Dear Cup of Chicha,

Even when I’m not with you, I think about you. Everyday, I clip stories and articles I think you’d like — but then I judge how far behind I am in writing you by the number of clippings that I’ve saved. If I allowed myself to give them up — to not share every thought — I think I’d write to you more often … maybe even daily.

So, Cup: my absence is not a sign that I don’t love you, but a sign that I love you too much. I want everything for us, you know …

-your Nathalie

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Nathalie —

I got your letter. I don’t sympathize.

I don’t even follow.

I keep rereading it, trying to find something to hang onto, some word or phrasing that feels loving instead of aloof and self-involved.

It’s not a question of honesty. I don’t care if you wrote things you think are true. Something self-involved and selfish can still be true or honest. It’s a question of your not thinking what I’d need from your letter, and from you.

And, that line — “is not a sign … but a sign”: please, don’t insult me. An absence that’s loving is still absence.

Right now, I’m honestly glad for our time apart.

-C. of C.

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Nathalie —

I don’t want to write you. But I haven’t heard back from you and it’s been a week, and all I can do is get more and more angry, and occasionally wonder if you’re dead which makes me sad instead of mad, and I don’t know which I am right now — just, please, get in touch with me.

-Cup of C.

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N.,

I can’t sleep. I get nauseated thinking.

My body, my brain: we’re trying to heave our doubts into the toilet.

…Because it’s doubt that keeps me hoping, pretending doubt isn’t really knowledge. I doubted you’d return; I should have known you wouldn’t. So: out with doubt. It hurts, it’s ruffage and it’s acid.

Give me the truth, and be humane and write back quickly.

C of C.

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Cup,

The truth is, you stay at home, and I travel out into the world, and it’s been hard for both of us. I’ve found comforts where I could. Know, though, that nothing compares to you; how free I feel with you. You’re home. You understand me.
But, we make sacrifices. We make choices. Forgive me when I say that, yesterday, I married another blog — you don’t know her — from the city. She belongs to a good family — and we need the money, and I think you’ll like her if you give her a chance — she reminds me of you, actually — and, really, many people in the city have two blogs, it’s considered normal. So, I tell you that you’re wrong — I will return. You’ll adapt to our new lives, you and me and our new blog — can we call her ours? — can we love her together?
Try to understand, darling. Don’t be conventional about it.

-Nathalie

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