Unsent letters

May 19th, 2024

Dearest gentle reader, 

*screams in a very unladylike piggly manner

In case you've not heard, it's Bridgerton season. Did you really think I was going to let the bane of my existence¹ pass by so uneventfully? 

 I've finally gotten the Polin ship I've been so desperately waiting for. I know some of you are watching the show for the smut  plot but some of us are interested in something more than Colin's abs (I prefer his eyes tbh). Lust aside, some of us learnt something other than sexual tension from this series and I shall be making the show deeper than it actually is. This lust must clear from your eyes in Jesus name.

I honestly don’t understand the hate on this ship. There are so many lessons from this season. Maybe it's because I understand Penelope’s complex character  but…walk with me.

 I'll be honest, I would ordinarily not ship Penelope and Colin together. I know it sounds like blasphemy (even to me) but hear me out. 

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be an unsent letter? To be a collection of a thousand unsaid words and to just keep collecting feelings as the years roll by, desperately loving someone that will never see you? Penelope is the perfect definition of an unsent letter. She's such a sad character. She spent years watching herself expire² and staying so hopelessly in love with a man completely clueless about her feelings. 

Do you know what being unseen does to a person? It leaves them with a tired kind of resignation and they slowly begin to fade into nothingness. They can't move on but they can't stay because there's no place for them. So they just float above the ton, in corners and crevices (pun intended). It makes a person question their sense of self, self-worth and makes them begin to fear the power of their own delusions. 

‘How can I still be horribly in love with this person when I know for certain that it's never going to work out?’

I'm not even surprised that she became Lady whistledown – the number one gossip distributor in London. I relate to Penelope so much and I understand why she does what she does. It's like starting an anonymous blog because you're the school reject and the only place you can be yourself is on paper.

This is not the fairytale you think it is. Girl is silently in love for years and boy finally decides to see her.  They live happily ever after, yay.

No, not really. They don't. Here's why;

Moving on from unrequited love is hard especially when the object of your affections is not aware that you love them. For those that never move on, after enough time has passed, you realize that you're powerless and that you cannot expel the love from your body so you just let it be with a quiet resignation that it is never going to go away.

Hope is a horrible emotion, yes but the real disaster is what happens when hope dies. 

Having the one you love come to you after all of that dying is not a dream come true. You begin to question everything. Why now, after all this time?

It's like someone handing you a basket of golden eggs that you've wanted for so long but you’ve given up on ever getting. You will be ultimately afraid they'll break if you drop them. It is the kind of love that has damaged you so irrevocably, you cannot possibly believe they are in love with you. You're not even sure how you're supposed to love them or if they can withstand the weight of your love.

Penelope will be half in and half out (he has no idea she's whistledown) but because it's not real life, it'll all work out in the end.

In real life though, nothing good comes out of tired love and pretending to be someone you think someone wants. 

 Penelope is so beautifully complicated. Of all the characters in the Bridgerton universe, she has the most depth. Anyway, nothing good can come from tired love except you're Penelope Featherington (soon to be Bridgerton).

*giggles

There are so many more lessons. This newsletter was supposed to be about something I learned about Colin but here we are, I love wallflowers a little too much. There's one from Eloise too but the matter go too long if I start. Same time next week?

If you don't get my Bridgerton references, sorry not sorry, go and watch the most beautiful regency romance franchise ever created. Why are you alive if you haven't seen Bridgerton ehn, fine boy?

Go and fix up.

Love/hate, 

Gbemi (Colin’s second wife).

1. I love you if you get the reference

2. I felt like such a whistledown when I typed ‘expire’