Dear Sam

You never understood me. I hope that's not a terrible thing to say. But you always doubted me, second-guessed my devotion.

I tried Sam, I tried. How much convincing does a person really need? I can only hope you feel less completely at odds with the world now. By now, you must know that to really change things, you have to be able to put your hands on them.

Of course I remember the night we met. How could I forget? I could not say now that I had ever lived my life fully as a young woman if we had never crossed paths. Can you count all the days and nights, the drinks and dinners, the beds we slept in?

Lately I pick one when I'm alone, just one particular recollection, and I go back there, try to pick up on the details again. Who else was in the house, what did it smell like, was it autumn? I walk in those places sometimes and let them remind me of who I was once, who I always wanted to be.

I keep expecting I'll hear a knock on the door one day and come to find you standing on the stoop, looking just the way you did 20 years ago. I would reach out for you if I could reach out and touch my own young face again too. I do, when I think of you, Sam, I reach out and touch my own young face again, even without you here.

Of course I remember. I still walk the face of the earth in part because of remembering. I have these bottomless pockets inside me. I reach into them from time to time and let myself live again. I am still here, Sam, thinking of you. Don't let go of a single one of those old moments--to you those old visions might be tamer now, but to me, they're still wild, will never be forgettable. In the end, holding on to them will be all we've got left.