time.

'To love is to be vulnerable,' says Lewis. I knew this all along, but its never rang clearer than this morning.

I told Her again she was beautiful. Now, I can see the imperfections; I can see that Her beauty is not flawless in a physical sense. But since when did physical perfection ever trump the perfection of inner beauty and character? At the end of the day, better to have in your arms someone who transcends physical beauty, because in the end physical beauty is but a memory; an unlovely husk of skin and bone and spotty recollections. All that is unimportant in the face of encroaching eternity. What is important is knowing who you are in God first, and then in the eyes of those with whom you shared your love and life.

Will She be the one? who knows? At present I wouldn't object. But I also don't presume She has any intentions Herself beyond friendship with me. And there's another fear to consider here: Is She an object of contrast? A rebounding affection? Time and tide will tell. For now I'm simply relishing in the "entanglements and little luxuries" of being helplessly infatuated with a very beautiful woman.



I know my letters to you are selfish; I speak only of myself. But please understand. You are a ghost; an ephemeral memory, bittersweet and all the more alluring because of it. I would that I knew who you are today, but that is not why I write you these letters, sweet Mary Angel. They are cathartic; a salve to smooth the pain and scars of years misspent and unchallenged.

It pleases me greatly to know you are where you are, wherever you are. I am pleased for the life you have, despite its losses, and I am pleased that you married your best friend. Shouldn't it always be so?

When I began writing you thirteen years ago, I never thought you'd ever read them, so I was entirely without inhibition in my writing. When I mulled over posting these online, again, it never occurred to me that you would ever read them, but I was naive to think that in this day of accessibility and Google you wouldn't one day stumble upon them-- let alone say hello. So I am left with a dilemma.

I am not ready to give up the young woman I began writing to more than a decade ago, neither would I dishonor you or your husband in anything I write or have written, by using these letters for anything more than for what I've used them since the very beginning.

In heaven, there will be no need for apology, for there will never enter our thoughts anything that would not honor God. We will love each other perfectly, without jealously, shame, or any other petty human emotion. We will be like Him. We will enjoy his perfect love and presence, and we will enjoy each other-- not just you and I, but your husband, your children, my own wife (should God so bless me), and all the redeemed of heaven. Imagine that, everyone in perfect love with God and each other. I will have literally millions of best friends in heaven. The reality of it is too much for my simple mind to comprehend. I still think and feel like the fallen man I am.

I realize now I can't just post any letter I've written you in the past, even though those letters were not written to you, but to the ghost of you... the nineteen year old you. These memories of you are my own, and I cannot apologize for them. But I can and must temper them, and choose to be more circumspect in my posting. And to this I hereby promise.

Thank you for listening. And hopefully, for understanding.

May God richly bless you and yours,

All my love,


E