Evidence of the Affair

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It is funny the crazy things our brains make up to save us from the truth.

You asked how I hide it all. I don’t know. I guess I find it pretty easy to look like nothing is happening when everything has changed.

Do you ever feel like your life got away from you somehow? Lately, it feels like my whole life has a similar feeling to when you check the clock on a Saturday and realize it’s already half past four.

Lying has just become so much easier than telling the truth. I don’t remember when things got so hard. But life has been a matter of keeping our heads above water for years now.

Often, I feel overwhelmed by this sinking feeling in my heart that I will never be enough.

I’ve always been struck by the idea that you can’t be all that happy something has returned if it doesn’t go away in the first place.

I feel like the girl at the party nobody wants to dance with. There I am, hoping someone might choose me, while the rest of the world goes on dancing.

Carrie Allsop, you are never the woman no one will ask to dance. I will be here dancing with you for as long as we want to get groovy.

(This is your reminder that you have to read Looking for Mr. Goodbar. And, of course, I will read Ragtime. I’m always true to my word.)

“Delights can be hard to come by recently, so I truly cherish getting to laugh with you.”

Sometimes I think mine might turn to stone any minute now, and yet every time I see you I soften, reminded of how you still choose kindness over anger at every step.

Thank you for all your kind words. It seems as if you see me exactly as I wish to be seen. There is no greater gift than that.

June 6, 1977 Carlsbad, California Carrie, You don’t deserve it either. You lack nothing, regardless of what roadblocks you have hit in your life, no matter what things in life don’t come easy to you. You lack nothing at all. I hope you see that. You are everything a man could want in a woman. All yours, David

You gave me hope and perspective and confidence.

Right before you gave me my baby.

I love her simply for existing. And I love her because she has been my liberation.