A month ago I told you that I wanted to be friends. I can't do this anymore. I really want to be a positive force in both your life and mine, but we are not friends. You did not wish me a happy birthday, and for that reason I am hurt. I am also hurt by your lack of effort. And so I am angry. Today when we met to take a walk I was pleasantly surprised by our matching floral shirts and jean jackets and jeans combination, and I was pleased by our silence. I was happy to just be around you. Still, the play doh in my hands never rested. I was constantly kneading it because I needed it to calm my nerves. Today I wanted to tell you that we weren't friends. But I had trouble letting go.
I wanted to know that I could try, and that it could work if we wanted it to. But you do not give me anything of value to look forward to in a friendship. I want to sit and watch youtube videos, or drive around and sing with you. I want to stay up late at night and ask you about the stars and life away from this earth. You were so much more to me than a boyfriend. You were my best friend, and you were my best friend because we could talk about anything. Now I say nothing. I didn't tell you about the tattoo I've considered getting, or the way I want to cut my hair. I didn't say anything about my dinner tomorrow night with a man who may very well influence my career for the rest of my life. I didn't because, even though these are incredible events, I didn't feel compelled to compete with you. I tried to figure out if you were hurting too, or if there's something you wanted to say behind your words. If there was something there behind the silences, but I think ultimately we've run out of things to say to one another. I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss the things we used to do every day. I know we can have that again if we try. But that's the difference between moving on, and growth.
I don't think moving on from a relationship means you're stronger. I think moving on from a relationship allows you to feel settled with problems that could have been solved if you stayed. I wanted to be friends so I could improve on the things that I should for the next relationship and I don't believe that two people need to fall out of love and be distant with one another. I don't feel like that has to be the case. You can still care and value one another and put in the same kind of effort-- but Pam says, that effort has to be reserved for when you're married. So where do I channel my effort now? Civility.
We aren't friends. I wish we were or we could be. But I am too hurt by you and too angry with you to be your friend in any way right now. I love you and I forgive you for the break up. But forgiveness, as I have learned, does not need to hurt me in the process. Now I choose to love myself and "erase myself from the narrative." I refuse to be a comet who comes only into orbit to remind you of why you are wrong and why you have hurt me. From here on out I will be a star who shines with love from afar and constantly wants to support you.
I do love you. I loved you every moment of the concerts this past weekend, and I loved you on my birthday last Tuesday when you did not say a word to me. I am done telling you that I love you. I just want you to know that. I want you to know that I love you and always will, but trying to be friends with you has made me hate you for everything that you never will be and for everything that you could.
Be your best, kick some ass, have the best life. And when you look up at the stars at night, think about me. Think about how happy I am for you that the world is brighter and more beautiful and that your future is unlimited. If you want to reach out and tell me about any of those things too, please do. That's what a friend is for. And I so desperately want to be your friend, but I feel no friendship. I only feel reservation and hesitation.You may not recognize that you put this forward, but your courtesy is not friendship. I think we are both hoping a genuine friendship comes out of it but I don't believe it can or will. I will continue to love and support you on every step of your journey. I'll come to every show and performance and wish you well, in my head.
I miss you and I love you more than I wish I did, but I need to say goodbye to you and this is so hard. I told you it would be hard to be friends with you, but that the hardest things are the most worth having. Tonight I say goodbye and it's even harder to let go of this illusion that we can hold onto each other. But that's what it is, an illusion. We're going to grow up and have already begun growing apart. Even so, I wish you the best of luck and so much happiness. Please remember how much you mean to me when you see me in the dining hall, or clapping at the end of a concert. Please remember that I'll always be your #2 fan (because how can I compete with your mom). Please remember that I will never give up on you or your dreams and that you can do anything. Please remember that this is the hardest goodbye I've ever made. Because how do you say goodbye to someone you love? Really? Truly? Forever? We have tried and tried and failed time and time again to evade this reality. But that's why it's called reality. Thank you for teaching me so much about animals, and music. Thank you for truly making me laugh. Thank you for encouraging me to try new foods, and to be vulnerable with someone. I wanted to learn from you and with you every day. I wanted to love you every day. But I can't anymore. If you aren't cringing reading this I hope you're crying. I hope you feel the dropping sensation in your stomach because this is actually the end. I hope every positive step towards recovery that you've made has fallen out from under you and your heart is sinking. Because that's how I feel in this moment.
I'm in a place now where things will go back to "normal" tomorrow, because we don't talk every day, or every week, or ever really. Tomorrow I'll wake up and your phone number (which I still have memorized) will be erased from my phone and I'll hate myself for finally remembering the last two digits are a 4 and a 9. Tomorrow I'll go to my classes and then to a sound check for Dr. Willingham's lecture. Then I'll go out to dinner and be my charming self for a few hours and for a fraction of a second feel happy. But when I come home after the talk is done, and I sit staring at my computer screen and social psychology notes I will feel sad because the one person I want to see at the end of the day I never will see again. Saying goodbye means that I will be sad. But at least I won't be angry anymore.
I wrote you several poems while we were together, but I think the best one I've ever written about you was written after we broke up. Once upon a time, when I thought it was possible, I wanted to ask you to turn it into a song with me because I thought it was a work of genius. Now I see it for what it is: angry. I am letting go of this anger now, but I want to share the poem still.
Molted
I called him
Lizard at first as a joke
Because he
wore a coat, a fur lined coat, on a sixty-degree day.
I called him
Lizard because of his wide set, expectant, eyes and the way he blinked several
times when I got his attention.
I called him
Lizard because of the sounds he slurped with the flicking of his tongue when he
ran out of words, which was unbearably often.
But he told me
that he loved me and I believed him.
As they
mature, lizards shed their skin, and slowly
We became naked
together.
We basked in
the heat of that moment.
It burned the
soft skin on my neck so that it all peeled off and I was vulnerable just like
him
Except I
couldn’t grow scales that would harden and protect me from
When December
came and his feet went cold.
Growing new skin itches.
I try to
conceal the scar and let my flesh grow back stronger and tougher
But I scratch
it again and again
Because
ultimately my open wound tells a story
And I would
rather have scabs than scales.
My burn wound from the curling iron is no longer hot to the touch. It is still red, but the skin is mostly healed. I think it's time I do the same with my heart. Goodbye, ex boyfriend.
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