“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” This is what I wish for:
Ashley Christina Dunne of Queens Village and New Hyde Park, if you’re reading this, please call me.
I want to marry you, even if you’re married, even if you have kids.
Months ago, I started to write a letter to a woman I was thinking about starting a relationship with, and I found myself writing, “Dear Ashley.” Since then, I realized that I’d never gotten over you. When we saw each other at the dance performance, a year after we broke up, and you said, “Alex, I’d like you to meet my husband, Allen,” and years later I lived with a girl named Alicia who was, like you, a costume designer and, friends say now, even had your facial structure! did either of us get over each other? or did we try to move on.
In the last month, for the first time, I can now bring myself to say, “I’m sorry that Ashley and I will never be married.” I can say it, it brings tears to my eyes, I can say it, I’ve gotten over you, but I still want to marry you.
I think the perfect marriage is where both of us help each other grow. And you inspire me, you always have, you still do, in my writing plays, or writing songs, or the girls I’ve been attracted to, or even, especially, in my work, as I think I’ve tried, even before I was aware, to figure out where we fought and why and what I can do differently. And you went after what you wanted — you drew historical costumes, you made them out of fabric, you wore them, you went where you wanted to go, you wanted to get married, you got married. And you wanted family, which I also want.
We had so much physical peace, fun and connection.
I wish that we’d gotten married instead of my buying you that engagement ring. We started to fight so much after I bought you that ring. I wanted to marry you someday, and I wish I’d said, “Let’s get married now,” like you wanted. My reason for not marrying you was that my parents said they wouldn’t pay for me to finish college if we got married before I graduated, but I ended up dropping out of school for two years anyway, you know?
When you’d called me the day after we saw each other at the dance performance, a year after I’d broken up with you, I wish that I hadn’t said I didn’t want to speak with you anymore because you were married.
I have this dream that I wake up, and you’re kissing me.
And in so many ways, you’re with me, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, yet I don’t even know your last name now, or where you live, or how to reach you.
I will make sacrifices, I will do whatever it takes for us to be together. You’re the person I want to make sacrifices for.
Ashley, if you’re reading this, please call me. I want to marry you.
[Other keywords: Ashley Dunne, Bayside, Queens, New York, Ashley Gordon, New Hyde Park, NY, Long Island, Disney, Fashion Institute of Technology, F.I.T., High School of Fashion Industries, Ladifrollo]
