I'm being selfish by writing this. I meant to write it as a letter to myself, and I've written a few of those, but since I know you're going to read this, I'm just writing to address it to you and try get things out of my head.
I have been thinking of you constantly. I have been wanting to talk to you constantly. You have been my best friend and lover, and denying that is impossible and disrespectful to myself. I've tried to stop talking to you two or three times before this, and here I am writing this as a one-way mirror, hoping that I can both keep a connection with you and let us both move on if that's what happens. I'm being incredibly selfish, because I know this letter isn't helping either of us, but I'm still hoping it does somehow.
E and I are still trying to find a therapist. It's a long process, and it'll take weeks. E found some good relationship therapy information prior to most of this on TikTok, and I dug it back up and bought the courses. I'm going through the lessons, and it feels good to understand myself a bit more after watching them, and for a brief moment, I felt like I could give us both the space to heal. I want to be a better person, but I don't know how to define that yet, other than having secure attachment instead of insecure attachment.
Since the beginning of the year, I have been taking photos and writing poetry, and I have done it for you. I don't know if I'll ever post or share it anywhere, but if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be feeling as deeply as I am. I wouldn't be where I am, you wouldn't be where you are, and E and maybe C wouldn't be where they are now.
It's hard. I want to be a creative person, I am a creative person, and you've made me, even if briefly in your absence, a suffering artist. I ache in ways I haven't in years. But I don't want either of us to live like that, and I don't want either of us to crave this pain like we do right now. I'm basking in it, writing here quite aware I'm probably causing more pain for you, because you know that you're not alone in feeling this, and yet you don't get to feel together either. That's a wicked thing to put on as many people as I have.
You said something like, 'You wouldn't be the person I fell in love with if you could walk away from E without trying to fix things' and I know that's true. If we had kept doing what we were doing, we would have both been turning farther and farther away from anything like true love, replacing it with the guts full of chemical pain we have now instead of the peace we shared in our moments together.
You've shown me so much about myself in so brief a time, I don't want to say goodbye, I can't say goodbye, but I don't want to string you along, tell you that I know what happens between E and I, between you and I, between you and the rest of the world. There are so many beautiful strangers in this place, and we both already know some of them.
I don't know everything that happens, but I do know I am working on becoming better. Becoming secure in my self, someone that can have the tough discussions earlier, someone that isn't anxiously attached, avoidant, or liable to take a relationship formed over years, or months, and go behind their back.
I am focused on becoming the person I would want my best friends to be with. If at the end of this journey toward secure attachment, I find myself alone, that will be enough.
That's not to say I'll never share how my life is going here again, never want your company, never think of you. I think of you a thousand times a day.
But I am going to give you the choice. I will write here when I cannot bear not to anymore. I will share the things I want to say to you here, but I will do my best not to, until therapy or some other force tells me differently. I am trying to find the space between respecting E's wishes and becoming the person I want to be in loyalty to my partners, and respecting my own wishes, and not hiding or diminishing the feelings I have from the people who should know them.
So I will write my feelings out, that I may celebrate or grieve or anything else across this spectrum of emotion I've been given, and I will choose how often I do. I am hoping this will let me refrain from checking on you. Time will tell.
You've got the choice of doing the same. You can write out your feelings, and if you'd like, you can read mine. But know that I am changing every day, as you are. Right now it is heartbreak I'm writing to you about, but in the future I may share happiness. In the future, I may read your letters as well to see what you've become. I may never.
I only hope that, if you do choose to write to me, you love the person you become as you write.
snowghoul
stormborns
baratheonpilled
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
jacobvanloon
