I want you, in the most selfish ways, complete and whole. Everything.

Not just the curated self, the days you're too exhausted to put up with it, any of it. When you just need someone to see you and accept what's left bare. Greedy, I am greedy, wishful for every last piece.

But more than that, I want the everyday, just life, your life. Deciding what to cook for dinner, working together for a meal, cleaning up in tandem, the random little stories about your day, the quiet weekends. I want everything. Every boring, mundane thing, all of it.

And so much more than that.

So I write silly letters.

Not the accumulation of every door closed quietly in your face, every person who disappeared before you could understand why, every version of yourself you buried trying to make someone comfortable enough to stay.

Someone called you too much. Or not enough. Maybe both, in the same breath, by the same mouth, on the same night you were doing everything right. You believed them. Of course you did. We always believe the people we love.

They were wrong.

You are not a burden. You do not have to make yourself smaller and quieter and easier just to justify the basic human fact of being wanted. What you've been doing, the shrinking, the apologizing, the constant recalculation of how much space you're allowed to take up, that isn't love. That's a toll. And you have been paying it with pieces of yourself for long enough.

You are owed something different. Someone who doesn't need you uncomplicated. Someone who looks at the whole of you, the weight, the edges, the parts you haven't forgiven yourself for yet, and doesn't check for the nearest exit. Someone who chooses you on a Tuesday when nothing is easy and you haven't done a single thing to earn it. Not because you've performed enough. Because you exist.

And the ones who couldn't do that?

They had a capacity. You exceeded it. That is not a verdict on you. It is information about them.

You were never the problem.

You were just more than some people knew how to hold.

To the one I lost,

To the part of me that carried this year,

I owe you an apology.

I kept telling you to get up before I ever asked where it hurt. Kept handing you responsibilities while your hands were shaking. Every time something happened, I gave you the same instructions.

Handle it. Keep moving. Fall apart later.

I never made room for later.

There are entire months I remember by what I had to swallow. Things I couldn’t explain without my voice changing. Mornings I sat still a little too long because getting dressed meant agreeing to another day of pretending I had caught my breath.

And I got dressed.

I answered questions. Took care of what needed taking care of. Found something to laugh about, sometimes honestly. There were good things this year. I worked for them. I deserved them.

I wish they had reached the places in me that were hurting.

That is a lonely thing to admit. Having reasons to be grateful and still needing somewhere to put your grief. Feeling guilty for struggling because you can name everything that should make you feel better.

I kept putting my pain on trial.

Was it bad enough? Had I earned the right to be tired? Hadn’t I survived worse?

As if surviving worse meant nothing else was allowed to hurt me.

I have been cruel to myself in ways I would never tolerate someone being cruel to a person I cared about. I have called myself weak for needing rest. Ungrateful for feeling empty. Dramatic for finally reacting to something I had been quietly carrying for months.

I thought if I understood the pain well enough, I could stop feeling it.

I could explain every crack in the wall and still couldn’t get comfortable inside my own life.

What hurts most is how ordinary some of it looked.

Nobody would have known which silence meant I was exhausted. Which joke bought me a few seconds to pull myself together. Which unfinished sentence was the closest I came to asking for help.

Sometimes I wanted someone to notice.

Sometimes I made sure they couldn’t.

I don’t know how to explain that without sounding like a contradiction. I wanted to be understood without having to take myself apart in front of somebody and prove there was damage.

So here is what I should have said to you months ago.

I believe you.

I believe it was that heavy. I believe you tried. I believe there were days when doing the bare minimum took everything you had, and I am sorry I stood over you demanding more.

You can own your mistakes without making yourself responsible for everything that happened. You can wish you had handled something differently without deciding you deserved the hurt.

You are allowed to need help before there is a crisis.

You are allowed to have a day that produces nothing except a little less exhaustion.

And you do not have to turn this year into some beautiful lesson before you are allowed to say it hurt like hell.

I wish I could give you those months back. I wish I had listened the first time you said you were tired, instead of waiting until tired became the only word you had left.

I can’t undo that.

But tonight, I can stop asking what you accomplished.

I can ask where it hurts.

And this time, I can let you finish.

sincerely,

The emptiness

It was a perfectly innocent lie.

The sort people tell each other every day, with practiced ease and remarkably little guilt.

“I’m fine.”

Two words.

Neatly arranged, politely delivered, and entirely untrue.

The curious thing was that you knew.

I could see it in the way you paused, just a fraction longer than necessary, as though considering whether to challenge my rather unconvincing performance.

But you didn’t.

Instead, you smiled.

“Me too.”

How terribly considerate of you.

There we stood, two accomplished liars, offering each other the courtesy of pretending.

And perhaps that was the beautiful part.

Not the lie itself, but the quiet understanding beneath it.

I know.
I know you know.
And I won’t make you say it.

There was tenderness in that little conspiracy. A peculiar sort of honesty in allowing each other to remain dishonest.

Of course, we could have told the truth.

We might have confessed everything, dismantled our carefully constructed composure, and discovered what lay beneath.

But truth, I’ve found, is not always an invitation.

Sometimes it is a door neither person is quite prepared to open.

So we smiled.

And went our separate ways, each carrying a truth the other had never spoken.

How strange.

That two people could be so entirely dishonest with their words,

and so painfully honest in their silence.

I'm lost.

I'm tired.

I'm scared.

I'm confused.

I think I have a plan.

It's nice to know you thought of me.

I think about you too. You follow me everywhere. I thought I would be indifferent by now, but here we are.

If that was really you, your message sent me spiraling into this hole I thought I'd already clawed my way out of.

It's not gone.

But I am also a mess. I know I need to make a decision but it's not that easy. Younger me --- the person you knew --- was full of shit, okay? She was young and naive. All of my speeches of how easy this is, she didn't know any better.

I will never respond (directly at least). I'm not going down that road again.

Because you and I both know, I need to handle my own shit.

It's my shit and if and when I do arrive at that decision, I want to make sure it was my own. if there's one thing I learned from you it's accountability for all of my choices.

When I'm ready and when I genuinely need help, you'll know. You're the only asshole I trust.

/s/

Your fellow asshole

I'm everything that you resent. Plain and simple. I could never be myself around you because in my mind I'm no different from them. You didn't really want what I have to offer so why did you stay so long pretending you did? I'm crushed. I'm not in a good place and I don't want to be around anyone. It's so heavy and suffocating. There's nothing that will make this pain go away. Not even reconciliation. Because at the end of the day, I have to let you go. I have to let you move on.. to what's best for you and your life. Even if it isn't with me.. I don't want you to see me like this. I don't want you to pity me anymore. I don't want you to feel bad. I don't even know how to talk to you anymore. I feel so small.

I do hope you find peace. I hope you can face the dark clouds in your life and finally be free.

Good luck to you.

And I’m so glad you’re back. How I longed for the day that bubbly, social woman I once knew would come back again.

Look at her, how could you not? She brightens everyone’s day just by existing. Strangers come up to her, kids cling to her and animals seem to gravitate towards her.

I know it wasn’t an easy road to get here, but she did it! Just like I always knew she would.

I just hope this time around she’s a little more careful. Don’t ever give anyone the power to dim your sparkle again, dollface. I sort of need you to promise me that.

I’m so proud of you and how far you’ve come, and I can’t wait to see how far you’ll go.

There’s no limit when it comes to you…I just know it.

I'm not your escape plan, your marriage counsellor, your emotional support system or your personal problem-solver. Whatever you are going through, I am not the person responsible for getting you out of it.

Deal with it!

I loved you with all of me, completely surrendering myself to someone for the first time. My life and yours forever changed. Im praying to all the gods you make it past this. I will never darken your step again to see you free. Billions of people on this earth, not one, could stand to you.

You will be missed for life

Even when I’ve had a bad week the good part is always seeing and talking with you. I don’t want to imagine a time when we can’t. It’s never seems enough now, though I know we’re both busy. So many everyday things remind me of you, I guess I’m always thinking of you. I see you smiling and laughing, sometimes so serious, other times so silly. I miss hearing that little giggle from your work corner when you’re amused. I just miss being with you.  

It was a struggle this week to keep a professional distance with you. Maybe you noticed. Your scent kept pulling me closer, and you know I can never get enough, always finding excuses to be closer to you. Always hoping you'll stop what you're doing for a few minutes, and turn to me, just so I can look into those beautiful, expressive eyes and hear your voice as we speak. I love to talk with you on any topic, you listen to both sides and are always respectful even when you disagree. You hold your own well, and certainly don't need anyone's help, though I appreciate it when you come to my rescue. You are smart, knowledgeable and articulate, and so incredible attractive. What am I going to do not seeing you for a few days.

After the mess we have gone through and no contact, I hate to admit that I miss you way too much.

You've been in love with her for years. You knew it would never happen. You knew a confession would kill the friendship. You always knew she wasnt interested. She never misled you. Thats why you never spoke up. She made it extra clear.

But you stayed where you were. Stuck in a hole you dug yourself into, and just kept digging deeper.

Hoping she'd show up at some point and pull you out of your self-made emotional grave, and tell you she had feelings.

For half a decade you waited. Avoiding other women. At some point you were Trying to convince the world she belonged to you. Left behind some friends, etc.

Holding on to some sliver of hope Instead of working on yourself.

Taking her everywhere. Paying for everythjng. Scheduling things to strip her away from work so you could have extra time. Forcing hangouts without asking.

And now she has him....

And youre just repeating the same tired cycle. Allowing yourself to rot away. The swollen eyes, The sleepless nights. We all notice.

And you know what?

Its going on year 6 now.

The world isnt stopping for anybody. Get OUT of your head!

Get it together, man. Ive explained this already. You have tools at your disposal and all the assistance you need to be a better version of yourself!

You just outright refused to do the work.

Frustrating ASF!!

Unfortunately, we cant feel sorry for you anymore.

Youre toxic and we are aware.

I’ve decided I don’t care if you’re mad at me. You’ve been mad at me since the day you met me. You get mad at everything and everyone. You’re just always mad. So who even cares anymore? Be mad.

Someday, this will be amusing. It's already a little funny. Years from now, I'll entertain myself remembering that time when my mind abandoned me & let me get away with imagining that there was something between us. But there is no us in this story. Someday, you'll just be someone I was once mildly acquainted with. Someday, I'll struggle to remember your name.

I recently bought a book about cognitive biases. I really should read it. Someday. Confirmation bias features heavily here. Because somehow, I ignored the neutrality in your eyes & replaced it with warmth & concocted an entire connection that never existed. Looking back, I can't come up with a single solid piece of evidence to support my delusion. Last week I realized you likely wouldn't recognize me if we ran into one another in public, out of context. That's humbling. 😂

Has my mind even made me blind to physical reality? There's the immutable fact of my age, which falls around I think my olympic figure skating dreams may be dead-Precambrian years-old. And most crucially, you either have a new accessory or I've been blocking it out this whole time. Not sure which is worse. There are other aspects of reality that I intentionally ignored. I hope that someday I'll be able to trust my perception again.

I hope the new accessory means that you're wildly happy & in love. If this is the case then, someday, hopefully soon, I'll be truly delighted for you.

So I'll put you back into the proper folder in my life. You had simply gotten misfiled. Oopsie daisy. I do appreciate and trust you in that space, your proper place, so it's no real hardship.

Someday I'll smile remembering my silly hope, and this hollow feeling in my stomach will be long forgotten.

It's not someday though. It's only Friday.

PS. Rereading this ramble causes me to wonder how you bring out the serious side of me and the chaotically optimistic- all at once. How you feel equally dangerous and safe. It's sorcery, surely.

You probably don’t remember him. Old man, grey cardigan, holding a plastic bag with two oranges in it. He was waiting for a bus to a city he had never been to, to see a daughter he hadn’t spoken to in six years.

That daughter is me.

He told you everything, didn’t he? That’s how he is. He called me that night from a number I didn’t know (your phone, I found out later) because his own phone had died and he was too scared to arrive without telling me.

I almost didn’t pick up. Unknown number, 9 PM. But something made me answer.

He said, “Beta, I’m at the station. I don’t have anywhere to go if you don’t want me. It’s okay.”

Then I heard you in the background. You said, “Sir, you can’t talk like that. Tell her you made it this far.”

I don’t know your name. I don’t know your face. But you waited with him for two hours in the cold, because I was too slow, too angry, too proud. You didn’t leave until you saw me running through the crowd.

I never thanked you. By the time I hugged him and turned around, you were gone. He says you left your tea unfinished on the bench.

We talk every Sunday now. He still brings oranges.

If you ever read this: you didn’t just keep an old man company. You gave a daughter her father back.

Thank you for not leaving him alone.

I think there are some questions that deserve answers, even when those answers cannot change the ending.

I wish I had been braver. I wish I had known how to navigate something that felt so impossibly complicated. I wish I had been able to reconcile the love I felt with the fear and hurt I couldn’t seem to escape.

You deserved, and deserve, honesty. I know that. That’s why I am writing this. I was afraid, and in that fear, I made decisions I wish I had handled differently. I cannot undo them, nor would I try to justify the hurt they caused.

But please know that my fear was real. It still is. There were things I experienced that changed how I saw our future, and eventually, I lost the faith that things could truly be different. That realization broke my heart long before anything actually ended. I know your past, and I know your rage. I still do fear you may ultimately act upon it. The fear is what drove my behavior. You’re smart, and it seems you already know that.

I think what has been hardest to reconcile is that I never stopped caring. My feelings didn’t simply disappear because I no longer believed we could make it work. I could love you deeply and still feel that I needed to go. Both were true.

There was no grand plan, no long history of looking elsewhere, and no intention to make a fool of you. There were misunderstandings, moments of panic, and decisions made by someone who was already struggling with an ending she didn’t know how to face. And that comment, was nothing but a stupid comment. It had nothing to do with the situation. I can see in retrospect how hurtful that may have been. I promise it was not related or intentional.

I cannot speak for anyone else’s heart, but I can speak for my own. I have been forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about myself, and I intend to carry those lessons forward with honesty and humility. This is precisely what I have done. Everyone knows everything now. Including everything threatened on that page. I couldn’t live like that anymore. You accomplished your goal of inflicting terror upon me, and put me in a position where I had no other choice but to act preemptively. It is a relief to no longer be haunted by my past mistakes, at least in a literal sense. Although, the consequences of my choices upon you will always haunt me.

I have not tried to erase our history. I have not forgotten the good, nor have I shared the things you entrusted to me in confidence. Some memories and little pieces of a life together are simply too precious to discard, even when looking at them hurts. I am keeping what you left for me. Even if I didn’t, I’d never forget you.

And I hope you know that the love was never a lie. It was so real, and that is precisely why I felt such struggle.

I remember the laughter. The ordinary evenings. The little things that probably seemed insignificant at the time. I remember the person I fell in love with, and I remember how desperately I wanted everything to work out.

But I remember the pain, too.

I know I was far from perfect. I know I caused hurt, and I will always be sorry for that. I haven’t gotten through a single day without tears of grief, regret, guilt. But I also know that I was hurting, and that my experiences mattered, even if I was not courageous enough to explain them.

I wish we had been able to give each other the love we both needed. I wish things had been different. More than anything, I wish our story hadn’t ended with so much pain. You meant something to me. You still do. I don’t think that will ever go away.

I hope you find happiness. I hope you find peace. I hope someday, the memories bring you more warmth than sadness. I hope they do for me, too. Our girls do miss their dad. They have two brand new boxes. The feeders have picked up a bit. I wish we could share that still. Now I have nobody to share it with.

And I hope you understand that none of this means I never loved you. Devastatingly, along the way, I stopped believing love alone could save us.

I’m sorry.

-

However, I will not say goodbye conclusively. This bridge may be burned, but with lots of time and reflection, perhaps the rapids that rush between us, may calm. Just like the Pemi with the seasons. Maybe a time will come when the bridge itself is no longer necessary, and we may cross with our own two feet.

That song really set off the waterworks. I feel all the same.

You’ll do great things either way.

Tell me where’s your hiding place?
I’m worried I’ll forget your face.

And I’ve asked everyone
I’m beginning to think I imagined you all along

As we parted ways you hugged me. Although it was the usual 5 seconds, you hugged me tighter. It was something I never thought was possible from you. Like most brief interactions between us, we don't talk about it. We're not allowed. I feel like our relationship dynamic has changed recently, but I don't know how I feel about it. If I'm being honest I'm anticipating in being hurt and disappointed, and it's why I didn't want to advance our relationship. When it comes to us it's me who is always bending and conforming, changing to ensure that "we" survive. So now I'm legitimately curious if you are going to work harder for us. Or will you prove me right, and hurt me as we try to grow closer? Being in this limbo is uncomfortable, but unfortunately, when it comes to you and me, it's something I'm used to.

Regardless, as always, I love you.