saddynamite

[saddynamite]

Reaching out without reaching out

For some reason, almost a year after we broke up, I've been thinking about you a lot and about how things ended. We tried to remain friends because despite the circumstances, we got along well and cared about each other. Five months ago, you asked for space and then I at one point tried checking in on you through your friend. This seemed to be the betrayal that led you to the conclusion that we, in fact, could not be friends. You asked I don't try to contact you, and I said bye. Those were the last, tense words we exchanged before separating our lives forever.

I unfriended you and blocked you on some of the social media "things." And you did the same to me.

For the past few weeks I have been struggling to decide whether or not it's been long enough for me to reach out, and not wanting to make the same mistake as before, I eventually decided against it. But the way things ended festers in my heart, that a friendship bursting with joy, creativity and laughter could end with this shriveled, ugly, petty moment. It feels wrong. I'm not a spiritual guy, but I'm writing this anonymously with the hopes that maybe it'll make something better in the universe; and of course, maybe do some healing for me.

First of all, I blocked you on Instagram, truly, without any malicious intent.

That month was a significant anniversary of my father's death, and I felt so empty and lost. The worst of my depression was returning and I was flailing to fix myself as quickly as possible. (And of course the quickest solutions were the most fleeting.) That was one reason I reached out to your friend to ask about you. I was sad. It felt irreparable, bottomless. And when I feel that way, it seems the entire world is like that. And I was hoping for some sign that no, in fact, someone I cared about—you—were doing great. Miles apart, this felt like it could've helped me survive the night.

But when you learned about what I had done, and that I had in fact done this once before after our initial break-up, you got very upset with me. The amount of confused guilt I felt is indescribable. Confused because I didn't think I was doing anything malicious, and guilt because I was imagining the entirety of the pain you felt in our relationship, compounded all at once around that moment. All I could do was not make thing worse. I explained why I reached out, said sorry, and said bye. I then blocked you and your friends from my Instagram. I needed to express my grief about my father one way or another, and embarrassingly, I could only think of posting a photo of him and myself, and that I missed him, trying to salve my pain with notes of comfort and colored hearts from friends. But I didn't want you to think I was doing this to make you feel guilty. So I figured it was better for you to hate me than to think I'm petty for blocking you and severing all connections than it was to make you feel guilty....

And here lies the problem. (One of many problems, I guess.) I always think about doing the "right” thing. I'm obsessed with doing what is honest. And maybe I hide behind this feeling of self righteousness, or maybe it's constantly correcting for the amount of self hate I have in me, preemptively saving myself from a pit of worthlessness. Either way, I think it blinds me sometimes, and I could only realize this when someone else let me into their lives. You were the first person to ever give me a chance. To see me. To let me love you and love me back. 

I was drunk on that sweet quaff of acceptance. I once told you I thought we were perfect for each other and it was only much later I realized you were in pain for so much of our relationship. And now I see maybe it wasn’t the “betrayal” of reaching out that made you upset, as much as it was a history of my not seeing your pain and this tiny moment five months ago was just the final straw.

When I told a friend I wanted to apologize to you, he asked “what for?” And I didn’t have an answer to that. I just know I felt an unanswerable guilt. But now I think I know. I want to apologize for not seeing you, when you saw me. I want to apologize for not letting you see all of me, for not letting you love the way you wanted to love me, and for stifling your brightness out of fear it would blind me. It turned out to be the opposite: I let fear close my eyes and never let your light in.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m fooling myself. What can a guy do when he’s just talking to himself?

#love #hate #relationships #selfhate #apology #uncertainty #depression #death