This is a slightly odd post to write, as the person concerned reads my blog and so what would ideally be an anonymous monologue will be instead a one-sided conversation. Strange, but there you go. Some back-story may be required, and will be provided as I deem necessary. Though it's not wholly my story to tell, so there may be some gaps. Telling the whole interwebs my life is one thing, telling someone else's is completely different. Suffice to say that I had a girlfriend, whom I shall call Giraffe, and around the time Hermit was getting ready to leave my country and go back to his, when I severely doubted I would ever see him again, things became less-than-good between Giraffe and I, for a variety of reasons. Things happened, there was confusion and I wound up feeling like I'd been abandoned by here at a time when I needed her the most. It was NOT and intentional abandoning and if I'd have opened my mouth (see a theme running through this blog?) and said how lost and alone I felt, I am very sure that she would have been more present for me.
We broke up, agreeing to stay friends. We drifted while I was in the US over the summer, and when I got back I wrote a long message to her saying how I felt about what happened. I don't imagine it was pleasant to read. She apologised (one of the fullest apologies I've ever received) and again, we decided to stay in touch. I've kind of...failed badly on that front. I'm appalling at keeping in touch with people anyway and it takes some serious perseverance to keep up a long-distance friendship with me. It's a major flaw and one that I work at...though less than I should. If I'm entirely honest with myself, I could have done a better job at contacting her. I'm bad, yes, but even I manage to message important people once every few months. I wasn't sure that I wanted to be in contact. She hurt me a lot, and I didn't know if I wanted to put in the insane amount of effort it takes me to maintain a friendship into someone that had, in my eyes, betrayed me. We saw each other briefly when I went home before Christmas, and I felt very awkward. Then, out of the blue, I got a birthday card and a letter from her (tip: I am more likely to respond to hand-written correspondence). The letter was, basically, things she feels that she had to say to me if we were to never speak again. It was beautiful, and thankfully I was at Hermit and Minx's apartment because I started crying like a child.
She wrote that she wasn't expecting a reply, but that if I felt like I wanted to be in touch, she would welcome any contact from me. That kind of stumped me. She hasn't had a reply, mainly because I still (roughly 3 weeks on) don't know if I want to. I miss sitting and talking for hours in a coffee shop with her, I miss getting drunk on gin together and giggling under tables, I miss the conversations we used to have. Hermit and Minx have both asked me if I miss those things, or if I miss her. I don't know. Sometimes I feel as though it's both and sometimes I feel as though I just miss the fun we used to have. It's very confusing, and will probably take me a while to get to grips with.
Giraffe...I don't know. You're not forgotten and never will be, but I just don't know.
When she gave me a letter, not handwritten and she wasn't able to say the words out loud, I cried because she wrote so many things that I wish she'd said before. I still have the letter and it's still stained by the tears I cried when I read it. It was only after I was out of her sphere of influence and she couldn't continue her abuse that I came to see it for what it was, a tool for her to coerce forgiveness out of me without ever changing her behaviour or taking any steps to help undo the harm she wrought. I feel dirty for telling her that I forgave her and I feel violated for feeling that I was forced to do that. And now I feel stupid for believing anything she wrote there when it became apparent that even a year later she's not willing to take the most basic steps to stop my clawing at my face and screaming myself to sleep every night over things she said and did.
ReplyDeleteShe lied to you about why she abandoned you. I don't know if she admitted that in her letter and told you the real reason or not. She seemed proud of having done it, she told me she'd broken up with you and that she'd decided not to tell you the real reason. She was about to tell me what it was when I told her to stop, because I'd tell you if she told me, so she stopped and left. I've no idea why she seemed so proud of it. I've no idea why she thought it'd be good to tell me while I was still so damaged by her lies to me and unwillingness to tell me why she did was she did was causing so much harm. Sadly I have no idea what the reason might have been because it was at a time in my life that I was still actively abused to the point that I felt I had to warn her that I wouldn't do what she hoped with the information, whatever that might have been.
That doesn't mean don't reply, or don't get back in contact. I know I've tried to get back in contact, I thought that maybe if I understood why she felt the need to do what she did it might help. It'd certainly help me for her to explicitly say that all of the times she told me that she was abusing me for my own good because I was flawed were not actually because I'm the worthless person she trained me to belieeve that I was. I'd be a hypocrite to recommend you don't get back in touch when I've tried to do just that (though obviously she doens't feel she'd profit from it so that won't happen).
Just, for the love of god, don't trust her or anything that she has written. I regard trusting her as the single worst decision I've made in my entire life.
I read this post... then I reread it.. then I rereread it.
ReplyDeleteThen I thought about coffee... (I'm sorry, but it's true)
Then, I thought about replying to this post... (Look, I'm trying to tell a story here)
Then I read the above comment... Then I had a good think about the people who've floated through my life. (See, it's beginning to get relevant).
I've known and loved a lot of people in my life, the blogger here being one that will always be a fond person in my heart. I've not told you this, I don't think. Hopefully, we've not needed to say it. I know we've not spoken a lot for an age, but I hoped you knew that if you ever needed me I was at the end of a phone, or an email, or a facebook message.
Regardless to say, there are a number of people in my life that I don't see anymore, or speak to anymore and frankly I don't care for anymore. For some of those people, it makes me sad and for others it matters not. I think, though, that we all wish for the best out of people and get suprised when they hurt us.
Where am I going with this? I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'll simply tell you what I know. If you don't know the answer after all this time, then the answer is no. The answer is no because we hold on to hope that what we once had with someone wasn't a wasted journey. Don't worry, it's not; However, it's not the "now", it is the "past".
Let it go, let it wash over you.
Learn from the past and may it guide you in the future.
[We are sorry for the inconvenience]