There have been many words floating through my head the past week. All of them are for specific people – things I wish I had the opportunity to day, but don’t. It’s hard. When you have the person there in front of you, in a moment that can change the course of your friendships and relationships, the words are nowhere to be found. Stringing words together is all but impossible, and frequently when you do, they’re precisely the wrong words to mend the situation. And those words will haunt you into the future as you think back on what you could have said, should have said – and how far that is from what you actually said.
So when more time has passed than you know what to do with, and somehow the words have found their way to you, what do you do with them?
For me they just don’t stop ricocheting back and forth across my consciousness. It’s distracting at best, painful at worst.
Maybe if I just write them down, it will be as if they’ve been said – maybe not to the right person or at the right time – but at least its out there, right?
To CA: You were right – I could have done better, for myself. I could have been a better person, for myself. I wasn’t but that wasn’t an attack on you – it really had nothing to do with you and I still don’t know how you came to see it as pertaining to you in any way. I think maybe its because of all the horrors of your past that you can’t help but to think that way. But after all that I did for you, after I laid aside my own life to preserve yours, it was heartless of you to leave the way you did. It came out of nowhere and at the worst time and for weeks I literally felt like I was missing a limb or a lung or half my heart. It’s easier now, but I miss you beyond fucking belief. I hold on hope that it’ll be like you said and maybe we’ll be friends again. But as the months pass and you refuse to acknowledge my existence, I somehow doubt it. We were good for each other for a time but I think maybe now we’re both too volatile. You were like my cosmic twin separated at birth, and now we’re nothing. I don’t even know how I’d want things to change, because I know that ‘back’ isn’t a place we can go.
To WM: Where did you go? Why did you go? We were as close as two people could be without being a different kind of ‘significant’ to each other and then suddenly it was the cold shoulder. I can’t believe it’s been years now and even though I rarely think of you by light of day, I still have dreams in which we’re still the closest of friends. I had one two nights ago and I woke up so sad because I knew it wasn’t true. I think out of all the friendships I’ve ever had, ours was the most easy to fall into, the most comfortable to maintain, and the most honest I’ve ever had. I’m sorry that it’s gone, but mostly I just want to know why.
To JP: You know better than anyone in my life the terrible things that have made me the cynic I am today. You know the things we both went through in the name of sacrifice and survival. How is it that after all that you turn around and say the most hurtful and uncaring things to me? How can you tell a person their suffering is nothing and that they shouldn’t still hurt? I’m glad if you’re no longer hurt, though I don’t believe that for a second. But how can you be so disdainful of another person’s attempts at ‘ok’?
To LS: There’s nothing to forgive. I know you don’t believe that but you’re killing yourself to make something better that was never a problem. I know you love me in that way only you can. You’ve got my heart even if you don’t know what to do with it, but now its time to love yourself.
To SS: You listen but you hear nothing. Why do I keep talking?
To SG: You’ll never know how proud I am of you – you just won’t accept it. But you’ve come so far and done so much. It gives me hope that M and A and I and M can all do the same one day, and that maybe they’ll let me stick around to see it. You’re a beautiful human being, and a beam of hope even when you feel hopeless yourself. Keep on keepin’ on!
Somehow, that’s incredibly freeing. Even knowing that not one of those people will ever read this, it’s freeing. I can stop cycling the words in my head, and my heart can move on to the next thing. (Hearts can do that, right? I’ve heard of this ‘moving on’ thing but I’ve rarely seen proof that it’s real…)
The gin and tonic and the catharsis are a lovely mix right now. If only they could bottle that all in one.
Nothing Was Said 