Dear Rebound,

You got a bad rep somehow. You’re considered nothing more than a palette cleanse—a perfunctory sniff of coffee between sips of decadent wine.

But you are so much more than that, my love. You are a flavor all your own. You are as delicious, fulfilling, significant as any other.

And don’t be alarmed by my use of that infamous four letter word—the most pernicious of its kind. That innocent little word, love, has an even worse rep than rebound.

So hold on to your (jimmy? sorry) hat, Rebound, because I love you. I love your warm gentle touch and I love your hot desperate grip. I love the taste of us, the feel of sweat from our skin melding, merging, the song of our breath straining and calming.

You are a high tide, flooding over me, through me. Gravity came to claim my heart. And as it sinks, deflated, down to Earth, it calls for you, it pulls you in, pleading for you to wash these wounds.

With you I can rest, float, play, lay my heavy head in the water and drown out the noise.

You carry me to new horizons. Places we visit and discover together. And how can I love these pleasures without loving the vessel that brings them to me?

“I love you, Rebound” is not the same as “I love you, partner” or “I love you, friend” or “I love you, double stuffed Oreos.” I do love all of these. And you may become one of these (except for the Oreos—unless you wouldn’t mind picking those up on your way?).

We may or may not become something else. And those waves may get choppy. (Whatever. That’s life.) Either way, know this: If we become something else, it will not necessarily be something more. What we are, right now, is perfect and significant and wonderful. Just as it is.

I love us as we are, where we are.

So come as you are. Know that I want you, need you, crave you, appreciate you, love you. I love everything we are and everything we are not.

~ The sun and the moon and gravity, calling for the tides

P.S. Don’t forget the Oreos.

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Author: Jenny Spitzer

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: MsSaraKelly/Flickr