You Marched Out of Time

Dear ______,

I write to you sitting on the balcony of my new house, facing the ocean. This cliff is just like the pictures in the brochure.
The white foam is closest, where the waves break on the rocks. Then, as it progresses away from me, the blue gets darker and darker until it stops and meets the sky. Sometimes the line there is on fire with a red sunset.

Yesterday, I talked to a man who has lived here for his whole life. He owns the flower shop downtown.
He told me that all he sees anymore is gray and that the sound of the ocean is an annoying static that "buzzes in your ears like mosquitoes down on the coast of Florida".
He also told me his lungs have a thick lining of salt from breathing all the mist from the sea.
(Maybe that's what makes his words so harsh.)
After a while of melancholy conversation, I decided to purchase a nice bouquet of wildflowers to see if some business would cheer him up.
It didn't.
He's an awfully somber man for someone who owns a flower shop.

In fact, a lot of people here seem awfully somber.

I thought Maine would be filled with happy, rosy-cheeked fishermen and their lighthouse-keeper wives.
Sure, it has the fishermen, but they're all salty dogs with briny beards and cold eyes.
I thought this place would be filled with happy distractions.
I need distractions.

I can't keep pretending I don't miss you.
I know I said we could both go our separate ways and I'd write you a letter at least once a month. I've been doing that. But somehow every single cursive letter progressively leads me into darker places. I feel like one of the ships anchors is tied about my waist.

Do you know why I moved here?

Because I had to get as far away from you as possible. I smiled and shook your hand that last day of moving out. We awkwardly waved goodbye.
I went straight to a friend and started to search for a place to live.
Crossing off states that we went to together, and then narrowing it by how far away and how expensive it would be to live there.
Then I found it.
Maine, I said.
I convinced myself it would be good to get away.

But every mile marker in that moving van seemed to hit me straight in the chest. I had trouble breathing and convinced myself it was due to the change in atmospheric pressure as I moved up the coast.
For a minute, I believed myself.
But I thought about you again, and started to feel carsick.

I still feel carsick, sitting on the balcony in one of the most beautiful, most melancholy places I've ever been.
It's all the motion of loving you, and then stopping completely that's made my stomach into a huge knot.
I've lost so much weight, my bones stick out. I hide in oversized Fair Isle sweaters and listen to Beatles records over and over again.

Every day I hope that by some chance you'll show up at my doorstep and I'll open the door and run into your arms and you'll kiss me like you used to.
I can only imagine who you have your arms around now.
Some model from Manhattan or a highly successful businesswoman. You always attracted the successful types. Which is why I always felt out of place at your friends New Years Eve parties and fancy soirees. I would hunch in my designer gown you bought for me and hold my wine glass in an improper, sloppy manner, and smile shyly at all your million-dollar friends.
But then you'd hold my hand, and kiss me on the cheek secretly, and everything would be okay.
And that's all I want now.
That's all I've ever wanted.

I hope this letter isn't too late.

I love you, I always have...

Sincerely,
________