18 Mar 1986
Dear Joan,
I've lost track of how many letters I've begun to you and
then abandoned. Not because what I had to say wasn't pressing
but more because my courage has faltered to say so much; to
admit I feel all this. Love calls. Should I pick up the
phone? Everything says yes, but my willingness to risk and
feel so much. It holds me.
I wrote somethings about you after we hung up tonight.
Trying to clear my thinking about how fast my feelings are
moving with you and what I think of you and what I want:
Joan is
quality
sincerity
a beautiful spirit
intellectual
a friend
a lover
honest
compassionate
straightforward
secure
centered
not egotistical
not judgemental
healthy
physical
coordinated
unburdened by her past
flexible with her future
pretty
spiritual
idealistic
open minded
non-materialistic
The list could probably go on but this is enough. I'm in
awe that such a person could care for me. That God should have
shined such grace on me. It makes my eyes water to say such
things and I'm sure it will when I say them in person.
Joan, for all the things I've done there's one I've not.
I've never chosen to give myself wholeheartedly to loving
someone. Rose and I married for conveience and rebellion and
discovered soon after that more was required and spent most of
our lives trying to patch our folly. And Lise and I loved for
passion and sophistication and ultimately we came to respect
each other but it never quickened to commitment. It hung
suspended on doubts and differences and compromises until it
died. No one else has been important. Perhaps Lise is only
important because she is recent and because, by dropping me,
she woke me up from my long compromise dream.
I look at the list on the first page and at my feelings.
I remember your face and your smile. And I wonder what I can
be thinking of. I must be asleep in the midst of God's grace
that you should care for me and I hesitate. That I should
think that anything might be more important. Because, my love,
nothing is. Nothing.
I'm done with watching for reservations. With being
cautious and reasonable about you.
I want you, Joan, and I love you. My feelings have been a
growing storm these last weeks. Some people might say
"infatuation". But I look at the list I wrote and I see you're
everything I want. The love's grown so fast because you are
exactly who and what I want.
That you are here now, looking at me, caring for me is
nothing short of a gift of God. A gift of a lifetime. I can
only hope you share some of my feelings and that I will not
scare you with this letter.
So what, exactly, am I saying? That I love you and I'm
done being cautious about it, of trying to reason out how it
will fit into my life and plans. My life and plans will have
to fit into my love. I don't want to see anyone else but you.
I have no reservations about that or you. So, what else can I
say. That all this is unilateral. These are my feelings, my
love, and my wish to make some commitments with you. If you
feel the same then ... then what could I say? Words couldn't
hold the feelings. But you'll know. And if this is not what
you want then that will have to be OK too. I'd be a fool to
see you in my life as you are now and not say these things.
And I would far rather risk than loose you from caution.
Your dreams are not so far from mine. I've fantascized
all my life about loving someone and working together on things
that were meaningful to both of us. I always thought it was
just a fantasy until I met you. I begin to see things in your
eyes. Of what could be between us. And of what we could do
together. We're free of what ties most people down and we both
feel spiritual and idealistic leanings that can open up lives
of inner and outer richness limited only by our imaginations.
Until I see you Thursday,
Love,
- Letter to Joan, 18 Mar 86
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —