Other People's Love Letters_ 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See - Bill Shapiro [3]
“I saw progress in how I dealt with rejection and pain over the years. When I split up with a couple of these men, I was in my closet thinking I could never come out … but here I am. Looking back gave me a sense that I had survived.”
POSTSCRIPT
How did the lovers meet? Did they live happily ever after? Here’s the story behind a few of the letters, as well as an update on how the relationship fared.
Where do you stand on chains?
The writer walked by a shop window and saw her: a beautiful salesclerk. So he stopped in, bought something he didn’t need and, quite intentionally, left his glasses on the counter. When he returned to pick them up, he also got her e-mail address. They flirted for two weeks (exchanging dozens of notes) and dated for four months, during which time he found out exactly where she stood on chains.
(return to the letter)
Peace. Sweat. Everything!
It took her about two hours to create this illustration and, as she remembers it, perhaps a bit longer than that to pick out the perfect color of red lipstick for the pucker. The couple met in college in ′92—she liked his Morrissey shirt—and have been together ever since.
(return to the letter)
I love you, Gary
The couple met on JDate. Her note was written one morning when he had to leave for work and she stayed in his bed. She knew this note would make him smile when he returned that night. She was right, and they’ve been married for more than two years.
(return to the letter)
Thank you, I hate you, I’m sorry
She gave this note to her boyfriend just before moving to New York City—without him. They spent two years apart—“growing up and living life,” she says—but never stopped thinking about each other. Then, on his own, he moved to New York and they began seeing each other again. She says they don’t for a minute regret the decisions they made—to go, to stay—that brought them to where they are now: sharing an apartment.
(return to the letter)
6:35 A.M.—Gone for my walk
Donald and Mildred were married in 1937 with only $17 in the bank. Two years after celebrating their Golden Anniversary, Don underwent open-heart surgery; unfortunately, his aorta ruptured, leaving him in a coma for two months. He awoke with compromised mental and physical abilities, but recovered enough to draw Mildred a love note before his morning walk—which he did every single day until he died, five years later.
(return to the letter)
Hi Lauren
She left her small New England university to spend her junior year at a school about an hour outside of London. Early on, she met a guy, a Brit, and was, she says, “quietly in love with him” the entire year. The night before she returned to the States, they finally kissed. As she was leaving for the plane the next morning, a mutual friend handed her this letter. They e-mailed now and then but after a couple of years fell out of touch. Recently, she was flipping through a stack of old letters, read this note, started wondering … and decided to reach out to him. They e-mailed about five times before he hopped on a plane. She hadn’t seen him in ten years but they had “the most beautiful, romantic weekend. He’s coming again soon.”
(return to the letter)
Subject: money and house stuff
Molly and her husband divorced after eight years of marriage. Both are in relationships now and they remain friends.
(return to the letter)
You sure looked good in those sweats
Chris and Roz were high school sweethearts. But during his freshman year of college, Labor Day weekend of 1984, Chris was killed in a car accident. Roz has saved the note and maintained a close relationship with Chris’s mother for more than twenty years.
(return to the letter)
Dear beautiful
It was another blind date; this time her uncle had set her up. The plan: Meet outside of her fancy Midtown Manhattan office building. How would she recognize him? “I’ll be the guy with the hole in his boot,” he told her. And there he was, covered in dust