Through a New Lens

“I hate writing mean words to you. It is painful for me to do it, but you have been awful to me. I have been patient. I have forgiven you. I have wished you well, always. And you have been mean. You have been cruel. You have hurt me. And I’m done. I’m done with you thinking that’s ok. So don’t contact me again unless you have kind things to say because that’s all I’m accepting into my life anymore”

This was the closing paragraph of a long strongly worded email I sent exactly two months ago. It has stayed at the forefront of my mind for the best and worst reasons. It took a lot of strength to write this email but particularly that last sentence. I was proud of myself for standing up to this person that I loved so deeply because I had put up with so much pain and suffering out of love for this being. I knew I deserved better than the cruel words I had received. I knew I did nothing wrong in the first place. This was an email of strength. But I often reread it wondering if I forever pushed away one of my closest friends. I shouldn’t care after all I’ve been through, but I do. Things got so out of hand between us, and unnecessarily so. I tried so desperately to mend our friendship with forgiveness but it never worked. I can’t express to you how profoundly sad that makes me, still.

This week will have been 7 months since it all ended between us. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still struggle with this loss every day. Receiving the email I did that evoked the response above helped some with the healing, but it didn’t fix everything I feel inside. I stopped crying every day over this person because I realized that the soul I loved no longer existed in the body I used to know. But the pain I felt of being left and disposed of in the way I was, I struggle with that a lot.

As I begin to meet new people here in this city I hope to one day call home, I work so desperately to leave these experiences in the past, in Chicago, where they belong. I’ve never been one of those people who can flip a switch with my emotions. I put up a good facade, but my mind is always racing, overanalyzing every detail, making sure I don’t say the wrong thing. So as I meet new people I’m always walking myself through being a functioning human in society. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I struggle getting to know people because I’ve been so hurt every time I open myself up. Vulnerability is scary. I found myself so exhausted by the facade of “super chill, very casual Cassy” a couple weeks ago that I ended the night bawling my eyes out in my cousins arms. I strive to be the strong version of me, the one that takes no shit, the one that wrote that email, but deep inside I have a lot of feelings that aren’t working out the way I had hoped they would. I can hear my therapist saying that it’s ok and we all heal at our own speeds and one day I won’t feel so anxious about these encounters, and I sure as hell hope she is right.