An Amazing Letter

My friend referred me to an amazing site: Letters of Note. "Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience". The most poignant I've seen so far was this one:

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Firefly Hill

Port Maria

Jamaica B.W.I.

Oh, darling,

Your letter filled me with such a lot of emotions, the predominant one being rage that you should allow yourself to be so humiliated and made so unhappy by a situation that really isn't worthy of you. I loathe to think of you apologizing and begging forgiveness and humbling yourself. I don't care if you did behave badly for a brief moment, considering all the devotion and loving you have given out during the last five years, you had a perfect right to. The only mistake was not to have behaved a great deal worse a long time ago. The aeroplane journey sounds a nightmare to me.

It is difficult for me to wag my finger at you from so very far away particularly as my heart aches for you but really darling you must pack up this nonsensical situation once and for all. It is really beneath your dignity, not your dignity as a famous artist and a glamourous star, but your dignity as a human, only too human, being. Curly is attractive, beguiling, tender and fascinating, but he is not the only man in the world who merits those delightful adjectives...Do please try to work out for yourself a little personal philosophy and DO NOT, repeat DO NOT be so bloody vulnerable. To hell with God damned "L'Amour." It always causes far more trouble than it is worth. Don't run after it. Don't court it. Keep it waiting off stage until you're good and ready for it and even then treat it with the suspicious disdain that it deserves...I am sick to death of you waiting about in empty houses and apartments with your ears strained for the telephone to ring. Snap out of it, girl! A very brilliant writer once said (could it have been me?) "Life is for the living." Well that is all it is for, and living DOES NOT consist of staring in at other people's windows and waiting for crumbs to be thrown to you. You've carried on this hole in corner, overcharged, romantic, unrealistic nonsense long enough.

Stop it Stop it Stop it. Other people need you...Stop wasting your time on someone who only really says tender things to you when he's drunk...

Unpack your sense of humor, and get on with living and ENJOY IT.

Incidentally, there is one fairly strong-minded type who will never let you down and who loves you very much indeed. Just try to guess who it is. XXXX. Those are not romantic kisses. They are un-romantic. Loving "Goose-Es."

Your devoted "Fernando de Lamas"

How often have we seen this same scenario played out among girlfriend after girlfriend? I find myself running out of patience, yet so many of us fall into this trap. 

How do you help yourself when you find yourself in this position? 

How do you help your friends?

Tell Me About It: Week 6

Today, we have two stories from Sabryna and Melissa. Even though Sabryna got married in Bali and goes on exotic vacations on the regular, her most romantic moment is so simple, honest and real.


Melissa's story definitely resonated with me as well. I have had romantic moments, but I've also had plenty of what she discusses.


Let me know what you think about each! 

A most romantic moment...

When Rebecca asked me to write about my most romantic moment, I had a little panic. I couldn’t pinpoint one. My husband, Anthony, and I are semi-awkward people. He’s not very suave and I’m not exactly graceful. We try, but generally end up in a fit of laughter. I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

To me, romance is that moment when you know without a doubt that he loves you with his whole heart. When you feel the butterflies and don’t always know what to say. Our most recent ‘most romantic moment’ happened this Christmas, involving an iPad, a father-in-law, and a piece of tape.

So you can know him a little better... Anthony is an amazing man, my best friend, and my soul mate. While we have a lot in common, he is very much the yin to my yang. He works in investment banking, while I’m an elementary art teacher. He’s very organized, from his socks, to his computer, to our ‘important documents’ drawer. Anthony takes excellent care of his things, and takes great pride in people commenting on how his 8 year old kayaks look brand new! He likes everything to be just so. I, in contrast, seem to thrive in the land of disorganized procrastination. It seems the best outfits, school work, and trips come out of it (maybe because Anthony plans them... :)

Back to our romantic moment. We travel a lot and had really been wanting an iPad to watch movies on. We’re also down to one functioning laptop at home, which can be a big battle! So we thought iPad was definitely the way to go. When Anthony’s dad asked what we wanted for Christmas it seemed like the obvious answer. Then the iPad came! We were prepared, had bought the cover, already had the movies downloaded, all ready for our new toy! Then as we’re taking it out of the box and putting the cover on I see an engraving on the back, and engraving that says Anthony. Not Anthony and Sabryna. I’m generally not an emotional person, but I was so upset! It wasn’t the fact that my name was absent, it’s that I had been absent from my father-in-laws thoughts when he got the gift. I ended up leaving for class in tears, truly surprised by how hurt I was.

When I came home the iPad was sitting on the kitchen table face down, so I could see the engraving. Except it wasn’t there anymore. Now there is a piece of torn paper with Anthony and Sabryna’s iPad scrawled in man-handwriting, taped over where I was left out. It was the most beautiful gift Anthony could have given me, he loves me more than having everything just so. 

Women have an amazing capacity for creating drama. We use this drama to bring about one climactic, tension-relieving, emotion-flooded moment and then delude ourselves into believing these feelings mean love. 

Ok, maybe that is just me—I am not sure I can bring down my entire gender on that one.

The point is I am not sure that I have had my most romantic moment yet. Oh, believe me, I have tried. A product of Disney movies and Mariah Carey songs, I was raised with beacoup notions of true love and happily ever after. I therefore began to manipulate and forge my own romantic instances when I started dating: I hinted at flowers and then acted surprised when they came; I staged dances in the rain to no music; I convinced my first love to fly out to meet me in Italy freshman year for a final tearful goodbye in Cinque Terre.

I am not saying I have not felt love, but I am saying that there have been very few romantic moments in my life that were not calculated carefully before hand (consciously or otherwise.) As I age, my self-deception has at least become much more apparent to me—even if I still struggle with the urge to manipulate my situations. 

So, the most romantic moment in my life has not happened yet. When it comes it may or may not involve the elements I used to dream about—flowing white skirt, handsome boy, warm summer evening, Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade...

I can promise you, however, that when this moment happens I will NOT have seen it coming.

I hope you enjoyed this week's Tell Me About It stories! Melissa's new website, Salt Dream, has quickly become my favorite. She offers up ideas for simpler living almost every day. There are lots of DIY projects and really creative approaches to life in general. I hope you'll go check it out. 

If you are new to the series, you can find other stories here:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5

If you're interested in sending me a story for the Tell Me About It series check out the details here!

Tell Me About It: Week 5

Just because everyone needs a little love in their lives...

This week's Tell Me About It series really illustrates how everyone's love story is truly their own. We have one story of a first and only love and one of finding something real and true the second time around. 

Finding your person and making that commitment can really alter the path you thought you were following. 

Enjoy their stories, and be sure to visit

Jen and Emma!

Kenny and I met in 3rd grade, 

him in his gold rimmed aviator glasses, me in my frizzy permed hair. 

I'm sure throughout the years we had little romantic moments, perhaps a cookie shared from a lunchbox or a pencil borrowed and subsequently stolen for a keepsake, but nothing much comes to mind. 

We didn't start dating until about, well, 12 years later when I graduated from college. 

We liked each other on and off again throughout those many many years, but we never said a word about it to each other. 

Never. 

Our friends did most of the talking for us. 

So when it came time for me to start living my unplanned life after college, Kenny saw it as a good time to talk to my dad. 

We had road tripped home from college with his sisters and the night we got home, he talked to my dad, unbeknownst to me. 

I, meanwhile, cried to my mom, 

"It's never gonna happen! He's never going to do anything!!!!" 

My dad kept his mouth shut until the next morning when he broke the news to me and my life turned upside down. 

Fast forward a few hours. I went down to the dock in Annapolis to hang out with a friend, and mainly calm my nerves, as Kenny talked the details over with my dad. 

At last, I got a text asking where I was and he said that he'd see me in a few. 

My friend left and I sat down on one of the benches looking out over the water and just waited for what seemed like a decade, constantly checking over my shoulder to see if he was there.

 Then I saw his shoes come into view from behind a tree. Then his bright green shirt. Then his huge smile. I bolted up and we sprinted towards each other. We nearly tackled each other in our long awaited hug and just held each other there in the middle of the dock. It literally felt like the world had stopped spinning. 

I looked up and said, "Kenny, I love you." And he said, "I love you too." 

We've been married for almost a year now and are waiting on the arrival of a little baby boy in June. The romance just doesn't end:)

~Jennifer

anteancorr.blogspot.com

I was so honored when Rebecca approached me about writing for her new series. I must admit, I have given this post an extreme amount of thought... 
maybe too much thought because paralysis via analysis set in. 


You see, the notion of romance in my thirties and forties is very different from the romance of my twenties.

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In my twenties and in my first marriage, romance was a grand gesture. 

I was proposed to in front of 325 people. 

In my thirties, with Doc H, there really was no proposal. 

This was "Marriage- Take 2" for each of us. 

We both had children we had to put first and our relationship was second behind their well-being. Instead of a proposal, in the office bedroom of his house with the door closed and our children screaming like monkeys at the zoo just outside the closed door, we made an agreement. 

We agreed to marry, to create a stable environment for our young children, to build a life together, to build a relationship which would withstand life's hardships, to care for each other, nurture each other, forgive each other, support one another, appreciate each other, love each other, and be each other's best friend... and indeed, 

Doc H IS MY BEST FRIEND.

Having both experienced the feeling of a disintegrating marital relationship, we recognize the easy pitfalls spouses fall into. Even though he's never said as much, he realizes he spends much more of his time on the job than the majority of husbands and he actively works to make up for his absence. Simply put, he spoils me rotten.

I can't name any of my friends who receive weekly flowers, dinners out, and the same level of support from their husbands as I do. Very rarely, do I get any grief from Doc H for any of my decisions.  Who else receives such gorgeous gifts for every gifting occasion? And my ultimate favorite... who else writes such wonderful cards, expressing his love for me, our children, our family, and displays such a sense of gratitude for any and all my efforts? 

I don't think I will ever find a husband who would send his M-I-L a card on Mother's Day expressing his gratitude to her for birthing his wife and raising her to be the perfect fit for him.

I suppose I could write of the romantic trips we've experienced together, trips to the beach, concerts, breakfasts in bed, or other events in our life, but I really think it's the little things which he does for me time and time again... the cup of coffee he brings up to me while I'm just getting up or in the shower, laughing at my stupid jokes, allowing me to laugh at him, allowing me the freedom to just be me.

While I sometimes wrinkle my nose at the hours Doc H works, or the phone calls and emails he fields in our presence, 

I honor and support his work. 

It is his passion, and makes him happy and I want him to be happy, I want him to laugh. I can only hope Doc H feels my love, just as much as I feel his.

~Emma from Your Doctor's Wife

If you enjoyed my story, I invite you to stop by my blog and poke around. I hope you'll stay and follow!

If you are new to the series, you can find other stories here:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4

More info on participating in the Tell Me About It series can be found here!

Tell Me About It: Week 4

Hello everyone! Glad you could make it over for our latest romantic stories!


 Today's Tell Me About It post includes stories from Chelsea and Melissa. I love how sweet and honest these girls are.


Please make sure to visit their sites!

Hi friends of Rebecca! I'm Chelsea and I blog over at Life is a Sunset. Today I'm here to tell you about one of the most romantic moments of my life. I still get chills and butterflies just thinking about it. I'm excited to share this story with you so let's go back in time, shall we?

I fell in love with this boy. I fell hard. And quickly. Toward the beginning of our memories, he would come over to my apartment some nights after work to watch TV, bake, or dance in my living room. Yes, you read that correctly. There was this dance club in the city we were living in that would have country dancing and all that jazz. Apparently there were some line dances and a little bit of waltzing that I should brush up on so he came over and reviewed everything with me before we went later that week. He also taught me how to properly be "dipped." I grew up training in dance yet I never learned how to dip. Go figure.

Anyway, during one of our dancing-in-the-living-room sessions, we started talking about good songs to waltz to and I mentioned Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me" - one of my favorites! So, we went dancing later that week and I was able to utilize my new dipping skills. A couple weeks pass by and our relationship quickly grows and our feelings further develop. It was love of the truest kind. I just knew it.

One night, we went for a drive about 45 minutes out of the city to go to this fun, hip ice cream joint where we hung out for a bit and I took care of my cookie dough craving. Then, we went up the street to the top of the hill where there was a nice view and parked our car in the parking lot. Not shady at all, I promise. He got out and told me to come sit on the trunk of the car with him to take it all in on that starry night.

So, I did. We sat there with his arm around me and my head rested on his shoulder feeling the crisp breeze at our cheeks while it ruffled through our hair.  It was so peaceful and calm and my heart was full. Then, he whispered to me, "Hold on just a sec" and went back into the car. He rolled down the windows and as he started walking back my way, that's when I heard it.

[via]

"Come Away With Me" started playing from his speakers.

He reached his hand out toward me gesturing for me to come dance. I couldn't believe it. He had remembered! We shared a romantic dance, just the two of us in this parking lot at the top of the hill with the beautiful view. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face and didn't want to. He melted my heart and that was just the start of the deepest love I've ever felt...

I think that sometimes it's in those most unexpected moments that the truest romance can be felt. Because it's just raw and real and beautiful.

“I'm so ugly,” I stammered in front of my oversized bathroom mirror one morning.

“Oh, honey, you're so cute,” said my mother, trying to reassure me. But her words brushed against my ears like the kiss of death, like telling someone they have a good personality - which she proceeded to do two minutes later when she found me still in the bathroom analyzing my features. The mirror, coupled with three high-watt light bulbs overhead, illuminated every tiny flaw. My downward slanting nose. My small mouth. My deformed hands and feet. And my electric wheelchair that seemed to eat me alive, taking center stage in the story of my life.

It was the day I learned to fear the mirror - the day I began my feud with myself.

I'd been envisioning my wedding day since I was 4. My flowing white gown. The paisley pink dresses for my bridesmaids. And a handsome man waiting to take me in his arms at the end of that long aisle, lined with dimly lit scented candles and rose petals.

Growing up, I always envied my younger sister, Janelle. She was the pretty one of the family - Swedish, flowing blonde hair, crystal blue eyes, straight and slender arms and legs and a body that was completely disability-free. Like a Greek goddess, she possessed an air of poise and perfection, and everyone commented on how beautiful she was.

They followed up their praise with compliments for me, but they always somehow fell flat - a hollow, empty cry into the dark, void night. I graciously accepted, forcing the beginning of a faint smile across my face, but I felt an arrow pierce the heart of my burgeoning young womanhood.

Like any young girl, I'd had my fair share of crushes. There was the blonde boy in my second-grade class who I used to daydream about on a daily basis, and my red cheeks matched the color of my hair any time he'd walk by.

There was the boy on my high school newspaper. We were co-editors, and I spent meetings thinking not about the upcoming story assignments or proofing a new layout, but studying intensely his piercing eyes, wavy brown hair I desperately wanted to tousle and the way his orange shirt brought out his smile.

And then there was Him. My first love. It started innocently when I was 13, when I referred to him as “a major babe” in my journal and then grew to deeper feelings of envisioning myself growing old with him. I found myself falling for him. Hard. I analyzed every chance meeting we had in my journal. What did his body language mean? What was he wearing? How long did we talk? What did he say? How did he say it?

But for some reason, I could never muster the courage to tell him - or any of these other crushes - how I felt, not because our differing personalities may have gotten in the way, but because I could feel my disability already had. And I was crushed.

“Why am I 20 and never had a boyfriend?” I wrote in my journal in 2001. “No boy has ever been interested in me. Am I deficient in some department? Do I turn guys off with my disability? I really want to experience true love, but I wonder if that could ever happen to someone as ugly and undesirable as me? I want guys to take me for who I am and look past my disability. Can't they find someone to love in this invalid body?

In my world, where all the twentysomethings around me could easily couple up, I stood somewhat on the outside, peering through the window of a life I desperately wanted but would never have. I even started to feel like an invisible ghost that no man could ever see “in that way.”

Maybe I was afraid to admit that I'd grown disgusted with my body, or maybe part of me just didn't want to think about it anymore, but from that moment, I shifted my focus to my mind. I excelled at all things academic, and by my junior year of college, I had a shelf of shiny accolades. A 3.9 GPA. A plaque for the Best Reporter on my college's newspaper. A certificate for being an outstanding women student. But I still felt alone. Empty.

I had a beautiful mind. But the little girl in me - the one who sat on her bed and dreamed so long ago of the flowing white dress - still wanted so desperately to feel pretty on the outside.

There's a large lagoon in the heart of my college alma mater. I must have walked around it hundreds of times, feeling the gnaw of nostalgia when I passed a group of preschoolers leaning into the water to feed bread crumbs to the squawking ducks. The ducks. I finally saw them for the first time one day. I stopped on the grassy banks for a moment to observe those winged birds flapping and fluttering in the shallow water. There was always one duck the flock seemed to leave behind as they paddled toward the majestic geese. The poor duck looked all alone and lost, like he was somehow desperately searching for his place in the world. I felt an instant connection with that lonely duck. We were both ugly ducklings in a sea of beautiful, graceful swans.

I'd spent so many years feeling ugly on the outside. When men never seemed to take an interest, I assumed it must be me. And my feeble attempts at focusing on my mind had merely been a way to avoid my body, something I'd come to view as an “ugly mess.”

For so long, I'd tried to run away from my disability. After all, my disability had become a wall that got in the way of everything. But it's not that men were uncomfortable with my disability. I was. And I had been afraid to admit it to myself.

All I wanted was for a man to look past my disability and see the real me - she was tucked in there just waiting to come out of her shell - but it had to start with me. The next time I looked in the mirror, I started to notice my wavy red hair, my freckles and my piercing green eyes. But what stood out most were my surgical scars, not as a hopeless reminder of my differences, but as a badge of honor. A symbol of all I've overcome - even a symbol of what makes me beautiful. My swan had finally blossomed.

Don't forget to visit Chelsea and Melissa!

If you are new to the series, you can find other stories here:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3

More info on participating in the Tell Me About It series can be found here!

Tell Me About It: Week 3

Today we have two awesome contributions for our Tell Me About It Series! I love reading everything posted by these two bloggers. I'm sure you'll enjoy their stories! As this series continues, I'm more and more impressed by how different each story is. While we each have this general notion of romance, one person can do something considered "romantic" and it will totally flop, while someone else can do something simple and little and it's the most romantic moment in another person's life. 


Here's to loving love :)

Our first contributor is TJ from His Little Lady. 

Hello Iridescent Indigo Readers! 

TJ here from his little Lady. Rebecca was so kind as to ask me to do a little guest post for you all about one of the most romantic moments I have had with my mister, and of course what girl doesn’t love gushing all about her man. 

I suppose we should get to know each other a little bit better beforehand though. Well, I always have my iPhone in one hand, my husbands hand in the other, and a laptop never too far away. I love documenting my daily life, my handsome hubby, and all the little awkward moments that happen in between. Oh, and of course I always have to throw in the fact that I’m a born and raised Seattleite, only the greatest city in the world. Whew, okay, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to some juiciness, shall we?

Of course, knowing your man for almost eight years, it can be kind of hard to pin point the most romantic thing your man has ever done, so I’ll highlight the most recent thing that has my heart bursting at the seams.

You see the mister is quite diligent in his schoolwork, internships, and really anything he gets himself in to. He also has trouble saying no to people so he ends up having many a late night getting all those things done. Where is this headed, your thinking? I’m getting there. Well just the other night the mister came into the bedroom at precisely 12:18am and pulled me out of bed. He then asked me to come to the living room and to bring my hairbrush. And there we sat on the couch, cuddling in the dark, while he brushed my hair.

And there you have it people, something short, sweet, and very romantic. It’s all about the simple things in this household, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Like what you read? There’s more where that came from over HERE. Hope to see you all soon!

Our next contributor, Patricia, can be found at Bringing Up Emilu. She always shares the prettiest pictures and most honest stories. 

My most memorable romantic moment is actually made up of a vignette of little moments from our second date.

I was on my second date with my now husband, and it’s the little things we do in a exaggerated fashion to make the other person like us more that go a long way.

 He took me to gallery night in Miami, a monthly event when all the art galleries stay open through the night, playing music and serving wine, and the art community spills over the streets, and on our way there he was listening to The Flaming Lips. I remembered I had just downloaded a song from them and I immediately said that I loved them, and he said,really, who else do you like?  

I knew my future-husband was a frustrated musician, and a diehard music lover, of the likes I can’t never really come close to, so I started band-name dropping, are you kidding me, I love Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Dave Matthew’s Band, Keane, the Doors, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles, etc. It worked, because he was impressed from that moment on.

 The rest of the night was spent in a locked romantic bubble we didn’t have the key to, discussing art, music, politics, and so much more. There’s something terribly romantic, and downright visceral about a rainy Miami night, under Design District’s dim lights, staring at art installations, and looking at each other’s moves from across the room, which made me realize I had found the perfect partner in crime for life.

If someone can make you feel like you are in a movie, Garden State meets Before Sunset, and tells you, you are really something, after the first kiss, you better hold on to that person.  And that’s exactly what I did! 

(Post note:  I always tell my husband he took me on the best dates I’ve ever had in my life, he was good at that, and they almost always included a succession of places to visit, for ex. we’d start with dinner, then go to a play, and then end with drinks at a sports bar. Or one time, he took me to Art Basel, then do dinner, and then to a lecture at a local bookshop. Just like the movies!  These dates made it possible for me to imagine that our lives together would always be stimulating, and this made me fall head over heels for him.)

Don't forget to visit TJ and Patricia!

If you happened to miss the first two weeks, you can find them here:

Week 2

Week 1

More info on participating in the Tell Me About It series can be found here!