Love Letters to the Great Unknown

Oh, Dear.

Oh, Love.

Oh, Light of My Day.

Very smart people doing Smart People Things™ say that the average number of thoughts a brain produces in a day is somewhere around 6,200. I, with my anxious brain, will lay claim to a higher number, if only for reasons that will come to light as you continue to indulge me in this, a glorious quest for endorphins through words. On this, I proclaim that my brain, within which you occupy space, experiences the delightfully plump number of eight thousand, seven hundred, and fifty two thoughts per day, and nine thousand, one hundred, and four thoughts on days when sleep comes far later than I’d probably like.

Logic tells us that the dominant portion of one’s thoughts will be on the minutiae of the day. Your brain processes the temperature of the space it occupies, or whether you are hungry, or thirsty, or the need to poop. If we assign an arbitrary percentage of thoughts per day to all the processing of bodily needs and the getting from point A to B the whole day through, let’s make it seventy-five percent, that leaves the average brain 1,550 thoughts for the rest of the universe, and it leaves my anxious brain some 2,188 to 2,276 thoughts.

I feel the need now to remind you, Oh Ye on Whom My Affections Rest, that there is a point to this math and logic, and it is my fond hope that you’ll find the preamble worthwhile when you’ve reached the conclusion of my letter today. I would never begin to suggest that you aren’t keeping up, because you are intelligent and sharp-minded, only that in the world of love letters, the genre itself does not usually command logic - though the truly clever can, and do, with aplomb.

Getting back to the topic of my anxious brain, and the remaining twenty-five percent of my day’s thoughts, I would like to state for the record, not that there is one officially, that I am unashamed of the 307 thoughts that involve the shape of your body. These, of course, range from attempting to calculate the angle of the curve from where the ends of your eyelashes lay against your skin while your eyes are closed in fitful sleep to the join of the farthest corner of either side of your mouth, to the bulge of your calves as you stretch to put that box of your favorite cereal back on top of the fridge.

On a good day, I try to limit myself to no more than 153 thoughts about the lewd, the raunchy, the Boyz II Men, Nine Inch Nails, Divinyls, “Did someone order extra sausage,” pay-per-view thoughts that disrupt workflow but can be thought without getting me in trouble, largely. Get it? Not yet you haven't, but you will. Shoot, 154. I see you smiling, and it stirs my proverbial loins to bring you joy, whether it is with my crude revelry or my fascination, in this letter, with a heady math-based countdown. Alright, alright - in the interests of honesty, that brings the lewdness to 156. Let’s move on, shall we?

It isn’t just your physicality that reigns in my brain, luscious lamb of my desire. You have a wit that cannot be ignored. It, the Dinnerplate Gardenia of your personality’s bouquet, offers a whiff of the depth of your personality. The offspring expressions that bloom from this occupy a delightfully round hundred of my remaining thoughts, traipsing through the sod of my pinkish mass of skull-shrouded jelly with the glee of a child whose lunch was a Costco sized pouch of Fun Dip.

Lest it go unnoticed, your worries and anxieties take root in a space I refer to as the South Dakota of My Love. Visits to the SDoML region of my thoughts often intertwine with lesser frustrations of a personal nature, such as the calculation of processes by which I can work to lessen your emotional load, with none of the joy of the retrieval of postcards depicting glacial lakes or sprawling plains. Your pain is shared, a point which I must insist you not permit to lessen your overall contentment, else I find myself fashioning a mental cabin in the Black Hills of this region where I will vacation to stew over solutions that may or may not include dark chocolate, high doses of caffeine, and the softest of plush stuffies in your preferred animal shapes.

You may be wondering what fills the other some thousand thoughts a day that I may have where you are featured prominently. Hundreds of quiet glances on social media as I plumb through posts you make, gaining insight into the hums and haws of your day to day interests make an honorable mention, most assuredly. Every time I press the Like button in some variant swinging between the medium blue of the thumb’s up to the fluffy admiration of the Care react, the whole Jello mold powered by sugar water and bioelectric impulse is livened by my affection for you, and no, it does not matter if the content of that post is a screaming possum surrounded by garbage, or some self-deprecating meme plucked from the feeds of so many thousands of others. I love it all, and I will show you that, often through minimal interaction so as not to weigh you down with an oppressive gesture that demands your response directly.

In the twilight hours, when I have fewer thoughts left to devote than touch receptors are present in one one-hundredth of a middle fingertip, I will admit that simply seeing your name brings a tingle of dopamine akin to the sensation of the first touch of a fresh curly fry to my tongue, salty and slightly crispy on the exterior, smooth and airy on the interior, and like my arms around your torso in a hug that is far too short but no less delicious, so very good to squeeze.

So there you have it, precious being. The math checks, and my love for you is thus proven. It cannot be denied, though if unwelcome, can be self-contained. Know, wherever you are, that it exists, to bring comfort and good vibes as much as you may require. Good vibes - HEH! Ah dang, 157.

Not even close to all my love, but some of the most precious, regardless,

The Validation Machine