letters to T

I wrote a letter to T the other day that I wasn’t at all comfortable with writing. I had barely started and I could feel a sense of regret creeping up from deep inside. I had been fighting for what feels like forever to keep some things to myself but the blank pages sitting before me dared me to put the words down. I had so much to share but I avoided it for as long as possible. After I sent it, I was utterly convinced that he would never want to speak with me again.

Time is supposed to wear away sharp edges. But it doesn’t always happen. I know this all too well. I can feel those edges all the time as they cut and scratch at me from the inside.

I don’t feel as though I see the world the same way that T does. In fact, I don’t believe I ever have. We are not equal. No matter how often he tries to convince me otherwise. It sometimes feels like an impossible thing, to ever feel like I will be equal to others. I often wonder how him and I have ever even be in the same place together. Him, where he is and me, where I am. We feel a hundred million miles apart so much of the time. I don’t know if it will ever be possible to bridge the vast expanse of space that I experience between us.

It has sometimes been one of the most uncomfortable relationships that I have ever experienced. Something on the inside tells me that it is very dangerous. That’s not to say that he is dangerous, but it’s just a feeling for some unknown reason. Dangerous. Precarious. Fragile.

I have noticed in the last little while that there is always a part of me that feels angry at him and pushes to find a way to make him fight back. Even though most of me despises conflict there is a small part that wishes everything would just explode. So he could see exactly what type of angry, hurtful person lives inside of me. So he would see what I see about myself. It constantly goes back and forth. Back and forth. And there never seems to be any sense of resolution to this dilemma that I constantly feel in my head.

I feel bothered when he won’t agree with me. No, not bothered. I’m irritated. Angry. Disappointed. There is a part of me that wants to plead with him to agree with the way I view my world. Just once. Even just for a little while. So he can come down with me into the depths of my own personal hell and see first-hand the self-hate and misery that envelopes me. When he is standing on the shore as I am drowning, yelling for me to just reach for his hand so he can pull me out, I want to pull him in. I want him to come to where I am for even a moment so that he knows exactly what it feels like to be me. But it never works that way. He always tries to be this person who works like hell to only see the good. But I want him to see what I see. I want him to believe what I believe. To feel what I feel. Like, why won’t he?

He talks. It’s calm. He’s always so fucking calm. His calmness can be terrifying at times because it feels like he is about to play some horrifying trick on me. Part of me trusts him. Another part probably never will.

We talk. He tries to help me see things through his eyes. I agree with him for a moment but it always goes back to feeling wrong about what he said. Eventually nothing he ever says makes sense to me. Because he’s wrong about me. I do not feel at all like the person he want me to see through his eyes.

I still think about it. A lot of the time. About how it would be better to not be here at all. I think there has always been a part of me that has not wanted to be here, still alive, still experiencing all of these things. It often feels like it would be so much better if I could just disappear. Maybe not for other people. But for me. To make something in this life about me.

I find it hard to tell him these things. About how much I hate my own skin. How much I hate all of me. I hear the sadness that he feels when I tell him these things. I know he doesn’t feel okay that it feels this way. I know he says the way he feels is not about me. But them. I am a part of them. Their blood is my blood. So in some ways it has to be about me. Until I make it not.

These words sound horrible I know, but they come from a place of not knowing. These words come from a place of deep, deep shame—for everything that has happened in a time before him.

He feels so far away lately that I have trouble gauging whether or not we are still in this together. Maybe I need him closer, but I don’t know how to make that happen. Part of me also just wants to push him away. It doesn’t feel right to ask for anything from him. From anyone, really.

Maybe it causes a feeling…I don’t know what the right word is…shame maybe. Or anger. Yes, that’s it. I’m angry at him for being too far away. I’m also angry at him for…I don’t even know what…I just feel it. Even though it’s all my fault, I’m angry at him.

That shame? It has always been there. All the time. Since…forever, really. Punishing. Isolating. Maybe that’s what it’s been about all this time. It makes me hate me. And because I hate me, I can’t allow others to feel differently. He can’t feel differently.

I don’t know how this will end but a part of me just doesn’t even care anymore. This distance that I constantly feel? This new fucking normal that we’re living in? I’m not doing well with it. Not at all. I just feel like I’m fucking it up all the time. And I feel angry and frustrated and….sad. I just feel so sad all the time. Right down into the pit of my very soul.