DanBailey.net

So for awhile now, I’ve been trying to find the words to talk about Kate in here. And most of what I end up writing seems to be cliché, barely one step beyond “I love my girlfriend because she is smart and funny and hot”… And that’s just going to seem stupid.

The writer that lives a life of leisure and slackdom inside my brain piped up with an idea about context being extremely important in the delivery of a message, so I decided to write an open letter to her. This serves two purposes; first, it allows the uninvolved reader see how we communicate, and at the same time, when she reads it, she’ll understand that when I wrote it, I did so with her in mind, and that it’s from the heart, and not edited based on trying to put together something that’s been “sanitized” for public consumption.

…

Dearest Kate,

I hope you’ll either forgive my indulgence of the urge to write this in an open forum, or you’ll not consider this a public display of affection, which I know you’re not fond of. I think letters like these are important to a relationship, a way of laying all my cards on the table in a very straightforward manner.

The past months have been wonderful — it’s been a long time since I was in a relationship this comfortable, and yet still exciting and interesting. I know it’s not “perfect” and that we have our communications gaps, but it’s also reassuring that we’re able to work on those gaps together, and that we don’t let issues fester and become problems.

You’re what I’ve been looking for — that rare combination of smart, funny, and great looks, with a fireball personality. It’s not just the generalities, either. There’s things about you that I can’t help but love and remember — the way we fit together when we’re falling asleep. Your cranky mornings, even if they are the antithesis of mine. Your laugh — the first time I heard it, I thought of John Cusack in High Fidelity talking about how he missed his ex-girlfriend’s laugh, the way “she laughs with her whole body.” Better still that the first time I witnessed it was when I verbally tripped over my own feet on our first date.

You know that I love you, but I think it’s important that you have that reinforced from time to time in notes like these, and that I tell you why I feel the way I do.

I love you.

Yours,
Dan