ris

If you can’t let me in then let me go.

You were here and I was young and I thought I loved you—thought I was supposed to love you. “What’s meant for me is meant to be.” That if maybe I gave (even) more of myself I would be better for it. Those memories don’t feel like mine now and I can’t believe they’re of you, of anyone, and not someone else. I’m not saying I shouldn’t of loved you, I’m just realizing that maybe I love people for more than they deserve.

If I’ve ever been in love I never knew it. Someday when I’m old and looking back on my life, it’ll hit me square in the chest and I’ll just know. And damn can I tell you, it will hurt to have not known it when I’d lived it. Until then it’s all muddy water in this heart, empty or full the depths are dark.

I worry when someone starts knowing too much about me, that I’ve given parts of myself I can’t get back. That’s the scary part in friendship, isn’t it? The biggest gamble because, yes, you can suddenly be less personal with someone but they still know what they’ve known. You can’t force someone to un-know you. I’ve always found that I am nicer in what I discover, I don’t try to gain in sharing it. But so many are convinced life is rooted in gain when it’s meant to be rooted in giving.

Who we are as people is not consistent throughout our lives, and it’s unrealistic to expect every age of me to be compatible with every age of you. Your friends are monumental when they are, in the moment that they are, but they cannot exist in that space forever. Take from every relationship what you can and learn when to be satisfied. Important: recognize when you are asking someone for something they can’t give you. Then ask elsewhere.

I told you that these last few months things felt differently for me, that I felt changed in someway. And you wanted an explanation I couldn’t give. I think it’s time you changed, too, and then I wouldn’t have to work so hard to explain myself.

At the end of the day, you are just a body moving forward into the void. We are all moving forward, no one gets to leave anyone or thing behind them. So don’t try me with that “leave the past in the past” crap. I am unforgiving and cruel when I am angry and I know that’s hard to come back from. And believe me, I’m angry. You think I’m trouble but hell, you’re worse.

You thought you knew me better than you did, and that was your mistake. Not your only mistake, but definitely the one that would sink you deepest. Just know; when I finally decide to leave you behind me, the cut is clean. There’s no looking back. It’ll only be messy if you make it out to be, and even then I still won’t be around to see it. I liked it better when you didn’t know a damn thing about me but look what you’ve gone and done now.

Sometimes you have to let people feel better that they apologized even if it doesn’t make you feel any better.

Is everything planned out for us? What choices do we have, really? And do you think there’s more tragedy in being fated to make the wrong choices or in being fated to nothing and yet we still choose wrong? And if everything’s already decided could you just tell me now, or would that skip the good parts?

I used to think you’d struck a chord in me that no one else ever could. But then I got this feeling that if someone new happened along, you’d just be old news and I would be ok without you. I know how unremarkable that must make you sound but I promise, thirty years from now you’ll still be another what-if running circles around my head and my heart. The forgotten are the ones stuck in having to remember. I'm always the one you forget, even when I start out seeming like the one you never could, no matter how hard you tried.

I’ve never, ever, ever been in love.Yeah, that mushy-gushy type. But I’ll argue that I’ve loved an extraordinary amount more than the next. Say, what’s that count for? All that giving, never expecting a payout or return. That, “I want you to know my secrets but I don’t want to have to be the one to tell you them,” type of deep-sown seed of doubt. Not easy to work against, that. Please, won’t you just read my heart? I’m holding on to too much, I can’t even look you in the eye these days, afraid of what you’ll see. Fuck, if that ain’t something. Hey, now tell me, what’s your angle? And tell me what you really feel while you’re at it. Are you out to get me like I think you are? Are you going to swallow me whole or chew me up, spit me out? I’m just gauging how much this sort of thing is going to hurt, but it's been a long time coming and damn if it if the expectation won’t dull the ache.

Go ahead, keep cleaning. You know a messy room isn't what's really eating you up, but clean bedsheets and fresh air help. You'll take a few days, work out the emotions into words, into something tangible so you can understand. Emotions don't cut it when they're this strong.

How wild is it that we don’t tell people we love them when we love them. We bury it, or wait it out, or second guess it...and then it emerges in ugly ways, never fades like we were banking on it to, and turns out to be spoken too late. I've watched it happen and let me tell you, it never turns out how you planned. If you love them let them know. It only has to mean something if you let it.

Feelings stay, people don’t, and you’ll never know how sorry I am for that.

Hey. Learn that progress doesn’t always look like progress. Just take it however it comes and I promise, one day everything’s going to be so much greater for you.