By Dylan Smith
Read by Ana Ratner
June 22
Hi — I want to write down these things that feel like the harder things before we see each other in person. They are things I want to be transparent about before anything more happens between us, things I know to be true for myself but that might affect you if we continue down this road together. I think writing them down will help me understand them and clarify them and even though they are somewhat future-oriented they feel like a future I feel really sure about. I’ll write them out as a list even though they are a little looser than that and tie into each other more than a list format would make it seem.
1. The biggest one of the moment is where I am around heartbreak. I have been seeing heartbreak as this kind of cyclical circle shape and I worry maybe we are on opposite sides of it. One of the most confusing things about Chris being gone is that his hands once felt like extensions of my hands and I don’t understand where they will go now that we’ve broken up. I feel like I am still untangling our bodies. Rationally I understand the absence of his presence but my heart is still craving time to untangle my body from his so that I can rebuild. New love for me would have to be like faint music. But I still want you to experience all you are experiencing from your side and am writing this just so you know that any hesitancy or space coming from my side is most likely a reflection of where I am in the circle shape and not a difference in care.
2. Future Thing #1: Something that started coming up for me with Chris was realizing an excitement I have around exploring non-traditional relationship dynamics. Something I do know about the future is that when I feel untangled from Chris and have found some of those parts of myself I lost I will want to put romantic dating energy toward exploring these different relationship structures and communities. This is in part why things didn’t work between me and Chris. I think non-monogamy really freaked him out and threatened him and made him crazy controlling and jealous which is probably why he cheated on me and now I just feel like I have a lot of healing and exploring to do in this area of my life and have really no interest in falling into another monogamous relationship for the time being.
3. Future Thing #2: This thing is in the intense future and probably doesn’t need to be discussed or thought about too much, which is that after understanding what I want to incorporate from Future Thing #1 I want to experience the stability and excitement that comes from having a more traditional relationship and family. I am talking about kids. I do feel like because God hates women my timeline for figuring this out is short, which is why it feels worth mentioning. Like if I were 27 instead of 33 this would not be in this letter.
That’s all! You now have all the information that I have. I just wanted to set everything out on the table for both of us because I have no interest in having a hint of sneakiness or dishonesty between us now or ever.
Alma
Dylan Smith works at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and lives in a shared house with nine people and a Steinway piano the size of a boat.