Opening The Box

Originally published on Mary McCorvey's Substack.

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Welcome to today’s issue of Opening The Box.

I’ve touched another letter from Rob, and it prompted me to think about love and loss, or rather, the loss of something we truly believe in.

The problem — or the gift — of the love Rob and I share (because we still do love one another) is that the physical aspect, the melding of two people who could not stay apart no matter how much we tried, was only one plane.

Physical love certainly mattered. But the other planes — the mental, emotional, and visceral cocoon in which we interacted — were beyond anything I’d experienced before or since.

Years passed after our first meeting in 1985. We didn’t even remain in touch.

Later, we would agree that the desire was mutual — and kept us both awake at night — but taking action was not an option. Until one day in 1989.

A simple phone call. A simple request. Someone needed something the other could provide.

We met. And much as we tried to be casual, there was never such a thing between us. The year of love that would continue to this day began.

Today’s letter, from Washington, D.C.:

You weren’t there, Mary. Not at Fairfax Station. Not at Metro Center, not at Union Station. I searched everywhere for you in your London Fog trench coat. I was shaking and filled with sorrow as I waited for the train to take me to Union Station.

I’ve wondered many times about how much I would love to live with you. To tell you, ‘I’ll always be there for you in spirit and body.’

You asked me if it would be enough to know our love goes with each other even if we’re not together. I am always with you and will always be with you in spirit and love. My body is divorced and it’s not enough, at times, to have you for so short a time. I felt the great pain of our separation last night and throughout the day. ‘No more Mary. Mary is gone.’ I haunted myself.

You sat with me at softball games all summer and went to Maine. In the fall you froze beside me at soccer matches and playing with my children. This winter you spent Christmas with me and went to Aruba. And so you will, for the rest of my life. For the rest of my life, Mary.

Even now as I head north on the Amtrak, somehow, I believe you will appear. But I know you won’t. I keep looking up for you on the train. For you have shown me that for as sure as you may vanish you also do appear.

I feel like a passenger car that accidentally uncouples from the train at the top of a long hill and speeds backward toward certain destruction.

I am falling, Mary. And I’m frightened.

As he said, he haunted himself with the perception of losing me. But he need not have. I was, and still am, with him. I remain in love with him — as I know he is with me.

I wonder why, today, that particular passage came out of The Box and struck me so deeply.

The almost tangible sense of loss — especially the physical — is a recurring theme in my life. I imagine it may be in yours, too.

We all experience losing the thing we love the most, whether it’s a marriage, a job, a dream, a person. Even the loss of self.

It’s a part of living.

On that particular day, Rob and I had parted ways — after struggling with the reality that our decisions could devastate our families.

The sense of loss was knowing we could not continue. Even after nearly a year of meeting, we couldn’t be casual. We couldn’t be anything other than what we were: deeply connected and deeply torn.

Neither of us believed our future lay together. But neither could we conceive of parting.

No anger. No harsh words. No regret.

Just, as he said, a fear of falling — out of control.

When I think about loss in my life, I remember the physical pain the most.

The raking. The scraping. The burning in my heart. The sense of disbelief — that what couldn’t be happening was, in fact, happening right in front of me.

My third husband, Daniel, came into my life after Rob.

He convinced me that it was possible to love again. To believe in something ideal — that two people could truly remain committed for a lifetime.

I wanted to believe that. Not just for myself. But for Rob, too.

I loved Rob enough to let him go. And I truly wanted him to be happy.

And so I began again. And the loss was something only time could heal.

Daniel and I met under what we’d come to call "love at first sight." There was chemistry. Shared life experience. A connection born from the fact that we were both in career transition.

We married. We raised his daughter.

And I never told him what I’d experienced with Rob — that it made our own meeting pale in comparison.

It became family lore, this myth of “love at first sight.” And I let it live.

Daniel was the only man to whom I remained faithful for 30 years — even after he became a serial cheater. I foolishly believed he would stop.

The deepest loss of that betrayal wasn’t just the marriage. It was the shattering of my belief in ideal love.

I had trusted him to be true.

You may be thinking:

Wait — you had an affair with Rob. How are you any different from Daniel?

It’s a fair question.

My answer is this: I believed my karmic punishment was “losing” Rob.

The pain of that loss — physical, emotional, spiritual — is indescribable.

I thought I could start anew. Make a different choice. Live by a different kind of truth.

But I was wrong.

The biggest payback came as a tsunami of pain — as Daniel, woman after woman, lie after lie, destroyed my ideal of love like a beach umbrella in a storm. Swept away. Irrecoverable.

It’s a small consolation to know: I can never be hurt like that again.

Time has healed the wound. But the scars run too deep for anyone else to reach my soul.

Except one.

What losses have you experienced?

💬 Reply to this email and share your thoughts or stories. I read every word. And I truly want to know.

Remember:Finite Heartbeats. Infinite Possibilities.

Thank you for enjoying this issue of Opening The Box. It's an honor to share my treasure with you. Please become a subscriber...I sincerely welcome paid subscribers, but a subscription is free. Paid subscribers will unlock bonus letters, stories from readers and listeners, behind-the-scenes reflections, and the insider's journey behind the romance of a lifetime. Every subscription helps me keep The Box open. With gratitude, Mary

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