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 To all who believe

"...that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive." 

 

Prologue: Goodbye Simone

  

------ Original Message ------

Received: 09:49 PM PST, 02/26/1987

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Subject: amazing

what an incredibly weak and cowardly note you left....it completely dishonors anything that was between us over the last 2 1/2 years ....can't believe you didn't have the balls to talk to me in person or at least on the phone after the trial and then to blame your fucked up actions on me - "i think you'd prefer it to drama" ......anyway your actions today are not what friends do so it's doubtful that we can be friends, i don't trust you ....you're obviously not the man i thought you were ... wiped out any good memories that i might have had.......i guess running away works for you....peace

 

Date: 05:12 AM PST, 02/27/1987

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Subject:

amazing  Allow Subject

 

Simone,

I'm sorry you feel that way. Of course I'll talk if you want. You could have called me last night, actually. I left my phone on thinking you might want to, but wasn't surprised when you didn't. I thought, basically, you'd be relieved. You have often made me feel that my desire to be with you more and have more of you in my life was a burden. But I certainly didn't mean to offend you or hurt you in anyway, I was trying to step back gracefully, but obviously that was not the case. I actually didn't think you'd be surprised or hurt by what I wrote. It isn't that I'm afraid to talk about this, just that I assumed it was not as important to you as your work on the trial and the great speech you gave. I didn't want to disrupt that... last time during a trial when we talked about our relationship you were very angry, and pretty much said it was too disruptive to deal with such issues while you had such work to do. I didn't think you'd write, and certainly not an angry letter. If I would have suspected you might miss me or want to communicate with me when we left I would have tried to talk Sunday night or even in the morning...but as you left it.... I could call you...or not. You didn't seem bothered at all I was leaving. It seemed a note was best.

You remember when we first became involved I would cry about leaving you. I still feel the same about not being with you but I can't hold such sadness all the time. You are so fucking smart and complicated and beautiful. One of the most amazing teachers I have ever known and the most amazing lover. But I have been so sad for the last year in our relationship. A year ago I told you I felt it was coming to an end and your feelings for me had profoundly changed and you argued they hadn't, and along with chastising me for the drama of the whole issue you pointed out all the energy you had put into our relationship. And you had a point. But looking back I think I had more of one. Over the last year your interest in communicating with me and being with me has continued to fade...we go days without talking, weeks without seeing each other. I assumed it was what you wanted and the natural evolution of our love affair.

I don't pretend to understand you but I know how perceptive you are and figured you could tell where things were going. This time, when we parted, there was no talk of when we might see each other again. Didn't you notice that? Maybe I was wrong in thinking you saw what was happening as a natural gradual ending or transition into something else. But then, where did you think we were going? Lately you have sprinkled our talk with "if we are together in a year" and "if it lasts that long" and "who knows what will be in a year" and this too I thought was part of the gradual drawing apart we were undergoing.

You know I didn't say I didn't want to see you. I didn't say I didn't want to be friends. I said I can't think of us as being "together" and this was just, for me, bringing into words the way we really are with each other... the time we spend together, how we are together, and the time we spend apart not even in touch...

Well, I'll call tonight around ten and I hope you'll talk to me. I can see you are very angry and I am sorry about that. That you don't seem hurt at all, that you aren't sad about what I wrote, is more what I expected. If I thought my love was an important part of your happiness I would have acted quite differently.

Well, I'll call as I said. If I have been clumsy about this I'll try and make it right. But be assured it wasn't fear that made me do what I did... it has been fear that has kept me from bringing out what I thought... the fear of not having you in my life as my lover. But I felt I should be open about what seemed obvious.

I do love you very much Simone. Talk tonight I hope...k

 

Date: 11:13 AM PST, 02/29/1987

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Subject:

Still Amazing  Allow Subject

Simone

I so wanted to talk with you last night. The longing evokes so many nights alone in Santa Cruz, or even lying next to you silent in bed at your place just a few nights ago, with you so far away. Why didn't you want to talk? Well, we know you weren't afraid. To busy? Quite possible. But such calculations aren't absolute are they? They are always about priorities in important ways.

Wanting to wound me back, as I seem to have wounded you? Probably. And you have. It hurts, and not in a good way. There is no pleasure or desire in it. But for me this is not new emotional terrain. It has been a central part of our asymmetrical love for the last 18 months. But don't worry about me (I hear your cute little snort). I cry and I survive.

And I worry so about you. I tried so hard to make your life better, to make it a little easier, to make my love as important to you as yours was to me---the air and water of my emotional life. And clearly I failed.

I'll try calling tonight later than 10 sometime. I'd really like to know you are ok, even if it comes with hearing how much you despise me now. I can hold that. It is nothing to missing you as I do every moment.  love, kelly

Date: 05:12 AM PST, 03/01/1987

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Subject:

goodbye for now Simone  Allow Subject

Well Simone,

It is clear you don't want to talk to me so I'm not going to keep calling or sending emails every day. Whatever you are feeling besides anger, if anything, you obviously don't want to share right now. After I get back to California at some point I'll reach out again and hope you'll let me know how it is going with you. Of course, you can always write me or call me.

I am truly sorry it is like this. If I could take back that note and tell you what I had to tell you in person I certainly would. I had no idea you would react this way. I certainly wasn't asking for a total break like this. I was just articulating where I thought we were, and trying not to disrupt your trial while doing it. Hell, just a few weeks ago you were telling me about your married fireman lover, who just left you with not a word, never showed up at your trysting place, and yet you were saying how you'd like to see him again and it was "unfinished" in some way. While that attitude (forgiving? cavalier?) amazed me, it certainly didn't lead me to think you'd react like this...

I still don't know if you are just really pissed or broken hearted. I would hate it so much if I hurt you deeply. With how our relationship was going I find it hard to believe I did, but then you are such a mystery to me. In the first year I thought I knew how you felt, I felt I knew how you felt, but then it became impossible to know. I still felt great love from you at times, but more and more I felt disinterest and even disdain. I tried pulling away myself, to find an equilibrium that we both felt good about. But however much I pulled away you didn't seem to mind. Not talking every day, sharing less and less of our lives, the ever-lengthening times between our visits, the only talk of our future being when we might break up... well, I couldn't sustain the hope that we were a couple ("together") in any sense I understand. We were friends and occasional lovers. The note just said that was my understanding. I wasn't saying we should change how much we talk or see each other, although it assumed the pattern of our continual disengagement would continue.

You are such an extraordinary woman. You have taught me so much about things I thought I already understood (my own sexuality, poliitcs) and you gave me such wonderful moments I will cherish forever. And in what space? 130,150 days together? But you know, I think, what a romantic idiot I am. I wanted more of you, I wanted the relationship to go deeper and instead it went the other way. I tried to give you everything you asked, to make your life better but you asked less and less of me emotionally and physically. Every time I told you how much I missed you and how much it hurt to say good-bye when we parted I was in agony and you would reply "that's good for you baby" or "it's not such a big deal". But it wasn't good for me. It was a big deal. I was unhappy more and more of the time and that is not my nature to accept that. I've got a life to live.

Goddess I hope you're ok. I miss your honey voice and your quicksilver mind...I miss you Simone. And I love you. I'll love you forever, no doubt. Take care of yourself. Kelly

 ------ Original Message ------

Received: 08:38 PM PST, 03/1/1987

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Subject: Ms. Blocked!!!!

 

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