Dear Brendan,
I don’t know how else to put it. I love you but sometimes I wonder if you love me. I know the idea of me questioning your love and our relationship bothers you, bothers you a lot, but it’s not like I can see all the tells from here. For all I know you’re playing at love while I’m gone because you only see me when I’m physically there. You don’t really do any of the things that long distance couples do, with the matching phone chains and the pictures as wallpapers but having met you I know how gesturally expressive you are. So for you to not make those gestures, I just… feel insecure.
Do you love me? I mean… I know when I’m there that you do. Your pupils dilate when you look at me and you’re affectionate and you love to spoon and cuddle so I have all the tells I need and then I don’t need the reassurance. But when we’re apart it’s like you become totally indifferent. It’s vain and selfish of me but I want to be important enough to be on your phone screen. I want to mean enough for you to drop little messages for me, snaps of how your day’s going or a story that reminds you of me. Or memes. I want to plan a future for us. I want to know that there’s room for me in your future.
But that’s selfish of me.
I love you, Brendan, so, so much. More than you could imagine. You’re my favorite person in the world. You’re the first person to make me feel safe, the first person to make me feel like the stakes aren’t life and death, the first person to make me feel so loved. I feel so loved when I’m with you. I just… wish I could feel that loved when I’m not.
Please, just… talk to me. Talk to me when things are hard, when they’re upsetting. Talk to me when things are good, when something small but nice happens and your day was made a little easier. I feel like I’m drowning in your silence because you never tell me anything. I’m begging you; talk to me. Please. I promise I’ll listen. If you don’t want dissections or unsolicited advice tell me. If you just want me to be a void to scream into tell me. If you want me to go away tell me.
I love you, Brendan. You mean the world to me. I just… wish you expressed your love for me in ways that are easier to see from a distance. You’re an incredible guy, Brendan, but you’re so quiet and withdrawn in a way that my anxiety doesn’t play nice with that I need that reassurance, but you don’t have the noonchi to really understand how or why. But I love you anyway. With all my heart.
All the love in the world,
Rosie
Pluck the Rose Gently 