Dear Dearest,

Yes, you said no more letters, and you know what…? That last one would have been the last, but I had to follow up to the events after the last letter.

Anyway, since Yanik invaded my quiet routine of solitude a week ago, all my set-sequences have been interrupted or pushed aside. Remember how I cleaned up cutlery before we ate a meal? Yanik leaves cups on the side and plates in the sink, to clean later, or leaves the seat up, uses the wrong cloth for the wrong pots and plates, forgetfully places his food in my shelves and many more small things I’m uncomfortable with, yet I welcome it.

Remember I told you about that dream? Anyway, the old guy (I can’t remember who he was) said something about me being too long alone. I need to accept others and not end up alone.

Anyway, keeping the place clean and quiet was hoe I found my own existential sense of security and order, that I was destined to suffer this hang up for the rest of my life, until I accepted Yanik’s intrusion. I counted down the days, aware this was my test of that order, that had given me a false sense of security could easily be shattered when something as it was inevitably going to be.  

Remember the problems we had with John? None of them exist with Yanik.

John always put things in the wrong place, but what was the wrong place? A place ‘I thought’ was most suitable. When the door was left open or the window not opened, it was me wanting the other person to change their behaviour that caused my pain.

I think that monk was right, “the root of all suffering is want.”

Anyway, now, Yanik has made himself at home, watching TV late and chatting to his friends on the phone most of the evening, shattering the peaceful evenings I enjoyed before. But I don’t care. Was I really enjoying being so quiet? Not really.

What I had long considered an intrusion was just me needing to keep control of the environment around me and now I don’t control that environment, I’m more aware that my peace of mind comes from not resenting the intrusion and changes I would have opposed for so long. Life is too short to resent such intrusions.

Yanik often asks “Am I too loud?”

“I hear you, but it’s just people living together and you’re not on the phone all night.”

Yanik is reassured and we happily co-exist.

When I hear Yanik laughing on the other side of the paper-thin walls, it’s just noise in the background to whatever I’m doing and nothing more. If he leaves anything, he clears it up a day or two later and yesterday started hoovering the rests of the house, knowing I have a sore back at the moment.  

Anyway, that’s the great revelation, and the this (38^th letter) really is the last.

 

Yours truly,

 

X

 

PS, please respond to this one.