My Real Life

People who don’t really know me think I’m a tough nut to crack.

I’m hard to get close to.

I’m a little cold.

A little unfriendly.

People who take time to really get to know me know that none of that is true.

I’m efficient, a task-master, goal-oriented, and I get the job done.

However, I’m also a big, huge smush-ball of emotion.

And…

I’m a sucker for love.

Which is why, years ago, when I found this book in the Columbia book club catalog (because, before we were married, I used to have a serious issue with book clubs, movie clubs, cd clubs, and I don’t want to talk about it right now) I had to order it immediately.

And when it came, I sat on my bed and soaked in every word and cried and cried and cried and cried.

Because, again…

I’m a sucker for love.

The book is called “Love Letters.”

(and again, I apologize for using Photo Booth for recent blog photos…I am honestly too tired this week to take a picture and later have to download it, so this will have to do)

Love Letters is a collection of actual love letters from famous people.

They are replicas of said letters, many times, in envelopes, folded up, sealed with wax, as they were found.

These are the true words of these people, written to the objects of their affection, desire, lust, love.

The cover of the book has a little envelope on it, and if you open it, there is a little card which reads “It is not only necessary to love, It is necessary to say so.”

And from there, I was hooked.

“You soothe my soul, you fill it with so tender a sentiment that it is sweet to live during the time that I see you.”  Julie de L’Espinasse to Comte Hippolyte de Guibert 1774

“All my soul follows you, love-encircles you-and I live in being yours.”  Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett 1846

“Sometimes I have a rush of feeling, that seems like the passage of a spirit through me, and ought to flow to you like a blessing.  This is the most beautiful feeling I ever experienced; it is indeed divine, and too much for mortal force: there is no music for it; it can never, I fear me, be expressed…Like sunset it cannot be remembered.  Margaret Fuller to James Nathan 1845

“…you can’t come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple of flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don’t speak, it’s because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses…”  Edit Wharton to W. Morton Fullerton 1908

Call me soft, call me a girl, call me what you will, but I am now and always shall be a sucker for love.