December 24th 2009
email from me
It’s Christmas Eve.
Weeks ago, you told me you’d things you could only discuss in person, not through email. I immediately tried to get us to hang out and talk, thinking that you’d been waiting on ME all this time.
You told me I was pushing, that I wasn’t respecting your pace and giving you your time. That there was more you had to think about. That I should wait. And not respond. So I didn’t respond. And I waited. That was the sixteenth. And I was thinking of Christmas looming in the distance. And the next day, you wrote a friendly conversational email about light things. Which was nice, because I miss you. And I continued to wait for the things you said you were thinking about and had to consider before speaking of.
2 days ago, I wrote you this:
If we … end up getting to talk and stuff by then… and if things fit together and everything is ok …. if, if, if….. um… then, um… I was going to ask you if you’d feel like going to Sparta with my on my birthday.
….Well…. I mean, I know I’ve gotta just wait and see how things go… if they even go… but I thought I’d mention that.
yesterday, I wrote you this:
Hanging out with you on Christmas Eve would be the best birthday present I could hope for.
It’s really all dependant on whether we get a chance… whether you are ok with talking and saying things…. and if you or I don’t end up broken by it. I…. I don’t know if what you say will leave me the ability to …. be near …. um…. and still do things. I don’t know if I’ll be too heartbroken.But I can’t…. I can’t do Christmas Eve together if words didn’t happen. I’ll explode in dread.
So… if we get to talk. if talking goes ok. if you are mobile. if the planets align. Then I think we should definitely go to Sparta and/or Jefferson and have a fabulous time.
And I didn’t push. And I didn’t ask. And I just waited and hoped, and tried my damnedest to not try to get us to talk even though I DESPERATELY wanted to clear things up before today.
And I emailed you that last night. That I guess things ran out of time and couldn’t happen like I’d hoped, and I wished it were otherwise.
And then I got a text message from you at 5:30 telling me you were coming by on Christmas Eve.
And that’s …. that what I meant by being kinda cruel.
And… it didn’t have to be a mean and nasty conversation. I didn’t have to bring in today with a fight. I called… because I was confused and astounded that you’d… that you’d do that. And to express my sorrow that I’d been hoping so DESPERATELY for that, but…. I thought…. I mean, you knew…
And you’d no idea what I was talking about…
You said you’d told me everything you had to say in email, which confused me, because since your email telling me I was pushing you too hard, I’d not heard any words of a serious nature from you. You said we’d nothing to speak about that couldn’t be figured on the phone right there. Then when we spoke about those things, you said you didn’t want to talk about it now.
You mentioned before how you’d been trying to figure out how you could talk me into spending my birthday with you. I told you I’d gladly do so, no convincing needed. I only wanted to get to talk about things first, and not throw ourselves together on a holiday of importance for the first time in months without… having cleared this mess up.
I’ve been accused of not respecting your point of view. Of disregarding and belittling you and your standpoint.
And meanwhile, you just…
So I’m acting accordingly.
I’m telling you that you broke things. You just broke it.
You broke my birthday. You broke my Christmas-time. You broke what I thought was possibly work-through-able.
I’m spending my birthday holding back sobs all day. And writing this stupid fucking email.
We go back and forth, and now it’s wrecked the day I hope to be joyful the most. I was prepared for your absence, but not this….
But hey, it’s already like this.
So. If you want to hang out on Christmas Eve. If you want to come here and get me, meet my family, and spent Christmas Eve with me and maybe go somewhere and meet some people I know…. while intermittantly hashing through this shit, then come on by. This day is already shot, and it’s not like I have a happy Christmas Day planned to ruin.
If I don’t hear from you before then, <Vermont Friend> may come and get me. that won’t be til probably 9 or 10 or something.
December 24th 2009
email from Stefan
You paint me as a monster here.
Go ahead.
I really just wanted you to have a nice birthday and christmas. You don’t have to believe me. In fact, at this point…I don’t really care if you do or don’t. I do all I could, when I could. Whether action, or words. If it’s not up to par, well then. Leave me be.
I’ve not slept and need coffee before I deal with my “idiot” problems. That’s where I’m at.
December 24th 2009
email from me
You did?
And you totally ignored and disregarded the fact that I’d not be able to hang with you unless we talked first, and decided to just come by on Christmas Eve.
And were mean and angry on the phone, when I thought that maybe we could, indeed say anything that needed to be said over the phone, like you sugested, so that our talk could be DONE and we could spend today together.
You told me I ruined your month of October, and your Halloween.
How am I painting you as a monster?
If we are going to talk at some point, it may as well be tonight. I’m tired of this. This has got to be resovled, one way or another, and I think it should be done in person.
So why not today?
Maybe you don’t realize exactly how much it means that I’m still trying to hang out with you AFTER you’ve already made me cry and ignored what I’d let you know was in my capabilities. Maybe yo don’t realize how important today is to me, and how ridiculous it is that I keep hoping that somehow, maybe something will happen to have today have a happy ending.
December 24th 2009
email from Stefan
…that night we had that nice long conversation……was when I was trying to come over. Remember? Of course you don’t. That was my attempt to talk before xmas eve. It just didn’t work out. Christ. You’ve demonized me so much, I almost forgot that I did try and come over the other night.
December 24th 2009
email from me
Of course I remember. And I remember the complicated legnths to which you were trying to go to get here.
But it didn’t happen….
and… when I brought it up you pretended that all the talking had been done.
My family is here. They are eating ham. <Vermont Friend> will be in NJ by now. I still think it’d be nice if you, and these worlds, would intersect.
I’m being ridiculous, probably, for trying.
Stefan comes over on Christmas Eve, and we trek up to Sparta to meet with some of my old friends.
We don’t talk about our ongoing issues.
December 25th 2009
Email from me
I um… this was the most fabulous birthday I’ve had in a really long time.
You are…. an incredible and giving human.
You don’t wear it as part of the package, as part of your personality, but you’ve got it. You’ve got it more than most. the giving.
I want to tell you that I ……. but in the non-romantic way.
I mean… In the non-specific way, not just non-romantic…
I mean…. what are the words to use to tell you that you are monumentally fabulous and I think the world of you, but multiplied by a thousand?
Merry Christmas.
December 26th 2009
email from me
[edited]
I … wished I’d been at your house. So i could be waking up when you got home and we could be comfy pajama mode right now.
your rhythm… might be good if you were sleeping at 5? Sleeping from 5 am or so, and waking up at 2… that’s ideal to me, at least. Still able to do daytime things.
I’m….
I am still … trying to be ok. In my head. But. I’m trying this your way. I’m trying to… try to be ok without going away. Be beside you through the chaos. I’m trying to… Maybe it just has to hurt. Because it still does. And it will continue to. So maybe… i just have to learn how to live in pain. Either way it hurts too much. My choices are to feel the empty awful pain of being without you…… or hurt for being with you and feeling my heart implode with void where I thought you were filling the empty spaces, and feeling I’m not good enough. So. I’ll try the second path. I… don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it up indefinitely. I don’t know what it will do to how we are.
But I try.
I hope you might still… tell me things you think. Sometime. I hope you decide to talk to me about things. I hope you can maybe let me know… because, i do still believe the size of your feelings… but i’m still confused about the color.
I’ve never…. tried this before. I never would. But. You are worth it. I have to do whatever I can… to try to keep myself by your side for as long as I can.
I feel like I’ve got a hangover today. I suppose maybe it’s a food hangover. Emotional hangover?
I think… I can eat that meat now. RAWR.
I hope your goose was fabulous.
I have a comic book cover to draw for a friend. sigh.
December 27th 2009
email from me
I’m having trouble with my head.
and i don’t think i can… deal. Now, all over again, I keep crying, when I think about things.
I’m really really trying.
So much that I thought…. wasn’t true. And this is destroying my sense of self worth.
I’m trying. So hard.
I don’t think I can make it.
Oh god.
I want you to help me, but you can’t. And I just feel so empty inside. It hurts more than anything.
December 28th 2009
email from Stefan
…..and in an instant, everything I psychologically endured,and physically offered on xmas eve…..gone. sigh….and there’s nothing I could say or do….so…..okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.
December 28th 2009
email from me
please. don’t.
don’t turn this into me not appreciating what you do.
don’t start giving long lists of all the things that you do and endure on my behalf. I know.
Nothing is gone. nothing is forgotten.
but nothing is changed.
I pushed aside the weeks of waiting and crying and hurt… and feeling that my emotional state and birthday wishes were totally ignored and cast aside…. and pushed it away…. so that I could enjoy being with you. I’ve been swallowing pain every day just trying to be ok with being around you.
I keep trying.
I’m eating my own desires and trying to kill my own pain so that I don’t have to abandon you. I’m casting aside my own self preservation and self worth just to stay near you.
but I’m still dying. It’s only making me feel utterly worthless.
It doesn’t matter what marvelous things you do for me, it doesn’t take away the reality that eating me alive.
for years, I was thinking…. when you were spending 4 days a week at my house, when we’d told each other that we were each other’s favorite person, the person we’d run away with, the person we trust most, the only person we’d ever before trusted this much, the most important…. when I was the person you’d wanted to spend you favorite holiday with, or travel with…. when you told me you were proud of how much you cared about me, talked with such disdain for those who hook up with thier casual friends, ….. I really…. I really thought that I was the person you’d want to BE with.
I really thought… that I wasn’t your girlfriend, but I was the closest sort of thing that either of us could allow a person to be. Something even closer, in some ways. Something better. Something of free will and choice.
And I really thought…. you’d chosen me.
I was reading your actions. I gave everything I had to give to you. For years, growing closer. We were the exceptions to the rule in so many ways for each other, the only person we did so many things with and for…. And…. And so…. I thought there was only me.
And I never would have gone so far, and gotten so close, and LET you be my EVERYTHING if I had known. I… can’t understand how you didn’t see that. I kept telling you. I kept letting you know how much…. You couldn’t have NOT known. You let me fall.
I bring up words like “love” and you stop me, and you tell me not to suddenly introduce or use words that we’ve never used beofre, not part of our lexicon.
But. See. The way I care about you. And how very much. that’s the word. that’s the word that means the very most a person cares. And that’s the word I have in my chest for you. That’s the whole point
It’s not even occured to me to want to be with anyone else for YEARS. For YEARS, The idea of you in my life, to whatever capacity that is, was …. everything I wanted.
I didn’t know. And I just can’t be ok with this.
I just can’t.
I can’t stop crying.
I really thought.
I’d really like to see you. I’ve been wanting so desperately to talk to you in person about things.
And I’m trying to hold on.
But…
Trying to have you in my life while knowing that you are with others has only made me hurt and cry and feel dead inside.
Even the more emotionally casual and totally non-serious relationships I’ve had, at least invovled a sexual monogamy. And you are the person I….. can’t explain the importance you have in my heart. I just can’t bear it.
I wanted to kiss you. But. I can’t touch you like that.
I want to be ok. I want to be ok. I want to not have to sit here and miss you so much all the time. I want to be ok. god, let me be ok…
but it doesn’t work.
I can’t.
Our bond. the way we are with one another. A person who will die for you, a person who will do anything for you, a partner in all things in life, someone who makes food shopping fun, will cook dinners with you and sleep comfortably beside you, someone who will sit across from you for hours and hours with minimal conversation, just enjoying the presence of one another…. the person you call almost every day, think of a thousand times every day, share small moments of your dialy life with in ways that nobody else will understand, the person who makes every day life almost bearable, the person you don’t get sick of, the person who understands….
wanting that.
while sleeping with others.
it really IS having your cake and eating it too.
But I’d do it. I’d give you your cake. If I could. I just… I just can’t.
I try. And it hurts. I feel emotionally betrayed. I know you didn’t want to hurt me, but I feel I’ve been used as emotional surrogate. All the understanding and comfort a girlfirend gets you, but without that pesky monogamy or not being able to refer to yourself as “single”.
I was hoping it would feel different after all this time. Be easier.
If you ever decide that…. I’m worth it.
If you ever decide that I am what you want; that you could be with just me, in whatever we are to each other….
let me know, I’ll be here.
Because i do love you. I really truly do. And i know I always will.
I’m sorry I’m taking away your best friend.
But it seems the love of my life never existed.
and…
thank you. thank you for everything always and forever.
December 28th 2009
email from Stefan
I don’t like that you tell me to please, not list all of the things that are meaningful and important to me……then proceed, to list all of the things that are important and meaningful to you.
That puts into perspective where you are at with considering or understanding me.
Though, you did so gracefully speak on my behalf with that well constructed cake metaphor.
I don’t hate what you wrote, but…..you poorly and unfairly represent me and that…..it’s not doing good things to me.
That’s all i’ll write for now. I know how you’re desperately uninterested in reading my side as much as i’ve read yours. I’m surprised I even got this out. I should probably wait a while before/if I write again.
I don’t know how you could brand me a scumbag, then thank me. What, is there to thank me for?
December 28th 2009
Email from me
Your side?
You’ve told me you’ve been thinking, that you’d tell me things when you had them to say… I’ve never kept you from explaining your side, and have often hoped and waited your side would be explained.
You’ve also told me that you couldn’t explain your side to me, that I was clearly incapable of understanding it.
I don’t think you’d ever want to or knowingly hurt me. I do think that you appreciated and enjoyed my company enough to perhaps overlook how desperately and obviously I was falling for you. I do think that you might have turned a blind eye to the many indications and glaring words and actions that were telling you how I felt, and how much I’d be hurt if you were with other women; that you instead kept your focus on those few freeing words from the very beginning, so that you could keep things the way they were. Because it was something important to you.
I understand if you need to cling to any ways you can in thinking me inconsiderate or misunderstanding of you. I understand if that makes it easier. You can think I am daemonizing you to others, but I won’t.
Whatever you’d say, no matter what your rationale, it doesn’t take away the facts and the reality. The reality is that you’ve been seeing other women. The reality is that you will continue to do so. The reality is that I am not the only woman with whom you are/will be intimate. And that isn’t something I can be part of, regardless of the reasoning behind it, regardless of whether I’m the one at the top of the list and the very most favorite or not, regardless of how much I try to convince myself to do so. The reality is that it hurts.
The reality is that knowing I’m not the only woman you are with, having you in my life causes me far more pain than joy.
The reality is that, years ago, when someone asked if you and I were exclusive, my response was that we were so open about how much we cared about each other, that I was certain that we were, that you wouldn’t be with someone else, that at this point you’d know how much it would hurt me. That you weren’t the casual hook-up sort, and that would mean you were having a sexual relationship with someone else simultaneously, and I knew you’d never DO that to me, while saying such intimate words to me.
I was wrong.
Again…
if ever you decide that I am worth it, that I am enough, that I could be what you want, that you might be able to trust me and not judge me with your low opinions of me and my past…. if you ever think you might be willing to be whatever we are to each other without being intimate with others…. let me know.
I’ll be here, and I’ll still care.
If not, then I hope you can find the understanding and acceptance in others that I was unable to offer to you.
December 29th 2009
email from Stefan
I need not cling to…..anything. I also don’t need you speaking for me. I thought I made it clear I didn’t want to hear your take on MY view of this after the ridiculous cake metaphor. That undeniably, DOES, demonize me.
I don’t need you’re psychoanalytical translation of what I do and think. You’re wallpapering of the word, “understand” through all of this…..shows me clearly, you don’t.
It’s become exhausting to explain to you on the phone(which I have), and via email(which I also have…..that, “I have more to say”, is what I will always feel when talking of such things. There is no secret vault of words. It wouldn’t matter anyway. You’d hear them however you want.
Do not defend, or paraphrase my side anymore. It’s comedic to me. That’s how insulting it is.
I am nearly sure you don’t care for me as much as you think. Reason being, that you are genuinely insulting my moral foundation, and being a parasite to my private thoughts that you’ve long decided you already know. So, no point there. I’ve told you my reasons for so much, and the way I think and feel, so many times. Yet, you…..even up to the last email…….with that cake shit. It makes me want to grind my teeth down to the gums. You heard nothing, of my mental plight, of how this has NOTHING to do with me sleeping with anyone else, or ever wanting to. I don’t crave promiscuousness , and probably never will. It’s not that. So, shut up about that.
It seems, you’re too self-serving to ever care about my personal problems.
I tried to explain the other day, and you explain all this with some story about me wanting it both ways. I don’t need to pretend, or convince myself you are demonizing me. Let’s be real about that, at least. You reduce my addictions and issues, down to bull….shit. You COULDN’T possibly…..care for me the way you claim. Before, you explain any further about ,”this is a different topic, I’ve always cared for your issues”……don’t bother. I refuse to have you tell me I don’t feel pain correctly, or that it’s not justified or whatever. The next time you say anything close to that, I will completely abandon all belief and claims of YOUR pain, and start to build a forest of questions I could ask. Don’t you EVER, claim to defend, what ails me.
Nobody speaks for me. Nobody ever will.
Especially no one, who claims to care for me.
You have done a bang up job vituperating me. I think I’ll take a indefinite break from reading it anymore. Though, I’m failry sure,…you’ll just send more debasing back at me.
No one I’ve ever met could take ANY real objective look outside themselves, and for that, I will never be loved,as far as I could tell. You would NEVER, be saying that i’m that much of a scumbag…..if you loved me. You’ve told me that you have love for people that you’ve been involved with still. Between the screaming and sometimes even fighting. I’ve never screamed at you, or laid a angered hand on you. You couldn’t even handle me talking a bit louder when I got pissed for you saying I was “blindly following”, which is a terribly atrocious thing to say to someone who defines myself through my independence. You stormed out. You……only want to believe, and witness the parts you choose of me. You stand to witness nothing else. That’s not flattery. That’s a reason for me to believe I should never bother having as much emotions as others.
I’m…..kind of through believing I’m the bad guy here. Besides trying to be the best friend i could, I always did,and still do have needle to fight everyday. If you’re not going to help me, get…..and stay, out of my way.
Cake…..heroin addiction, being an ex-convict, having a history of homelessness and violence filled with things you couldn’t survive if your skin was coated in flaming razor blades…..is……cake, to you? When you talk of how I see things, you have to address ,and consider, all of these things. If you really, want to talk about me respectfully and treat me as a entire package, rather than selective trait issue. I am a whole person, complete with a fully functioning life that I have miraculously rebuilt, and am still rebuilding. It is UNHEARD of, for me to not be dead right now. You, don’t get that. You know NO ONE, who has been through a tiny fraction, of what I have. You have NOTHING, to compare me to. Yet, you explain so much on my behalf. Amazing.
I want to have my cake and eat it to? I want the best of both worlds? I want it both ways? I want it all?
I WANT, to not live in hell. Hell Rachael…….not a fucking bakery. Open your god damn eyes and ears for the man you supposedly, love.
You’ve now pushed me into a much darker place in terms of how I feel about you. You may cry for something, but…..it ain’t me. I’m obviously too heartless and greedy to be sobbed over in your eyes.
If you believe any of that slander to really be true,and you feel you could judge my life and moral motives, then…..I have to say what I’d say to someone I don’t know,…..fuck you. You care for no one but yourself. If you DO care…..then realize you have waves of misdirection, and that you in fact have been belittling my obstacles, and demonzing me………then…..I’d at least feel like you care, to understand me.
Don’t cover me in saliva ,then tell me how you cry. I’m done with it. Really, truly fuckin done with it.
I don’t look down on you because of your past. Your past upsets me. My past frightens me, and keeps a frigid hand on my shoulder at all times. I know the depth of my devotion for your whole life…..and I know exactly what love means, and am not AFRAID to use it when referring to you. I just don’t like the reputation the word has earned, and don’t like being compared to anyone else. EVER. All i’ve wanted, since we hung out…..is to hang out again. I’m not afraid to say that, as I’ve never been afraid to say anything. Good or bad.
Don’t write me another word, if you can’t respect what I just said, and respect the defense of my own side, and objectively see the reason for my words. I don’t need it explained back to me.
Don’t push me again. Don’t. I can’t stress that enough. I’d start to think you hate me,or…want to see what you could push me to do, if you did. I really would.
December 29th 2009
email from me
I offended you, and didn’t mean to. I made you think I minimize and simplify your life, which I strove so hard in the past to show I didn’t. I’m not trying to make you out to be the bad guy, but it seems the more I try, the more you get offended. I don’t think you crave a promiscuous life.
(You don’t understand great parts of me, either. The people I still care for, those are people who have hurt me, but never people who’d screamed, who’d I’d fought with, who’d laid an unkind hand on me.)
Your reasons are your own. Your reasons aren’t something that I can critcise or think to minimize. Your reasons also aren’t something I entirely understand. Wanting your cake and eating it too was only in reference to romance and sex; and not your life on a whole, or your past. You know I’d never reduce your life to pastries. But ok, your life as a whole, then.
I did understand that for your own reasons part of who you are is that you weren’t in a place where you could offer being a boyfriend to someone and entering in that sort of relationship. That wasn’t something you were looking for, and neither was I. I did not understand that even after years of being with and learning to trust someone and growing as close as we had, that meant you’d not be sexually exclusive, and that being so was beyond what you were willing to offer or share with someone. No, I don’t understand how, the terrible life you led in the past that is beyond my comrehension, and whatever you struggle with daily that I clearly can’t imagine, would mean you don’t have it in you to be a sexually exclusive partner. No, no I don’t. I’m sorry. But the reasons won’t change anything. The end result still tears me up.
I’ve asked again and again, and you’ve told me again and again that I was wrong to think we were exclusive, and I’m wrong to think that would happen now.
Your reasons are your own, and may be the most valid reasonings in the world. But regardless of what we call ourselves to each other, we are in an interpersonal relationship, and I can’t continue this way with you.
The way I care about you, and the way my so very faulty understanding of the situation led me to believe, the way I was wrong about things…. it built things in a way that doesn’t let me go backwards.
You can decide that you think this is only further indication of how much I don’t care, how much I don’t understand. Perhaps if I understood in ways you think I am lacking, I’d have a different take on the situation. But there’s nothing I could understand that would make it not hurt me. There’s no knowing that would take my pain away.
Being told that I am expected to assume that you are with others… that makes my bond with you, and having you in my life something that hurts more than it brings joy.
Since I seem to be making your struggles more difficult, instead of easing the burden in any way, then it seems I should, indeed, get out of your way. Because I don’t want to be that to you.
I don’t hate you. I’m not leaving angry. I’m walking away, because of the reality of the situation, and because it seems our positions can’t be changed at the moment and we only are hurting each other like this.
If that ever changes… and if you ever think you could be with just me in whatever we are to one another…
I’d joyously love to have you in my life.
December 29th 2009
email from me
… a bit more succinct.
I knew from the beginning, I knew all along that there was only so much you could offer, that there was only so close you could allow yourself to be to someone, that there was only so far you could go with someone. You’d made that clear. I have always accepted that, and never asked or expected for more than what was offered willingly. I didn’t, and still don’t understand how that means you can’t be with / wouldn’t want just one someone who you’d expressed such affection for.
I had thought, when discovering my error, that understanding might make it easier; might let me be ok with things. But I’ve come to realise that no matter what the reason, no matter if I understood, it will only continue to make me bleed.
I built my caring about you slowly, and on this misconception. I cannot go backwards. I cannot care the way I do about you, while having you in my life, and not hurt. I have tried, and I cannot change the way I feel. I’m sorry.
I again apologise that my previous words seemed attacking, or belittling.
We used to make each others lives more bearable. Now, we are only making everything harder for each other.
You are the biggest, best, brightest, and most significant thing to ever happen to my life.
I thank you for sharing yourself with me as much as you did.