20 October - dear john

How long can you keep a Dear John letter in your handbag? Lovingly ‘typeset’ on special vellum paper and signed with the best Pilot ink pen? Yes, a MontBlanc would be more suitable, that shiny patent leather look and the white bonnet, but years of becoming me have taught me that such a pen would be lost within days and that’s unnecessary pain in my view. So far am on day four. My resolve wavers, and also the John in question has not been within my reach – that’s part of the problem – we are not ‘together’ and I don’t want to post it. I want to slip it into his jacket pocket either at the beginning of an evening or so that he finds it the next morning as he saunters off. Very difficult to predict in which state of mind he will be when he reads it.
I once was having a gay old time in LA visiting a friend. I was out of work and with a decent redundancy cheque so technically receptive to her luring suggestions ‘Why don’t you stay here longer? you could do this, that, drive to Acapulco etc’ And I’d replied ‘No, no, what about W?’ The boyfriend at that time who was sending sweet emails containing various versions of ‘Miss you’.
So I landed back and as I was about to launch into an afternoon of let’s get reacquainted with each other type action, but instead I got the speech. Which left me speechless for a few seconds – I had definitely not seen it coming, though strangely had not purchased any over the top presents for him but just some standard ‘have been away’ item – only to blurt out ‘Why didn’t you tell me on the phone, I could have stayed in Santa Monica FOREVER!!!’ and I could tell he was about to reply ‘But that’s not how it’s done, you can’t do it by text or email, it’s cruel, everybody says so’. Which it is, usually. Very bad form indeed, but right then, staring ahead at no job/no man, frankly, a few more weeks of deli/latte/veggie/spiritual eating would have been much better. It was also the beginning of Autumn which in California would have just been SUMMER! The beaches were teaming with surfers. Naturally I can say it was the shock that made me be so superficial, I did get upset afterwards. Then got angry and got all the way through that annoyingly reasonable 'sarah' circle. (er sadness, anger, rage, accpetnance, hope - think, could be wrong, could be sod off, arsehole, rent a cottage, abseil, heal? So yes, I should not worry about how one will receive a Dear John letter. For all I know he may carry a Dear Jane in his pocket as we speak. We could play double bluffing agents of love perhaps?