I’ve been feeling pretty uncertain about how this was going to end up, there are a few things I’ve wanted to write out of my system for a while but felt the timing was off, or I was too distracted, or was too mentally exhausted and chaotic to give it a fair attempt. Instead of clarity I expected word loops and chaos. I wanted to respond to the thing on obligations, I wanted to piece together the mess that was Scottsdale (my internal mess), and some other stuff.. and I waited. I’ve had a month to process, and ignore, then process a little bit more, then ignore again. I guess I wanted to see what would stick or what I’d still be fighting myself with over since I started making those adjustments. They don’t look that different on the surface even if the perspectives have shifted. We are stuck in habits, we find comfort in established patterns, even the ones that harm us in the long run. When I couldn’t focus on one task and got overwhelmed I buried myself in something else. I burnt through homework until I broke something there and got the resume thing done I avoided for the last two weeks. I still haven’t been able to study (nothing is clicking) so I try addressing something else that’s been on the back burner, and that isn’t happening so I wound up back here on this page. I haven’t felt this overwhelmed in a long time. This particular holding pattern is bad. Maybe getting on the plane will help, maybe it’ll compound these anxieties.
Obligations:
I can admit the first time I read through I probably took it the wrong way than what you meant out of self preservation, that might not be the right way to put it. Self defense? I know what obligation is, my life is ruled by it, it always has been. I always (half) joke around about not wanting to deal with obligations but I will always fulfill any commitments I make to the best of my ability. I had to read it again, and then a third time. So what I understood was your prior obligation being upheld to your mother, that was never questioned. And I also get you needed to focus on her while she was in your company, I was just trying to figure out what was going on in a couple texts. What I didn’t understand, was your obligation to me. I’ve learned over time that I have to word things just right with you to get the information I’m requesting, and even then I’m only successful part of the time. Because you were not receptive to me over text, I thought you were rescinding your invitation for me to come back. I did not realize you considered that arrangement to be an obligation, so I didn’t know it was still an option for me. And I was going to try and make an attempt to push through the night but I did need to own up and rest. I hope you understand that you were not obligated to let me sleep when I already offered to take you to the airport. Sleeping in did help, but I didn’t mind getting up and seeing you off. I could have come back after. It’s not even a big deal now. I guess some rules can have exceptions if people are willing to specify them. I don’t sleep much already, my patterns are very inconsistent, so I guess that might play partially into why I never minded you waking me up. Or our time was always so limited, I felt I could sleep later when you weren’t around. But that’s just on my side, just because I’m okay being woken up doesn’t mean I want to wake you up at 3am because I want attention. I mean I’ve woken up at 3am wanting attention but didn’t act on it. I want you to sleep, you’ve probably been ill half the times we’ve seen each other in the last year because life has been running you into the ground for so long. So I wanted you to rest, and I wanted to provide a calm and comfortable setting for you, I think I’ve even said something like this before. I’m going on a tangent regarding obligation. Once I got my head out of my ass and stopped making it about how I perceive things, I had a better understanding of your side.
Down the rabbit hole:
I think I’ve mentioned previously how I’m partial to a specific substance for fun, and tend to avoid another because it’s difficult. And it’s not only difficult because it’s physically uncomfortable, but it’s hard because it forces you to address major issues in your life whether you’re ready or not, whether you’ve even admitted to their existence or not. I’ve been aware of these issues and haven’t been able to come up with a satisfactory answer which is why after all the jerking back and forth I decided I wanted to let it cycle out over time. Instead of fighting for any outcome, just let it play out and accept it, whatever it is. So while staying the night with friends and enjoying food and random videos off the internets, my friends shared the substance I associate with fun that they had procured earlier. It’s literally been years, which is what I kept reminding myself when I felt excessively heavy and stuck to the couch, when I felt off, when my mind started to wander in directions I wanted to ignore. We watched adult swim, we got into conversational loops about poor Steven (god I still need to tie that conversation up), and for the first time I experienced food in this state. I’ve been too scared to eat previously, or had never thought about it. I stick to water and I’m good. But they brought out peanut butter, and that was the best fucking creamy peanut butter ever. And they had some cookie dough spread? I forgot. But I distinctly remember asking if they’d tried the stuff before while they were sober and they said no, and I was all okay are we trying this again later while sober to compare? That conversation never concluded either. Eventually they retired to bed sometime early in the morning and I was alone in the living room letting Netflix roll through Glitter Force. I don’t know how many episodes I saw, I still don’t know what that’s about, but I know I hate the dub voice acting. I feel like they’re trying to rip off Magic Knight Rayearth’s aesthetic too.
Hard lessons:
I was slowly and steadily going in this direction, but once I was alone that substance shifted gears and filled in as a substitute for the other item I’d been avoiding. As an atheist it’s probably the closest I will ever get to as a shamanistic experience. I wasn’t ready to subject my brain to relentlessly fight through this puzzle, and I’m glad I at least got partially through the mental work before this point. I cried so much, I ugly cried, and it was quiet and painful and bitter and cathartic. My eyes were so red I thought I legitimately ruptured a blood vessel in my eye. I started writing to you intermittently in a notepad on my phone, it’s a lot of nonsense that makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time. It’s an unfiltered stream of consciousness way too big to copy here… I’d considered dropping it into it’s own thing but I’ll just sound even more psychotic. Somewhere in there I asked if you ended up listening to Michelle Branch all day after I dropped you off. I trailed off and wrote to my sister a little bit (goth mom’s daughter) since no one has heard from her. I tried distracting myself to finally start falling asleep by watching OUAT on my friend’s Netflix and they left off on season 1 episode 9, and then I wrote that these circumstances felt like season 1 episode 10.
Then Ram made a post online that seemed so normal for him but still so far out there I wondered what state of mind he was in, and I PM’d him making a comment about it. Old problems that hadn’t been entirely resolved hurt my stomach when I reached out to him. I privately wrote “to the person at 8:33AM, I have moved on. I have no bad blood with you. I had my shared time with you, and I have nothing left to contribute here. I wish you well.” He never saw that. But after a couple minutes of small talk I explained how he was one of very few whose actually seen me in this state, and how because the first substance was defaulting to the second, I was stuck in a loop and my brain was trying to solve problems. He said he got the gestalt of it, though he was sure my loop was different from his and what he was working through. Then he thanked me for altering him to the fact that he was becoming a shitty person before he became a way shittier person. I told him I thought a lot of it was exacerbated due to the manipulation from a 3rd party neither of us associated with anymore, and that it was long enough ago that it’s a non issue, especially if he gained some insight from it. I told him I felt like I finally made peace with him and had to go back to that puzzle to make peace with the man who currently held my heart. And then he said he felt like he just let out a breath he’d been holding for 3 years. And I felt the same. We continued discussing insight and he said I was still in the top 10 smartest people he knew. And I immediately said that was a lot of credit, too much credit. And strangely a couple days prior another friend had said something similar. Both of these friends who said these things, I hold in high regard, so it was very surreal for them to disclose how much they respected me in that way, and the timing was weird. He called me out for impostor syndrome, funny enough the other friend who said I was one of the smartest people they knew also mentioned impostor syndrome.
I hadn’t had a heart-to-heart with Ram in years, and I thought it was funny that he was giving me credit for being smart when I was thanking him for giving me an example of when to put something on the back burner until the other party was willing to catch up on their own time, and only if it was ever worth it for them to inquire in the future. Since this is kind of what happened here. This come down was so hard and emotionally turbulent. This was the longest experience I’d ever had and the usual tricks I used to sleep through the rocky bits at the end weren’t working. I ended up chain smoking some of the medicine I had on me and instead of drifting off to sleep I had the opposite effect and took a couple steps further from reality. I explained that I was coming to terms that even if I’m sad right now, it’s okay that I got to this point. And if you don’t catch up to where I am, I can’t force it, because the “when” doesn’t matter. If our timelines never line up in the end, it’s okay. If you ever wanted to revisit the conversation with me I’d be open for discussion when you’re ready, but until then I have to archive that piece of my life. I want you to succeed, I want you to pursue happiness no matter how long it takes you to figure it out, and whether I’m there or not. I am selfish because I want you to do it in a timeline where we are still feasible. That’s not how this works. I’m so heartbroken you’re not going to get there until after I’m gone. I just know that’s how this is going to work. But what really matters here is you make it… not when.
I explained how I understood I couldn’t force you to make jumps you weren’t ready for, and how as much as I wanted to be your strength when you felt things weren’t possible, I was overstepping. There are some things I can’t do on your behalf no matter how much I want to. I explained how I’d told you that I thought you were the one, and that I would be honored to take your name. I never said anything remotely like that to Jay, deep down I knew I couldn’t. And Ram said “Wow. Yeah, that’s very unlike the you that you’ve built to stay safe.” And I knew that it went against everything I’d safeguarded against since that damage, which is probably good, but it was so terrifying, because I love you that much. He said he was super proud of me or finding the courage to go there. I think this is more credit being given than is due again. He said people only change in crisis, or when no one is watching. You will do this when no one is watching. I am selfish because I want you to get there with me in your life. I want you to fight for us because I know the desire is there. But my courage alone isn’t enough so this is where it goes on the back burner. We talked about loops and how people break them or get trapped in them. We talked about how I was caught up in a few years ago, and more recently, about how Jay is sadly at the point of no return even though I’d hoped he would have gotten better after me. I understand that you are being held emotionally hostage, I understand her patterns, and I see yours too. Your cogs are locked and it’s up to you to fix it, or you will be a prisoner of your own patterns even after she’s gone. This was so easy to compare to Madoka, it’s like watching you turn into a witch and I want to stop you but I can’t because it’s your fight. I am demon Homura, and I will do reckless and terrible things for love and I will suffer in the present while carefully wrapping and holding hope for a happy future safely in my heart. I have that courage today. He pointed out how I didn’t always have that back then, and he also mentioned how he felt like I’d been here before. I had been, but on the other side, which is why this has looked so familiar and foreign at different times. You’re not ready to burn your world down even if it’s a dismal place, I know you feel like you don’t deserve better. I know that you do love me, but you won’t be able to take steps towards me while you hate yourself. That’s the part you’d have to let go of. I can love you even if you’re holding on to this, but I know it’s not enough to sustain anything.
Loneliness:
This is a huge issue I have always struggled with and I know some of this is from having an isolated childhood, and because reasons. Since I was a teenager, I hadn’t really been alone until I was 25, so I forced myself to remain single for a year, and celibacy happened, and a year passed and I was fine to remain alone. I wanted to make sure that when I entered a relationship in the future, I would do it without motive, and I would do it for myself and that person, not because I was trying to fill some void. I will never enter into a relationship just because I am lonely. I’ve seen too many people chronically jump between relationships because they’re lonely and destroy themselves while destroying others. I got used to the silence, the sting and panic eventually became a dull ache that was just there. And I think this is what made me think I must be an extrovert, because I suffered chronic loneliness. But then I learned ambivert was a thing and that felt more fitting. I want to be around people I like more often, but I’ve grown very selective over who I choose to keep company with over the years. Social anxiety and large crowds are just as terrible as silence so loud you can’t even think. I hate not having a routine with an office to break things up. I spend more time in isolation now, and I don’t care for it but I’m starting to hate it less.
After I met you, the loneliness I took years to acclimate to became unbearable again. That’s not entirely your fault. I was usually sick for about a week after you’d leave. I cried every time your plane took off. I was miserable and wasn’t trying to advertise it, but wasn’t putting any effort into hiding it either. I let myself go those weeks after, I just had no idea anyone else noticed. The loneliness I always had and learned to manage, and the loneliness I had from your absence compounded and made both worse. I couldn’t tell when one or the other was eating at me and just started assuming both. I finally started separating the two and understanding when I was generally missing interactions. There are some days like today where I felt like I’ve been severely deprived of physical touch, and I want that from you. I wanted to send you a pic when my hair was being all floofy today, or the one I took for Halloween, I miss you and want to see you too. I want to harass you for pictures of the conference, or for pictures of you, or for pictures of you at the conference. At least in the last couple months I’ve been better at compartmentalizing when I’m sad because I need to see people and can manage it, or when I’m sad because I miss you and I can just allow it to roll through until it’s dulled a little, and hope it stays that way for a while bit before it picks up again. This is so fucking long and I’m doing this as a one shot, this is mentally trimmed down.. I can’t even type everything, and I don’t even want to know how bad the typos are but I’m not checking. I’ve had this inside for a while, I just want to keep typing until I don’t feel anything anymore, or at least feel less. Forcing myself to stay away from you is like Buffy trying to stay away from Angel. And even when there’s silence, we can’t stop thinking about our Angel. This is kinda funny because last week at a group sushi lunch we were discussing Joss Whedon’s works and when we jumped from Firefly to Buffy I said I was all about that Buffy + Angel life and when a friend was all oh yeah? I said yeah, the slayer falls in love with a vampire. Story of my life. Fuck.
