Welcome to "the engines of my love," a regular review
of why I love you, Martha Ellyn Sharp Nelson, and no
other woman.
I love you because you are such an important part of me. I am
not saying I do not exist without you, for I do, and very fine, thankyou.
I am not saying we are one physically, for as I contemplate our marriage
I wonder if we have every really been one or if we were always two
separate ones trying to take from the other one. I am not saying
you will ever believe I love you, for as we briefly talked Monday
evening, for the first time since the divorce, you said, after I said
I love you, `No you don't!' I'm not saying we are no longer co-dependent,
for we probably are, and yet we both recognize we do not need to be.
I am saying I feel good when I am around you. I am saying I thoroughly
enjoy being in your presence and looking at you. I am saying we have
shared a lot, and no matter if we never get remarried, we will share
a lot more because of our children. I am saying I love you.
It was nice to talk to you Monday evening without you walking away.
As dramatically illustrated by the moon photographs, I am very
concerned about the choices our children are making. I do believe
they know pretty well everything that is going on in our familiy,
even if it is subconsciously. I also believe there is good reason to be
concerned about each of our individual examples. I found it interesting
how you pointed out `You really have not forgiven me. You say you have
and yet you keep bringing it up.' The ego side of my brain is speaking
as I write this, and it shows we are still in different worlds. My
understanding of forgiveness is it has a dynamic relationship with
repentance. My understanding of repentance is that activities one is
ashamed of or are damaging or are sin (as defined explicitly in the
scriptures and implicitly in our hearts) are stopped. My understanding
is that if activities are not stopped, there is not repentance, and if
there is not repentance, forgiveness is of noneffect. I am not sure if
it is possible to truly and completely forgive until one forgets. And
forgetting is not really feasible when the activities in question are
paraded, consciously hidden, or even sneaked but made aware through the
subconscious. It is like electromagnetic interactions. You can not
watch and measure. However, you can watch, or you can measure. Both
watching, reasonable monitoring of repentance, and measuring, noting
indiscretions, will result in rememberance, not forgetting, and thus
the appearance of not forgiving, if activities of concern are ongoing.
Yes, I still remember the night of May 28th, 1996 and SS. I also
remember February 4th of this year, a discussion of denial, and the
self-justifying reaction to documentation of three specific indiscretions.
Have I forgotten? No! Have I forgiven? I thing so. However, complete
forgiveness comes with the assurance of repentance and rekindling of
trust. I am hopeful, and yet concerned, as I watch our children play
out dangerous fantasies. I hope these words have meaning to you, and
are not received as merely bad English. I try so hard to express the
concerns and love in my heart, and I feel so misunderstood. It was
really nice to have you sit with me and talk to me in a non-defensive way.
Shortly after you left, I left for PAIRS. Four days in a row of
intense emotional interactions with people I didn't and don't really
know! One of the activities Monday night was a meditation about our
an art museum, where when we went in we found paintings of times in our
life when we have been in intense pain. Then two individuals, normally
couples, would take turns answering questions Dr. White read out about
what the pictures were about. My partner was the lady who ran away from
her family a year ago. This is the lady who drew a picture of a
cottage with a white picket fence with me one of the first nights of
PAIRS. In answering the questions, I described the night of our
20th wedding anniversary. She looked at me and said, `Well, you are
a recovering jackass.' I liked this a lot better than what Dr. White
had said on Sunday, namely that I am a manipulative, controlling, victim.
Whatever the facts about me turn out to be, I am doing everything I can
to understand myself, to change habits and ways of interaction which
are destructive to relationships, to be true to myself and my faith,
and to show those who mean so much to me how much I love them. Thankyou
for helping me take these steps and for providing the motivation to
become a better person. I really appreciate you and that you are
perfectly suited to help me find out how to be a better human being.
In actual fact, I love you.
I'm interested in sharing why I love you. I know how important
the written word is to you, and if you ever feel neglected,
ignored, or unloved, and would like an up-to-date bound copy of
these lovelets or any subset of these lovelets for any purpose
you might have come to mind, please tell me or e-mail your request
to rnelson@walden3d.com with the request 'lovelet update.'
With all my love,
Roice