Dusting Off the Keys

 In response to The Prodigal Son

Dear Lauren,

I'm not entirely sure where to begin. There's something rather surreal about reading a post written about you, especially one that reaches back fifteen years and somehow manages to make those years feel like both a lifetime ago and yesterday.

I read your words more than once. Because there's something quite extraordinary about seeing a connection that has existed largely in memory suddenly given new life in someone else's words.

You called me an anomaly in your life. I suppose I could say much the same about you.

When we first began corresponding, neither of us could have known what that exchange would become. There was no blueprint for it, no expectation that it would turn into something meaningful, and certainly no reason to believe it would leave the sort of impression that could survive fifteen years of off and on silence.

And yet, here we are.

I think one of the things I've always appreciated about our connection is that it never seemed to require an explanation. We didn't have to define it, justify it, or fit it into some conventional understanding of what two people should mean to one another. We simply connected. And perhaps that's what made it so unusual.

I remember our very first correspondences via Facebook. We had a mutual friend online, and I can't even remember who it was. But from the first exchange, I felt like I had met someone special. You understood me, believed in me, and took me under your wing without judgement. You didn't treat me like I was fragile; you were just- real. And while we both have lived so many lives since those early days, it doesn't feel any less welcoming or comfortable to correspond again.

I also want to say something about your advice regarding the house. It made me smile, and I suspect there's more wisdom in it than you realize. Perhaps there's something rather beautiful about building a home alongside someone, imperfections and all. Maybe the unfinished doorsteps and strangely colored walls become part of the story just as much as the finished rooms.

And perhaps relationships need more of that: the ordinary, tangible business of living alongside another person, rather than constantly trying to understand and articulate every complicated thing happening inside us.

But what I keep coming back to is your final paragraph.

"You made it, Elliot. You fucking made it."

I don't know that I can adequately explain what it feels like to read those words from someone who knew me in such a different chapter of my life. You knew a version of me that existed before so many things happened, before so many things changed, and before I became the person writing to you today.

And maybe that's what makes hearing it from you particularly meaningful.

Thank you for remembering me. Thank you for welcoming me back without making the years between us feel like something that needs to be accounted for. And thank you for being someone whose presence, even after all this time, still feels remarkably familiar.

Perhaps some connections really don't need to be maintained in order to remain meaningful. They simply wait for the right moment to find their way back.

I'm rather glad ours did.

With love,

Elliot

P.S. I can't wait to hear more about Connor. It already feels like there are parallels!