For all I know, it's instructions about the sewer system he wanted me to know.
But probably not.
I know I can't mind read, so all that follows is time spent on supposition, but..
I assume it is X making expiation: "here is why I did what I did" "here is what I was missing in our R" "here is how I realized how unhappy I was" "I needed to make this change when I realized how different life could be" and probably an "I'm sorry" in there.
Now, as you all know, as soon as X told me he was leaving, I saw, with horrible clarity, all my faults in the R. (I know, I know, it isn't all my fault, but I was the Attachment Avoident, thanks, therapy! in the R, and I kept him at arm's length for 22 years)
I was willing, at the time, to HEAR all my faults, to hear his pain, to apologize, to even wish him well and get the love and R he needed. I have spent this past year flagellating myself for my faults. And, finally, trying to DO something about them in therapy.
I feel like, now, to hear all the things he wanted to say, that he couldn't say, would really be more like punishment. I WANTED the punishment at the time. I felt I deserved it.
But now...maybe I feel like "enough already. I have whipped myself enough. I don't need to hear it from you, too."
Maybe that's more AVOIDING feelings, and intimacy.
Maybe it's more running away from deep conversations
Maybe it's unresolved bitterness and anger: you want forgiveness!? NO WAY! I ain't gonna give you any satisfaction of closure!
I kind of like the idea of sending it back with the note:
I don't feel it is appropriate for a married man to send private correspondence to another woman.
Or, putting it in another envelope, addressing it to OW, and letting her open it and read it!
Or, this morning I saw the jewelry box that he had made me (oh, you know, a month before OW) where I had stuffed it into a drawer. I thought, I could put the letter in there. I'll forget about it, and 50 years from now, I'll find it and read it.
But then I think...what if...what if it were a letter full of remorse, apologies, asking for a second chance...broken the engagement, wants to try...
I know it isn't. And I don't think I want to reconcile, even if such a thing were remotely possible in this universe.
But with my sense of drama, I spin stories of star-crossed lovers, the letter never delivered, the message delayed a moment too late...and the happiness that could have been.
