Dear,

When I was falling in love with you, I wrote a number of diary entries that were formulated as letters to you - letters I knew I couldn't send at the time. Let me share one with you from September 28, 2008.

"People have said that I'm a writer, that I have a way with words. This may be the case.But words are cheap. Even the greatest words written by the greatest men are cheap, simple, and manipulative. They are grunts we created ages ago in order to avoid the chaos of existence - at their best they convey technical information accurately and at their worst they abstract, compartmentalize, and dilute our very being. I find that they almost always fall short of what I need them to do, and as a result I am starting to abandon them whereas I once embraced them to a fault.

There are things we say with our eyes, and with our bodies, that I hope words never touch."

This sentiment remains, and it does so to an extent that has made composing a letter to you nearly impossible. Every word seems too heavy. Whereas I could once toss around poetic phrases like so much ticker-tape, I now find that such phrases would be like pins through butterflies. I don't want to write you poetry. It is too full of lies; it too easily becomes a love letter to language instead of the object of love. So what follows is not poetry, but the truth.

What I feel with you is new, yet familiar. What we have is mature, responsible, rational, and yet young, giddy, childish. We have, at almost five months together, more questions than answers. I am hopeful, but grounded - optimistic, but practical - excited, but cautious - and so on. I am in this thing for the long haul, but I don't know how long the haul will be. Yet, although I am positively crazy about you, it is in a way I don't particularly care to examine.

Everything I pick apart in my life is something I hate, from the evil workings of television commercials to the frustrations of the medical insurance business to the obvious conspiracy Tuesdays have against me. All of the systems and issues and traumas that affect me are where my questions go, where I direct all of my whys. The things that are good require no questions, no critical inquiries. From a delicious meal to staring at a tree in the wind to laughing at little dogs, I do not ask why I enjoy these things. I just enjoy them, and that is enough.

Of course, things with you are likely to not always be perfect, and at those times I will ask questions so that we can find solutions. But in the meantime, I don't ask myself a lot about you or my feelings for you.

But when it comes to liking you, or being with you, you like to always ask me your favorite question: "Why?"

The best answer, the truest answer, is also going to be the most frustrating:

Because.