Love Letter No. 4: To the Man I Used to Love
No. 4! I am collaborating with the inimitable Camila Ochoa Mendoza of the Abortion, with love podcast to publish and air a series of love letters, written and read aloud by people whose lives have been touched by abortion, and who have love to express—to their provider, to their support systems, to the pregnancies they terminated, to themselves.
Abortion is love.
We will be publishing a new love letter every Monday, with enormous love and gratitude to artist Idalina Lehtonen for our gorgeous graphics and composer Anton Olsson for the transcendent music you’ll hear on each episode. You can listen to the writer of this letter read it here, or by subscribing to Abortion, with love on your favorite podcast platform. And you can send us a letter of your own, or a response for us to pass onto any of the letter-writers.
(Please remember that these are letters written by individual people, in their own cultural and personal contexts. We believe that everyone’s abortion experiences are valid and should be honored. You may not relate to or resonate with some of the things written in these letters, and that is okay. But we hope that you can recognize the magic and the truth in people honoring their own unique experiences, in their own words.)
To the man I used to love - for lack of a better term. The English language doesn't have enough words for love. Love means all the things and it means nothing at all. I don't have the language to describe the space in my heart that you created.
It's been two years. That space is still there, and I don't think that space will ever stop being yours. My capacity to love is not limited, new people help me find, help me create, new crevices in my heart. Next to the space for you, is the space for that seed that grew for 4 weeks, once upon a time. That seed that held so much hope and longing and possibilities, but that came at a time when we didn't have the capacity to let it grow.
I have so many mixed feelings about my abortion, and again, I'm at a loss for words. My abortion doesn't fit between the words right and wrong. It doesn't fit between the words regret and relief. I'm endlessly grateful yet resentment still takes up space in my body. You and I were on vague terms. No longer living together, yet still hopeful. We were too fragile to create a new life. A baby was always in our plans. Many babies. A big family. It's all I ever wanted. But it would have been selfish of me to force that seed to stay. Unfair to you, to us, to the seed growing inside of me. Forcing a future that we weren't ready for.
I don't know how you feel about my abortion. We never talked about it. You weren't there during the abortion, I resent you for that. You never asked me how I felt after. Did you feel any attachment to the pregnancy? Do you ever daydream about the what ifs? Did you grieve the loss of that future?
Knowing you, you probably approached the whole situation very practically. But you've often surprised me with your sensitivity, your thoughtfulness. I wonder how much you would have continued to surprise me had we stayed on that path. I wonder if I'll ever find out.
I wonder if that was the beginning of the end. The day we decided we couldn't have a baby, not then, not under those conditions.
I still grieve. I grieve what we had, what we could have been. I grieve the future that we were building.
Maybe it'll never make sense, what we mean to each other. Maybe we'll never have words for it. But I hope you know that that space in my heart is yours.