Today there is a true love letter. Not the mushy kind, really. Just a really lovely love letter. Not from the kissing guy.

"I had thought, when I first left you [to go into the army], that it would not be long until the memory of you would begin to become vague and finally stray into my unconscious but it's not that way at all. As it turns out, you remain still very much an integral part of my life. There is nothing that I do that is not in some way related to you through my imagination."

Now as it happens, this is the guy I dumped almost at the altar, and what is very peculiar is that, years later, and I don't mean just this minute, although it does include this minute, I would feel exactly the same way about him. From time to time. He is the one I wonder about most. He is the one I take into a Dead show with me (I think he would hate it!). He is the one to whom I show off my house and my garden and some of my friends. OK. All of my friends. Because I often wonder what he would think of it/them. He is the one I talk to on cross-country trips. He is the one I took to England, because I did think he would like that. He has become an imaginary friend. He has probably become something utterly unlike his real self, but still...

"For instance, when I eat something different, I wonder whether we have not eaten this same thing together before, or how you would like it. I wonder the same type of thing in other situations. Often I make a game of this by presupposing your reactions..."

He very likely gave up this game (with me as the other player) long long and long ago, but as fate would have it, I have taken it up. It is my comeupppance. My penalty for not being the one I knew I was supposed to be on time. But it's okay. He's a good companion. Probably better than the real one. Certainly better than any number of other real ones. I find I'm quite content with it now. The real thing would be far too frightening.