Dear Tempt,

I think of you endlessly.

First in careless, sideway thoughts of old lanes that we once walked on (without ever knowing that we will think of it since) and rivers we took sideways photos in. In monkey paths and earthen pots, small notes and drunk detail.

And then again, in more frequent, pointed measure : did you like your coffee with sugar? did you wear braces growing up? what did you look like when you were a child? where do you want to be when you were all "growned up"? (what do your parents do?) : small, unnecessary questions that I should know answers to, had I known you the way I know other people - with time and casual distance. But you and I have only had our abrupt chats about nothing in particular and punctuated with little awkward silences that you call "good weird".

But no, you barged (and re-barged) into my life with your silk words and unreachable charm (how do you do it?) : first shy and distant and then flirtatious in ways I can only now see (in keen retrospect). And I have been basking in that shine of all things precious : of new love and old feels that emerge urgently, even if gently. I have tied myself to my phone, re-read your SMSs in the corner of crowded, nostalgic reunions and slept with my arms reaching for notes that you sent me by hand.

Yet, now that we have stepped back and I have had the luxury to think - I realize that I have not had a second to think it might be more you than me that has caused this crazy haze we find ourselves in. Perhaps you are just this glorious larger than life way, and I am who you are sharing it with now. Perhaps this is not because I am the One (or even that there is a One) or this is It (if there is such an It) but because you are all the glorious things you are and I happen to have walked into that happy maze of sweet confusion.

But what if I am wrong? What if this is not you and this is Us and this could be the most wondrous thing ever if I let it be? What if this is everything you say it is - right and perfect and the sort of thing that leads to yellow kitchens and copper pots - and I am just, out of character, in not falling for this piece of delicious romance?

I have only one explanation. For once, I cannot. I am content and happy in a working relationship that holds and heals and I cannot let it go. Not because it is working anymore and I think that has any more potential than you. But because if I let it go, I would have let go the part of me that is working.

And with named children and this newly emerging sense of a stable self, I need to hold tight that part.

But I think of you. Endlessly.

x