It’s easy to wax nostalgic about the romance of letters in this day of electronic communication, but a long-distance romance, conducted by snail mail, across ocean waves is nothing less than torture. Though my husband and I are approaching our 25th anniversary, one letter in particular nearly cost us our relationship.
We were young. Well I was young, 23. He was younger – 18 – a fact that is still embarrassing for me to admit. But “falling in love” is not something one necessarily chooses. Our romance was unexpected in its timing and tragic in its seemingly impossible odds.
He was British, taking a gap year before he started his degree at university; I was American, struggling to end a seven-year run in a four-year college degree programme, while working full-time to pay my way through college. When I saw a charity bike-ride across America advertised for the summer, I was desperate for a break. So I signed up, and this is how we met – cycling cross-country.
Thomas was the more seasoned cyclist, as he had started his charity-ride in Bolivia, in South America, and had been pedalling overland, over the Andes and Central America, for eight months. He and three other British cyclists were heading in the same direction cross-country, so they volunteered to lead separate routes. He took our route – Portland.
Fit and tan, having spent eight months cycling in the sunshine, he was rather good-looking, but it was his deep approach to life that gave the impression of him being old beyond his years.
We cycled across America an average of 70 miles a day, taking in the vast beauty of the country for almost eight weeks – sharing our histories, our dreams, our aspirations, our deepest fears, stopping in cafes, drinking many milkshakes along the way. As we approached New York City, we prepared ourselves for the separation we knew had to be.
Neither of us had the budget to continue a cross-Atlantic affair, nor were we at the right stage in life. Air travel was exorbitantly expensive in the 1980s and phone-calls were over £2 a minute. We embraced; there were tears. It was painful.
Two weeks later, the first letter arrived – he described his pain at our parting, and asked how he could focus on his studies when he had fallen so indelibly hard. I responded immediately, tears streaming, and confessed my heart a wrinkled mess — thus began our correspondence. Our letters soon began passing each other across the waves, as it took too long, at least 10 days, to wait for a reply. They changed form, becoming more confessional, diary-like journal entries, and extended essays. But no matter how frequent, we could never overcome the fact that our communication never existed in the same moment of time, and it was anguish.
In 1989, when Virgin Atlantic offered their first budget transatlantic deal for £99 one way, we decided I could handle the torment no longer. We agreed I would obtain a student work visa and move to London, visiting him at university over the weekends. It allowed us to eliminate the ocean between us, at the same time retaining healthy boundaries for an untested and impractical relationship. Meanwhile, we made plans to spend the summer together – this time cycling in Africa.
As months progressed, however, we began to feel the effects of the loss of our letters. Gone were the unadulterated emotional confessions of our missives. Our relationship began to be tested by the more mundane, weighed down by the daily stresses of life. We became sensitive to each other’s moods.
Thomas announced at the end of the university term that he was miserably conflicted. He was too young to be so helplessly involved. I was sympathetic, having big concerns myself. We swore to remain soulmates but to set each other free. He went to India; I went to work on a project in Kenya. We continued to write to each other, but edited our romantic sentiments, made no references to passion-filled moments.
But then his letters stopped, or so I thought.
While in India, he had written me a 10-page letter, where he explained that he saw no need to “end a relationship” that was obviously beyond the power of both ourselves to kill. It was all terribly romantic, except for the fact that the letter hadn’t reached me in time to save my broken heart.
It had been sent from India to England after I left, then forwarded to Kenya, at which time I was on my way back to America.
I went back home to America, broken-hearted, the letter sent to Kenya was sent back to England. After arriving in England, it was forwarded to my new American address, but at that stage, my heart had hardened and I did not read it. Instead, I put it in the box alongside the rest of our letters, unopened.
Thomas made attempts to call, which I rebuffed to protect my heart. We both moved on to other relationships. Two more years went by, then another, and then he called and suggested we get together with mutual friends from our bicycle trip. I was happy and confident enough in a current relationship that I felt I could say yes, without risk of the upheaval of my heart.
He asked if we could go for a walk when I arrived. When we reached the top of the mountain we had hiked, he dropped down on his knee and asked if I would marry him. I didn’t think he was serious, didn’t want my heart played with in such a fashion. I asked him to stand, to never speak of such things again.
He returned home and began to write again, this time poetry. I went to our old letters and pulled them out. And that’s when I opened the one from India, three years later.
Shortly after, we became engaged. I moved to England. We were married and have never looked back. Though we still write to each other, it is by email, and for this we are relieved.
