Screw it, I'm writing about you
Medium · Romance, Parenting & Family · 2015 · 996 words
A personal love letter expressing difficulty in writing about a loved one, ultimately embracing imperfection.
Screw it, I'm writing about you
An old love letter.
_Originally posted on_ [_Poached Mag_](http://poachedmag.com/2013/02/14/screw-it-im-writing-about-you/) _in 2013._
I'm at work being unproductive, and I stepped outside for a smoke and I thought, hey, I ought to write you something, because you not-so-sneakily wrote _"Write her a Valentine's Day letter"_ on one of those little sticky notes I have on my desktop.
So here goes.
### I want you to be happy.
I really do. Your happiness means so much to me. If there were a button I could press that said "Make her happy!", I would. But if it were really that easy, everybody would do it, wouldn't they?
My excuse is that nothing's ever going to be good enough. I can write at length about all sorts of silly things on the Internet… but I can't write about you. I'm not good enough to write about you, nothing I've written is good enough.
Well, screw it, I'm writing about you.
### We both know that Valentine's Day is a joke.
It's lame, overly commercialized and commoditized, exploited by corporations to get us spending money we don't have, all for a silly little display that technically means really little. A big, transparent, unromantic charade, a public display in an attempt to gain social points?
Real romance is what happens when nobody's looking, what we do when things get hard… if I do something because you (or somebody else) told me to do it, does that still count?
Well, screw it, I'm writing about you.
Where do I start?
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Perhaps I should start with "I'm sorry."
For all the times I've let you down, disappointed you, frustrated and annoyed you with my incompetence and selfishness. Perhaps I should say thank you for your kindness and love and grace.
### Perhaps I should talk about how beautiful you are.
How your laughter is the most delightful thing I've ever heard, and how in private moments I feel like the luckiest man alive because you let me into this precious space that we've created together. Our own.
### Perhaps I should talk about our beginnings.
How we met when we were prepubescent 10 year-olds, wearing our socks as high as we could. How we spent hours every night on MSN, when you'd repeatedly block and unblock me so that I'd see that you were online, and talk to you. How I gave you that Delta Goodrem CD that I won on the radio.
How it took us months before we even held hands, after we already agreed that we were boyfriend-and-girlfriend. How we shared that beautiful first kiss in the library, which left me dazed and grinning for hours afterwards. How we cuddled on long bus rides, and how we made out in secluded staircases because I'm so much taller than you are.
### Perhaps I should talk about uglier things.
How I lied to you and hung out with my friends when I promised you I'd study, or maybe about how you'd sometimes say hurtful things when I messed up. How you'd eventually find it hard to trust me. How I found it tiresome to be the person you needed. How we had to pretend for a couple of years that we weren't deeply intertwined, just so we could figure out who we were outside of our relationship with one another.
### Perhaps I should talk about persistence.
How, despite all my attempts to forge a connection with other girls after we "separated", you'd always be in the center of my mind, amused, mocking me for even _trying_ to believe that I could ever "get over" you, that I could even think of replacing a sturdy oak by looking through scores of seedlings.
Perhaps I should joke about how, when I heard that you were seeing somebody else, I felt bad for the poor guy, because _man_, he had such a hard act to follow.
I've been saving this little nugget of a phrase for the longest time, hoping that someday I'd be able to wrap it in the most beautiful dressing. Here it is unvarnished:
> **I am the biggest fan of all the art you have not yet created.**
The books and essays and poems that you haven't written. The paintings you haven't painted. The songs you haven't sung. The children you say you never want to have.
If I could trade my writing for yours– if quitting writing meant tha you would write instead, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Because your inner world is so much richer and more beautiful than mine, and the world has no idea.
I'd like to revisit how easy it was for me to call you to ask you to give us a chance again. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, like letting go after holding your breath for what feels like hours. We'd have to rediscover each other, and discover all these new things about each other that are now old things.
I'd like to tell you how, even when we argue or fight, even when I disappoint you or you frustrate me, even when you sulk for hours over something silly I did (or more likely, didn't do), there is nobody else in the world I'd rather go through life with.
In poverty or in wealth, sickness or in health, joy or sadness, _sian-ness_ or ecstasy, on exotic travels or at a void deck, through pain, humiliation, tears and tragedies, screams and thunderstorms, cuddles and sunshine, spaghetti, eggs, burnt toast, clogged drains, stained tiles and beautiful sunsets… I want it all, with you by my side.
You're my first, my greatest, my best, my only, my last, my joy, my always. More than anything else, you're my absolute bestest friend in the whole fucking universe.
You know me better than anybody else, and yet you still stick around. I will spend a lifetime trying to justify that one.
Happy Valentine's Day. I love you.
_(PS: We'll bang, okay?)_
Originally published at https://medium.com/@visakanv/screw-it-im-writing-about-you-46ce6e851e08.