Letters I'll Never Send

I still dream about you… and also of Afghanistan
I dreamt that we were hunkered down, hiding from the Taliban

I watched a documentary about the War on Terror
Then I read some of your old texts… that was my error

My mind must have made some sort of strange connection
Between the love we never had, and Hamid Karzai’s election

I was afraid they were going to drag you out into the street and shoot you just for being a woman, and they would shoot me for being your friend. We were hiding in the kitchen. One of the Taliban got inside and was barking questions at you with a machine gun pointed at your face and you were brave. In my dream you were so brave, you stood up for yourself and talked back to them. Dared them to shoot you.

I was so scared because I thought they would kill you for sure, and I was also proud of how brave you were, and ashamed of how cowardly I was. I was crouching in the corner hoping they wouldn’t see me. You weren’t hiding at all.

I woke up then, and had a bowl of cereal, breakfast cereal is good.

The little moments in between your arrogance were cute.

Nonsense. I’m at peace with it. But it is a sad story.

Something I’ve been thinking about… if I could do it all over, I would keep things real life. Not texting or any online/chat/app communication. It’s easy to hide behind a screen and say things you couldn’t in person. Even on the phone, you can’t look at the person and get their full message. So much room for misunderstandings. For people to be careless and say things they don’t mean just for thrills or to temporarily feel less lonely. I want nothing but real connection anymore. We’re all so conditioned to not expect it anymore, to even be uncomfortable with it. But we all need it so much.

Because I had a relationship that was based 90% on chatting back and forth, things eventually fell apart very badly, to the point in-person interaction became something that caused anxiety, when it probably could have solved everything and saved a lot of heartache.
I recently let go of friendships that were based on this… not applicable to long distance friends, ones I’d already established a solid friendship with… and now my life has less day-to-day interaction, less notification interruption. Less texting frustration when I hit the wrong letters, which makes it take 3x longer. 🙂 I would happily be friends with these people in real life, but they were very engrained into the virtual friendship thing, at least with me, and tended not to want to do in-person things. While I miss them, I know that it’s just not the right type of connection for my energy, or the quality of my life and friendships.

If I ever date again, it will only be with a guy who initiates… not via text. In person. And if face-to-face is not possible, phone is okay, but I really prefer to see and hear someone when I’m talking to them. I’ve never been one to go after guys, but I did see in past relationships how ones who connected with me mostly virtually seemed to want to do less work, or were more likely to be hurtful and not tuned into me as a person, and I ended up in a role that I wasn’t comfortable with, doing more work than they did. I also would misunderstand them. So it just wasn’t good.

I guess this isn’t a letter, more like thoughts I wanted to spill, as I’m sure others on here would relate. This site is all about writing letters no one will ever see. I wish I had the courage to communicate in person to someone that is on my mind, who probably has no idea who I really am inside because it was all this back and forth in writing and misunderstanding. But there has already been way too much back and forth. It became such a tangled mess. I still feel torn inside.

But I also have this peace of knowing the best thing to do is leave it. If you are meant to be with someone, you will be, and it will not require you to do anything either wrong morally, or wrong according to your own preferences/needs for living your life and how you want to conduct relationships.

I do wish they knew that despite all the miscommunications and baggage, I deep down hope for a clean slate someday and a chance to start over, if that is where life would lead, even if it takes a long long time. I am peaceful and patient and already let go of any sort of need to “make it happen” or make some definitive decision. I’m just living my life now. It feels good to be okay with myself and not afraid to be alone if I am not able to find like-minded people. I’d rather be by myself than uncomfortable and doing things that don’t add value to my life.

Listen, we’ve been friends for ten years. We dated for nine months of that, nine years ago. You broke up with me, and I was cool with it.

I don’t know what changed in your brain but you need to go to therapy. You’re over possessive, waspish, and kind of a bitch.

No one “abandoned” you. I moved away, as people are wont to do in small towns with big dreams. Your boyfriend, went to Boot Camp. He came home and I kept in contact, so I don’t know where you justify abandonment.

I am so tired of your woe is me act. You sit on your ass and watch twitch all day, and then suffer when you got put into a time crunch at work, because you didn’t do your goddamn job. Rinse and repeat. You treat your boyfriend like shit, while he works, cooks, and cleans for you.

Oh yeah, why do you keep calling him your fiancé when he broke off the engagement you pressured him into?

He’s my best mate, I know when you treat him like shit because he tells me.

You’ve taken advantage of me our entire friendship. Too used to me rolling over and doing whatever you want me to do like a dog.

When was the last time you built someone up instead of tearing them down? Did you think that that makes friendship?

David was my friend first, I don’t need your permission to fly him out. I don’t care that you “miss” my parents. Did you even fucking miss me or were you blowing smoke up my ass, because for one weekend I borrowed him.

And yet you cried all weekend, I’m sure. Again please for the love of the gods, go to therapy.

Sometimes there are more important things than us. Yes, I tried to find answers and yes, I still think of all of this sometimes. But now is not the time. There is more. There is more of now or never. I found some fellows of the tribe of which I think I belong to. Idk if this tribe is also yours. But I want to thank you for showing me my way.

Thank you.

Dear crazy friends,
Neurodiverse, sorry, neurodiverse.
I attract you.
Not that I’m—well, I’m quite functional, but volatile.
And I’ve been fired several times myself. Because my sides got sore and peeled trying to fit my square self into a round hole. Edges, I have edges.
Maybe because of all the rabbit holes I’ve gone down, and tree limbs I’ve sawed off while standing on them, I can manage, understand, the crazies.
Manage. Only manage. I can’t fix you, I can’t be there every time you want me. Al-Anon, where too many people live co-dependent lives, taught me that.
It didn’t teach me to manage my own crazy, the way I hate owning on too many things with too many memories, how I hate my too little success.
Pry my hands off all these betrayals. Living well is the best revenge.
Yours in madness,
j

It’s been long enough. Shit or get off the pot.

Neither of us is perfect and you wait for perfect forever you’ll only be disappointed to know you’re supposed to help one another to perfection.

Ugh.

You are so fucking annoying sometimes.

To The Other Side I Am No Longer,
There have been nights, many of them. You’ve not known them and maybe you never will. It might have been pride or maturity that made me not drag you down with me when you sent me down these holes, but believe me, I want to see you hurt worse than I have. I remember that day when I talked to you about love, that it was like plucking out a heart, veins and all, and handing it over to the other party, hoping that they would keep it safe, hoping that in their moments of carelessness, they will at least fight to stop it from slipping. I thought you understood, so I let you in, and you walked all over with your muddy feet. When you could no longer stand the waters of your making, you walked out and left the door behind you wide open.
Had I been young, like I was yesterday, I would have come weeping and asking for another chance to prove my love to you. But I have grown up, and these tears now flow inwards. What vanity would it have been to beg again…? Even from a distance, I can see that you are yet to let go of the knife you stabbed me with countless times. You have made it your goal to have me see you with strange arms around you. Daggers, knives, weapons, love is war, there is blood in the water. There are sharks roaming. I’m hurting, but I smile because these tears will give you the power.
If only I could open the door for you to see what’s burning on this other side… If only you could see the rooms that you set on the fire, the blood that flows through these broken pipes, the breath and sighs that still remain in the depths of this chest… If only you could understand what I mean when I say that I have seen the end… I am only writing because I want to believe that it is all over. I had known that it would all fall apart at some point, but it seemed like every morning is a punctuation mark, only for the night to close the brackets and open them again tomorrow, over and over again. Loving you always came easy. Hating you now is really hard, but what else can I do when it is either you or me? What can I do when your glee is my pain? What can I do when finding you is losing myself? Aah, my self-esteem. How many times will I pick it from the ground? How many times will I dust myself and start walking again? How many times will I hurt before I believe that love indeed is war? Maybe I shouldn’t be angry at you but at myself. It was dumb of me to fall for you. It was dumb of me to believe your touch and your lips. I should have known that your laughter was nothing but daggers in waiting.
It was good knowing you, and I hope that someday when you meet this kind of death, you will remember me. For now, I will hurt, but one day I will walk away and love again. For now, you are in another love, but one day, you will fall in hurt, and then you’ll know that the night lasts for days when you walk alone. I wish there was something better to say, but my grief does not allow me to be kind. I desire to say I love you, but this wound is growing blacker with skin. It is here that it has to end, beloved.

Yours,
Where I Am Now

Where are you? Where are you when I’m hurting? Where are you when I need someone to talk to? Where are you when I just need a real friend, someone I can trust that cares about me?

Oh right. You were at Starbucks.