Tag: friendships

Dedicated to someone

A year ago today, you told me that you loved me, and I said the same. I was surprised that I was brave enough to admit it aloud to you and myself.

Now, you haven’t talked to me in several months, and denied me any access to reaching out. I was very depressed and confused about this at first, but I think I understand now. My love is very intense, as is my trust and reliance in you. It can be very intimidating and overwhelming. You cherish it sometimes, but other times it is too much for you to bear. You don’t have all the answers, you can’t mend the source of my upset into a tidy, compact package of resolution, and neither could I with your problems. But I admitted it. You sometimes get tongue-tied and feel neglected, but aren’t honest enough to admit when I intimidate you. I wish you could, and you worked on it for a while, but it seems you’ve given up once more. At least as it relates to me. I hope you can develop the decency to be transparent in all your other relationships.

The distance is also a pain. I’m sorry for seeking your captivation at unusual hours when you are unwilling to entertain my banter. Again, please tell me when you are uninterested in talking. I would understand.

I hope we meet again one day and are able to talk cordially and kindly like we used to. I know you want me to forget you and move on, but I still love you. But I recognize the burden my love may bring. I know it’s a lot to process, but please know that I don’t say it to pressure you into confronting it now. I just say it out of my heart. You, of course, are still unsure. You don’t seem to know where exactly you want to reside, what exactly you want your career to be, or how exactly you want to care for your emotional wellbeing. Please take some time to discover yourself. I love you always. Good luck and God bless you. Happy new year.

Sometimes I wonder why you rebuke me.

Maybe it is truly because I am a terrible shrew who whines and curses too much and does not acknowledge boundaries.

Other times I think you try your best to be horrible to me to prove a point. You want me to cry and try to write/speak in rapid succession to you, apologizing again and explaining myself again, just to confirm to yourself that you are not worthy of love.

Confirming that you know how to undermine people and question their friendship and loyalty does not confirm that you are unworthy of love.

You’ve hurt me a lot, but I’m not ready to give up. You’ve tried to get me to give up time and time again. You may think you have finally succeeded during my current bout of direct non- communication, but you haven’t. I am just recouping and trying to find my bravery again. I have the stamina.

I don’t think you truly want to cut me off. You just don’t know how to react to my episodes sometimes, but I’ve been working on limiting them, and you’ve been working on telling me when they bother you (directly). We also have different ideas of problem-solving, and I think we are both a little too stuck in our ways in that respect. We could learn something from each other.

I’d love to get back in touch. I don’t know who will initiate it. I am the wordsmith, but you are methodical and much braver than I. I’ve thought about it, but my energy just isn’t there yet. If yours is, great. I will listen as long as you speak gently.

I love you and I miss you.

Please see me.

I want someone to reach out and stop this hiatus. I’ve been too emotional to do anything about it. I’ve really wanted to stay in touch, across multiple media, even the postal service. I bought three beautiful books of international forever stamps. I gave you some of my address stickers. I’m never awake at the right time to apologize in real time, for I know that’s the best way to reconcile. And not just in real time, but in real time at normal, daytime hours. I think part of the reason we argued last time is because it was an odd hour, maybe 3 or 4am where you were, and I just kept chatting idly.

I recently got back in touch with someone. Someone who I cared about more than I should have, and someone whose actions made me very emotional, confused, and upset. But that’s subsided now, and I think we are back to the better chemistry we used to have. But this happened after two and half long years without talking. While when we’ve written one another, it doesn’t seem like time passed much, and in the grand scheme of things, I guess it hasn’t, I still want us to patch up things much sooner than that connection. While this connection is a mentor/older sibling relationship, I feel our relationship is even more important.

We are supportive. We help one another professionally, academically, and emotionally. You make me laugh, and you know to treat servicers with respect and acknowledge the talents that go into even the most menial labor. I regret treating you as less than a friend. I regret cussing and yelling at you about my problems and stress. I regret always trying to speak and be as verbose as possible to get myself out of trouble.

I hope one day we can pick up where we left off. I think of you often, and despite your pleas and my own curiosity, I haven’t found any replacement. Truth be told, befriending, networking and dating are exhausting. I’m often unfriendly and give off the wrong impression. Sometimes though, I am friendly or honest, and this is met with disrespect. You are one of the few who hadn’t shifted into wantonness at the expense of my niceties, and that’s something I love about you. That’s something that I know will take a long time to replicate in anyone else I meet.

Please see me, and please forgive me.

Talking in circles

Part of the Isolation Journals, Day 91.

Around and around. I think we’re in good graces again. I explain my rationale, you accept it and realize that we reason differently. Neither of us meant harm. We apologize to one another. We go on again as normal for a while, then it creeps up again. My mistake enters your conscience once more and you lash at me for it. I say sorry again, but I’m unsure if you’ve absorbed it. You still scold me. I explain again why I sinned, but you can’t grasp it. You give up, or you press me to forget you. I don’t want to. I didn’t think you did either. But this time, you blocked me.

Is this on two different social media? You viewed one profile recently, but I’m unsure if I would even know you did if I were blocked. I am too nervous to make amends. I’m too nervous to visit any of your profiles. Why would you do this when we are so far apart? You told me we would stay in touch while you moved away, but for the past month, we haven’t. You told me we’d still be in frequent contact. You told me you weren’t done with me and never would be. Why does that always change? Why do you give up so easily? Friendships are about growing, arguing and changing. But you are scared every time that happens. Debate and strife is bound to happen. Stop disowning everyone at any small vignette. Take it in stride.

I was supportive, attentive, charming, thoughtful, funny…a superstar. Now I’m terrible. I’m rude, selfish, and I let you down. I’m so tired of being one or the other and your attitude being so hot-and-cold. It’s so polar and there are too many extremes and too many mood swings. I was so relieved when I heard this criticism from a mutual friend, but really…should I have been? If you were married, you’d just get divorced. If you were an identity thief, you’d become an informant. If you were in a cult, you could quit. In so many of my other fantastical anxieties I have of new people, there was a simpler path to improvement. But your actual dark side fluctuates, and isn’t as simple as being divorced, testified, or shunned.

But I empathize. I’m no emotional extremist, but I am depressed and anxious, clinically, but not all-encompassingly so. My dark side fluctuates as well. Marilyn Monroe supposedly philosophized “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” I don’t believe you’ve seen my worst, and maybe that’s because I’m such a centrist, unlike the bipolar Marilyn. My nuanced take is, “If you can’t handle me at my worse times, you don’t deserve me at my better times.” And it’s fine if you want to retreat away from me after my worse times until you can regain the energy to see my better times. I’d love to see you again, and I know I can get even better, and you can, too. We can’t completely rid our worse selves, but we can work to weaken them. “For better or worse” is not applied to marriage vows because it’s an exclusive concept towards matrimony, but because this is often a new chapter of life for people and it must be reiterated in all we do. Please don’t give up. I dearly hope you see this.