#il08

You really have changed a lot. And I almost don't have the words to describe what this feels like....resignment? contentment? relief?

Maybe a mixture of all of the above. 

I didn't know what I wanted from you, and of course, it wasn't my most hoped for outcome.

But it couldn't have turned out better than this. Of all the ways that you could have realistically responded, it couldn't have been more than this.

I don't know if you read everything, which parts resonated with you and which parts didn't.

But I guess it doesn't matter. In the end I'm a little bit in awe, because this time it's you teaching me to move on.

I am a little self ashamed, because for all these years I stayed in this memory of five years ago. And part of me could blame you for giving me a lot of this blame, but in the end I chose it and I disregarded what other people said. 

And it feels a little like I wasted time, and I feel almost a little cheated for it. But what more could I ask for than this? To finally be able to let it all be. 

You were my biggest burden, my biggest regret, and the kind of string that I could never cut. It's freeing to let you go, it really is. 

We belong to a lot of people in this world, and there are people who have learned to love you now as you are, and to love me now as I am. But you're right, we aren't meant to belong together. And neither of us know how to best appreciate each other anymore.

You've made a lot of your life. And I don't doubt that you will be successful someday. 

Thank you for this much. For acknowledging what I have said at all, for acknowledging that I have said something. For not making me wait and wonder if you have read it, if you plan to reply. 

So if nothing else, thank you for all that. 

I don't know how you will end up replying. And I am both steeled and afraid for the things yet to come. I don't know if you will end up reading it all, if you will be angry, offended, frustrated, irritated, flattered, or even any mix of those emotions at all.

I, more than anyone, understand the impossibilities of an optimistic ending to this. I have at least some idea of how much goes on in your life, and I understand all too well how much you value your newfound freedoms. 

There are so many things yet that you still want to do. And I...I would only be the strings to hold you down. 

You might not understand, even after all this, that I'm not doing this because I want to. And part of me wants to linger on forever in this kind of adoration of you. But if I know that I can't stop my silly infatuations of you, then what choices do I have left? 

In the end even thousands of words can do little to convey all the things I want to say, all the things left unsaid. 

In the end this is my greatest confession, and even I have never thought that someday I would show you all this. 

I can't presume to know the way you feel, if you'll be merely irritated, if you'll be angry, or even read through it all. I can't presume that it still matters to you what I think at all. 

And...I guess it is a little creepy. And I guess I don't know how I would feel to know that someone wrote thousands of words on me. I don't know if you should feel flattered, or if I should feel pathetic for it. 

I don't want you to think I'm crazy for it. That I'm some psychopathic exgirlfriend who can't let go, some girl in the past you thought you had ditched a long time ago. 

But I'm tired. I'm tired of writing these essay length excerpts, tired of feeling like I need to. 

And after all these words, I don't need to tell you anymore about where you stand with me. You matter too much, always have, and maybe always will. 

And I don't know why after all these years I can't let go. I don't know why people come and go in my life, but you remain so permanently fixed. I don't know why you can still up in my mind so often, when I see you so rarely, nor why it still matters to me what you do. 

I am more afraid than I know how to be, at how you will respond. But I'm more afraid to continue lingering on in our half friendship. 

I don't want to digress to angst-ridden mooning on my part, to feel dismayed every time you speak of going on dates, disconcerted when you speak of girls. I've had a lot of time to learn to be comfortable with myself, weird quirks and all. And someday someone will appreciate me with all my snarky comments and awkwardness, and I'll treat them all the ways I didn't know how to treat you, and I will love them like no one ever came before them. 

But right now I'm still too sad that that person isn't you. And I don't need to be drunk this time to blurt out all of these confessions.

I need it all not to matter to me. 

So I suppose, I'm telling you all this now because I need to move on from you. I'm not naive enough anymore to spend all this time wishing for things that won't happen, but I still care too much to fit comfortably into this small part of your life. 

So forgive me, for throwing away whatever progress we have made in the last year. And every time I watch your uneasiness, I can see how much you're trying. 

So thank you, thank you, thankyou. For trying. For me, it meant the world.

No one has ever understood my draw to you. Not back when you were a middle schooler still finding your ground, and I was the type that blended in like a wallflower. Not later, when you began finding who you wanted to be, the things you loved and wouldn't stand or, and maybe we were a little opposite, because you had all the courage to do the things I wanted to do and was afraid to. 

Nor now, when we live in two different worlds, mingle with different people, and spend our friday nights doing such very different things. You've found your ground, and you have your circles and you know exactly where you stand. You're lots of fun and you have always breathed life into groups of people. You're attractive and you know it, and other people know it, and I know it. 

But the reasons I still linger over you aren't any of those. 

You were always so bright. You've always drawn people to you effortlessly, coaxed laughs and giggles from every audience. And from so many people I would hate it. I would hate to be suffocated and lost in your background.

But with you, you never forgot anybody in your wake. And you never knew it but you've never had the habit of leaving anyone behind. You have so many friends and so many reason to keep moving, but you don't forget and somehow you find room for them to matter. 

And you're not afraid to lose your pride and stand for the things you think matter. It didn't matter that not everyone loved you, and it was like you somehow knew that one day you'd prove them wrong. And I could see it too. That someday they would miss not knowing you.

Most of all, because you're not afraid to care. Because you know what it's like, and you know that people could crush you, and they have. But you still have room, somehow, to care about someone else, somewhere down the line. 

You, you have always known how to love someone best. Unrestrained, unquestionable, and you, you really mean it. You don't hold back, and you know how to let them grow. Being loved by you is a blessed thing, and your attention makes them bloom. 

As I sit here waiting for minutes to pass before clicking on your snapchat, I can laugh to myself about the ridiculousness of what I'm doing. I have always been slave to my own desires, and only my meager levels of common sense and practicality have saved me from doing the lists of foolish things that have crossed my mind. 

I don't know what I'm doing. I want to make something happen just so that I don't feel like this again. I would rather have nothing more to lose, than to feel like there is everything left to lose. 

I'm mad at myself, mad at you, for still having the power to affect how I feel. Without you here...I thought I was invincible. 

To my eternal muse, 

You inspire so many of these posts, so many of them the same redundant ramblings. But no matter all the things I say and try to do, when I see you I can't help the familiar tightening in my chest, the odd urge to stare at you until you can't avoid my gaze.

I miss you, you know. I can't help missing you, and I don't know how not to. 

You, you make me so uncomfortable. I can't be myself, and I laugh just a little too loudly, double check every word I say, and avert my eyes like shy teenage girl. But I can't stay away, and I am thankful for every opportunity I have to see you. 

Which...nowadays, isn't so often anymore.

I don't know how much, or what has changed in the last few years. I don't remember quite how I used to be, or what made me decide the things I did. 

But I don't know how I gave you up. And I will regret that, because even then, I should have known that I would regret it someday.

I never had bad things to say about you, you know. And to this day, I still can't find something about you that I feel so strongly about, that I can't help but be irritated. There are things that people see in you, and you have always been exactly the way you are, no pretenses, no veils, no curtains. And you have been scorned and shunned and hated for it. 

But even when I feel you've changed, when I am sad that you aren't the person who could believe in the innocence of things, I can't seem to summon up any type of irritation at you. 

You, the person I could never replace. The person that I can't even seem to speak badly about. 

I can't deny that you're a little like a guilty pleasure, a rush of adrenaline, the taste of indulging in something I can't have. 

And I can't deny that I can't seem to resist you, that I am not strong enough to say no and cut you out of my life.

But not having you there for reasons out of my control...tastes like freedom. And apart from the slight disappointment to see your name not pop up on my alerts, I feel...relieved. 

I love watching you guys interact, and though I only witness it through images that show up on social media, odd messages that appear on your walls, it never fails to warm my heart.

It's odd and a little weird to be attached to someone else's friendship, but if I had to support one friendship all the way, it would be the two of you. Two of my most important people in the world...what can be more pleasing than to know that they recognize everything I have ever loved about either of you, in each other?