Pandemics Ad Infinitum

fresh flowers for me, 2020

Dear Robert,

I write you love letters in my head nearly every night as I try to fall asleep. It's challenging for me to keep watching calendar days slip away not knowing when you and I will see each other again.

First of all, I have lost motivation to cook for myself which has yielded some unsettling abdomen issues. I know it is irrational of me to think this way, but I am going to the pharmacy for a pregnancy test tomorrow. I don't think our Fiona is in my belly but we have not been necessarily safe in our intimate interactions and while it's been since late February (give or take?) I want to just make sure I'm not going to have to abruptly call you and tell you we're going to be parents. I'm nearly a hundred per cent that isn't the case.

Anyway, beyond that, I miss you so very deeply. We communicated a lot more tonight than usual - you even sent me an adorable selfie of your head and face and hair and I saved it in my phone to look at during times when I just want you so badly I could melt into myself.

Even before we met in person, there were mundane things we'd share with one another and never once did I feel irritated by any of them (hopefully you didn't, either.) 

Things I want to tell you, mundane in quality:

Tonight I ate ice cream for dinner.

I hope to wake up early enough tomorrow to order a bagel from Forest Hills Bagels (the place where they tend to yell at you.)

For some reason unknown to me, I have been gravitating toward your side of my bed these days in sleep.

I bought a new floor lamp for my living room (positioned in the same place as the previous one) because the previous one just stopped turning on. The new lamp is pretty cool, I think you will like it.

I guess that about covers the mundane for the moment.

I have not alerted you about the pregnancy test situation because it's quite unclear as to whether my body is just reacting to never leaving my apartment or whatever else. Once I take the test, I will know more certainly and if negative, I won't even mention it. I know we've named Fiona in the past kind of lovingly but if she isn't in me, I don't want to cause alarm for you.

I still have not sent your Eddie Vedder coffee mug. Possibly tomorrow. I filled it with some of those fragile paper hearts and I wrote you a small note that says, "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life" and filled that envelope with more fragile paper hearts. I just need to finish packaging and figure out if I want to have UPS come pick it up like they did with your vinyl care package or if I want to risk walking toward Austin Street to the UPS store. Oh, life's woes.

Robert, you are always right inside of my heart, beating like the best percussion. 

All of my love,

Kristin.