Letters I'll Never Send

Is anything truly your fault? I understand why everyone says you can never take blame. I’m sad that I am you.

You never fail to keep breaking my heart.
I know you are searching, doing anything to numb the pain and I want to help so much. But you are dangerous right now. First steps have to be yours alone.
This ends badly, you know. Right or wrong, these people live a life of commitment. Youve never really commited to anything ever. Me, your kids, your job, your husbands. Nothing. What happens when they see through you? What happens when they find a new plaything?
You DO need to commit to something but this isnt it.
Please dont let me see you in the mugshots or the obits.
There is SO much more and better waiting on you in life. I will never stop believing that for you. YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN THIS. I wish i could do more than pray and wait.

I can’t take this anymore.
I am in love with you.
Please come back.

I don’t know how to get over you.

I don’t know how to forgive you.

I can’t forget.

And it’s been years, and it still hurts.

I have lots of happiness in my life, but that part of me that was for you is still here.

It’s the powerful emotion I’ve ever felt, all of it in relation to you.

You never gave me closure. You never helped me make sense of it. Of all the years. To this day I don’t know what your intentions were.

So many years of you, and so many years after you, I still feel you, like there’s some connection I can’t explain.

I fear you. I love you. I can’t hate you but sometimes in the quiet moments I’m still angry enough to feel the glow of hurt rage.

How could you? How could you? Did you mean to? Did you know? Do you feel it now? Remorse? Or was it always the intention?

It’s not just the heartache that makes it so hard, it’s the process of recovery and healing from the actions, the actions that only you and I know.

I feel part of it is that you won’t let me move on, everytime I get so far there’s a new reminder, by you, from you, and if not that it’s from the ether.

You left me so wounded I don’t think I can love again. I feel like that part of me is dead.

There is more to life than, I know, but in the quiet moments, I try to put it all together and none of it ever makes any sense at all….

I don’t know where to go with this, I can’t go to you, I can only run from you, but it hurts me so. You wanted to avenge me because I wouldn’t commit? Or you just wanted to hurt me for the sake of? What on earth did you expect? Why can’t you take ownership? Do you still think like you did then? That everything was my fault?

There’s a part of me that when it comes to you that really is completely crazy, sometimes the moments hit me,
memories like a video and in my home on my own I feel the same stab in my heart and I fall to the floor. Not metaphorically. Really.

How do you heal when the love of your life went out of there way to destroy you? When you only had love to give, as imperfect as it was? And I’ll never know why?

I know I wasn’t clear. I know I wasn’t open about my feelings, but I tried to be. Maybe my cavalier masquerade was some part of me knowing something from the future. The future that is now the past that I have to at all costs protect myself from. I know after a certain point I wasn’t even sane anymore. I don’t feel good about that; there was only so much I could take. I still feel you. And it hurts so bad.

I can’t remember what I said last post, just that it mentions love.
But why I am sorry is a push too far with the stupid jokes.
When first we met there were things you said and did made me believe, maybe if i were younger and single and free, we would have a chance, like “if i asked you out i’d just say where we were going”
To which you said “If YOU asked me i wouldn’t say n…….er forget that, nothing”
Or telling me secret desires, sharing difficulties and so forth.

But i guess the “reasons/excuses” are valid.
The sad thing is whilst i accepted that we wouldn’t ever be together, i did want to matter, i did love you and went over the top to show it.
What happened then was, you grew cold and distant. So in a stupid attempt to matter, i was nicer, over bearing.
Some i did not see, but in a different way you wouldnt either, remember when we first met, it wasnt me coming to you, it would be you coming over saying, how are you, coming over?
You came to me, you talked to me.
I realise now that was because i WAS a really good friend, so you DID love me, you DID love being around me.
If i wasn’t a moron i would have seen it sooner.
So i was a total tool and and tried harder to matter when i already did, it was a pure accident me talking over you, interrupting or taking over conversations with others, i was genuinely interested and wasn’t trying to block them from you or anything like that, but in the context of “He really really likes me” you probably suspected how much and got scared, so you eased off the pedal. I get it now.
What i want, is not changed, well actually it has. I accept i wont be with you, even if i became single and other things changed, that ship has sailed by my own doing, i mean i could have lied to you in the beginning an then…well no way on earth would i betray you and what you are, so i wouldnt even though the reasons were obvious before i even told you about or you discovered them.

But now, i am open eyed, if i can, i want back what i had, the friend love you offered, the way you too used to be happy to see me, you too wanted to come to me.
I would promise anything and stick to that promise to earn the friendship where you would want to be around me, and felt safe and trusted me.
Well hopefully you still trust me and feel safe but you know what i mean.
So i intend to say hi, smile, be normal nice and when i see you, just be like, hey im here, if you wanna catch up, come see me, if not, no sweat.
If i am lucky, and maybe i f’d it up too bad, but if i am lucky, you will truly forgive me being such a blind idiot and we get back to where we were.
You know if you should stumble on this, that i am dead serious now and then when i said in your life is better than not, i will NEVER push you for anything romantic, and anyway they were stupid jokes because i trust you, when i said, if you change your feelings tell me, i trust that you would.
I was just stupid to keep making a joke that clearly went too far too long.
I really do mean this apology because i see it now from how you used to be, that the friendship i want from you, you gave to me for free, literally you showed me a love and happiness in seeing me that made me feel more special than many others, like i was your number 1 friend.
That did not lead me on by the way, i am not that stupid.
And it was only today i realised if i love you, then you matter not me.
So to make you feel bad, awkward, sad, because if you liked me and were thinking i dont want to hurt him, but i have to not be friends or else he gets the wrong idea……well i am a total ass for putting you there.
I think it will take time to make you feel right again, or maybe it wont, but my only goal is that position i was in before, or at least to how it felt, you felt totally at ease around me, you felt you could rely on me to have your back, and you thoroughly enjoyed my company and yea like i said, i did feel you liked me more than many others.
That should be enough but obviously you are dealing with a fool here.
Well fool has learned his lesson.
No more overtures, i mean i am not saying i wont EVER say a nice thing about you, but the good thing is, you know, you know because i already told you so i dont need to say how i feel for you, i dont need to tell you how you make me feel, you know it, so it is literally like a friend knows someone cares and respects them, and they are someone elses no1. So whilst i may say hey nice hair, or you look nice at some point in the future, there wont be any “hey beautiful” although i never did that. I wont tell you how happy you make me, i will not be overly nice, just normal me.
I will happily be there for you for anything YOU want to talk about, which if its a boyfriend i can deal with that and my interest is you being happy so totally feel free there.
I will be quieter with others around so you dont think im blocking them out, i will leave it to you to come to me, most of the time, like maybe occasionally i will come to you but in general you dictate the contact, and if i am a super lucky idiot, then you will allow me to stay in touch when you go off on travels, and you will be happy seeing me when you get back.
If i behave as i should, then i get to hear how you are, and maybe once in a blue moon ill get a spontaneous message from you saying how you doing or just a stupid joke, that is more than enough for me. I count myself grateful to be in your life still and i swear to you i will not f’ it up this time, you said you forgive me so i will earn my friend back and be a good better one than the idiot i have been, thank you for forgiving me, thank you for not kicking me to the road, i dont deserve this chance but as you have given it, i will not make you regret the chance to just be my friend again like you were to begin with.
Thank you for listening. Now, i’m parched, go make me a coffee please.JK

I love you so much. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to give you what you deserve because you are so AMAZING!!!! Beautiful, funny, smart, everything I’ve ever wanted and so much more. Sometimes it intimidates me how perfect you are and how can I ever make and keep you happy forevermore forever? But I know that our love is powerful, and it makes me want to be so much better for you. For all my failings, you know what, I chose pretty well who to love. Maybe it won’t be the way either of us wanted, but, someday, if we’re together, isn’t that all that matters?

Living recklessly, she said to me

You won’t need a real job (She said to me)
You won’t need a real job
Because I would love to pay for you (Pay for me, pay for me, yeah)
You could be a good man to me (I could do that, yup, I could do that)
I would love to pay for you
You are made for me

You have to forgive me.
Why?
Because you love me too.

Dear Mom,

The last time we spoke, we got into a fight. I wanted you to sign some papers transferring control over your affairs to me, and you didn’t want to. I remember saying something like, ‘don’t come to me next time you need something’, then hung up, screamed FUCK as loud as I could and then just got up and left my office and went home. Not long after you were getting rushed to the ER, went into a coma. I got to see your lifeless body one more time before we pulled the plug, thought I could make some peace with things. But how do you reconcile knowing that that fight was the last straw for you, that you gave up fighting after that. You’d battled so bravely through so much, surpassed every prognostication and lived to see all the goals you set out for yourself, to see some of the seminal moments in your children’s lives. After being absent nearly the entire time of your sickness, never really doing anything for you if it inconvenienced me in the slightest, after being terrible to you most of the time before you got sick, my final act was to deprive you of whatever small will you had left to live. I didn’t kill you, but I might as well have.

And what was I so angry about? That you couldn’t motivate yourself to get out of your situation and make a new life for yourself before it was too late? After you died, I fell into your situation, and guess what, I didn’t do a damn thing either. I never once thought, while you were alive, how hard it is to dispose of your entire life, start over from scratch, when you’re alone all the time, nobody wants to spend time with you or really help you, nobody wants to talk to you unless they want something. No one appreciates what you do for them, they just take it as an indication of what to expect in the future. And my situation isn’t even 1% as bad as yours, between the financial security I used to have, all the treatments you were getting, and COVID lockdowns that made my isolation not seem so bad. But even from Heaven I believe this has been you teaching me a lesson, because there’s so many days I don’t even want to get out of bed, and I know you must have felt like that a lot too.

I can’t tell you where the last 3 years went. I can’t tell you what I’ve done during that time, or where all my money went. I’ve just been drunk, or hi, or both, pretty much every minute of every day since you died. Every day I wake up, I can feel my life is a little bit less than it was the day before. My chances of ever having the life I wanted grow a little smaller. I never understood how much I relied on you until it was too late. I never appreciated how all the kind words and positivity you sent in my direction bolstered me to get through all the difficulties of life. I would give anything to have one more day with you, to tell you how sorry I am and how much I have learned from you since you passed.

I could live the rest of my life atoning, in my own way, for what a failure I was to you and I just feel like generally. It probably wouldn’t take much longer. But if I have any chance left to get my life back on track, I have to take it now. Maybe that’s the only way I can do right by you now, is to make the most of life to honor yours. I’ll never stop missing you, regretting so many of our interactions and desperately trying to remember the really good ones. But I can’t change any of that any more than I can get back the 3 years since you died. I love you Mom, please forgive me and look over me and help me do what I’ve been putting off for so long.