I know you wonder whether I miss how things were before, whether I would go back to the time when you were merely a concept, a theory, an idle wish during long, lonely nights. You think it must have been better when my imagination shaped you into whatever, whoever, I needed in the moment, when you were so abstract I could hang no real expectations or desires on your shoulders. But darling, that makes no sense. Can I hold a concept during thunderstorms? Can I nap on the couch next to a theory? Can I laugh or cry or sing with a wish? No, no; nor do those things have freckles and favorite foods and a Harry Potter obsession. They didn’t write letters to their own concept, theory, lonely late-night wish and they didn’t reach across the gulf of cyberspace to take a chance on a stranger. Those years of longing shaped me, yes, and I would not trade them away easily – but neither would I forsake you to return to them, not when you are where they were leading me. I would not trade our present or future for anything in the world.