Lucky

Dearest Blair,

"How lucky I am to have you as a friend." This is my first thought. It reminds me of when there was no one anywhere, anyhow, imaginably similar to you in my life. Now you're but a phone call or a short drive away. Practically at my disposal, even. Before all this, if I had tried to imagine having all this, all of you, within reach, I would have doubted it probably, highly unlikely, maybe just some of what is offered me now. I feel I could get really carried away and mishandle the opportunity and freedom I have with you. But I know I've hardly tested how much I might be able to get away with. I have the "go-ahead" from my peers and from those I look up to as in your parents. Herein lies the tension. What am I going to do with you. What am I doing? What are you feeling. What are you like, that is, how are you communicating, and, especially, why have I been so cautious, so slow to seduce you into friendship, if I even could.

I'm writing to unearth any subconscious answer to the timidity in our relationship. I plan to read this to you and am sure this is all drivel to you. I'm intellectualizing because I lack feeling in the face of danger. The danger is that I could lose what I have so far with you. Also, danger lies in finding out I'm playing a very different game than you. That is, it's dangerous if one person's plan and goal and premise is misunderstood. Either of ours. It's not good if one person has to keep going out of their way. That one person finds the relationship painful, but out of politeness and uncertainty is curious enough to not shut it down before a heap of their time feels wasted.

How lucky am I to know you. It is obvious you don't need me. You are digging deeper in your mine of hospitality so as not to disappoint me. Maybe you think I'll be mad at you if you show disinterest. Or maybe you don't know what you think of me. I hope you remember you don't have to think anything at all. I am careful in this way: if I wish, to love you without possessing you. That I can enrich your life from a distance by being creative and using your openness to me as a function, as an invitation to love you all I want. This will make my heart scream with delight if I feel you are opened to my love.

If I make you listen to this, I'll be sure to tell you not to beg a response from yourself, but to politely listen, if you will, and hopefully this drivel will pass and the feelings will return.

How lucky am I. I hardly even know you. I am testing a limit right now. I am unloading on you. I am wearing down on you, maybe even upsetting and confusing you. I am confessing to you, whining to you, maybe even polluting you. I hope to be opening your eyes to something about us. And even when I say "us", I worry I'm blowing things up, like we're married or something.

Blair, why'd you bring me into your world? You did. You did. Was it just to have fun. Or was there a need? Or just a need to have fun? I hope to provide you with something you need. And if it's fun you need, I'm not being a good provider. So maybe I can lighten up.

But this letter, all its unanswerable questions and lofty ideas and neurotic statements of grandeur and persecution and infliction, needed to be written. I still don't know whether to read it to you. Or just to keep it in my collective conscious the next time I see you, the boldness contained herein.

I hope someday we will be friends. You are a special boy; especially magical and whole. There are, I assume, very particular, precise, personalized points of experience on your path. Nothing in your life will be wishy washy, general, vague. A multitude of well-directed experiences. I will not be offended if you have to push on without me, knowing proudly I had once walked along your narrow path.