Before I kept telling myself if things ever somehow magically got back to even somewhat like how they used to be I wouldn’t really know if I would want them to, just considering how much time has passed. I’m in a position I know for a fact I will never be happy in. Maybe that’s a testament to the fact that I should never have been in this situation nor should I ever have been naive enough to think this time would be any different. I say for the like 8th time now.. Even though I’m on the side that’s hoping things will have changed this time I’m getting the feeling already that they haven’t. At least in some ways. I’m breaking my rule heavily of not writing about personal events or something recent, but I guess my justification this time is that I am not overly emotional at the time of writing this, I’m not writing it to vent or let out some frustration, I’m just writing this to self reflect and maybe better figure out what it is that I’m feeling. It’s just that I’m currently in a position where I’m stuck between wanting two entirely different things that I know neither of which will leave me feeling happy or content. There’s going to be either an uncomfortable anxiety or a sad longing feelings that comes with one or the other, maybe both feelings for either honestly I just know those two emotional combo’s all too well and that they are both usually associated with this person for me at this point. One “relief” I suppose I have, even though it isn’t at all relieving to think about, it’s that my unhappiness with this situation given either outcome that that can be blamed on nobody but me this time. What I want is two opposite and conflicting things and the fact I can’t get both is what I think is upsetting me the most. Nothing they can say or do will really make any of this go away, make things feel better for me. I have an ideal idea of what I’d like to occur, but that’s both incredibly unrealistic, we never have the chance of being in that place again, and even if we were I don’t know if it’s something I still want. I could just still be sad it’s gone.

So what do I want then? If I’m being totally honest I still don’t know for certain what that is. I have two ideas, one being extremely easy to make happen but it’s not something I like actually want want. I don’t think any part of this would please me, it’d hurt immensely and I’d end up spending another month or two trying to get over it again until I just barely get out of it and by coincidence have them come back just at that time and bring me right back to step one of this process. So option A would be for things to just go about how they after we separated, or more clearly after I left. It made things hell for the both of us at first, but things changed quickly at least it seemed with them they very quickly had a whole group of people to fall back to and move on with. I’m sure they were already drifting more towards them before I left. Which is why I never understand why they’d ever really care after so long that I was gone. Most days I think we would have already drifted apart naturally had we not had these moments where one of us had to quickly walk away or distance themselves. It’s left us unhealthily attached to each other. At least that’s what it’s left me. I kept thinking “If there’s anybody who I’d ever let back into my life no matter how bad things got between us, it’d be her.” I kept saying you were my favorite, a phrase in which I’ve been trying to get away from. It used to mean a lot, it used to mean that they were the person I considered the most important in my life, the person who’s happiness and sadness affected me way more than anybody’s and who my main goal of the day was to make them smile because if I could do that than I was doing at least something to make their day just a little bit better, a little bit more bearable. That was years ago now though, not saying I don’t think they still aren’t important to me nor do I want them to be happy any less, it’s just that with all that’s happened between us in the years since that phrase has taken a sort of darker meaning to me. It’s just a sign a fragment of the part of me that’s still hung up, or more accurately, attached to having them in my lives and just attached to past experiences I’ve had with them, both the good and the bad. A sign that I’m sure now means little to nothing to them. And I think that’s where the main problem comes in and perhaps the reason for my self-created paradox.

Despite me being the one that ran away, being the one that was hurt and hurt for months on end only asking them hey please don’t hurt me, stop lying to me and just them repeatedly telling me “No I’m not doing that. Sorry you see it that way but that’s not right.” Something that never made me feel better but always shut me up for the moment I suppose it was still very effective. Despite being the one that should be saying no, I want to keep you at a distance. I don’t want to give you the power to do that to me again. I still want them in my life and I wish it was like how things used to be. I hate this sort of casual, “oh its been a few days since I’ve talked to them I’m just randomly gonna send a hey hows your day goin” kind of relationship I have with them now. If I want to do something with them it feels like I am the one going to have to be setting that up, and I don’t know something about it just feels weird, awkward, and worst of all forced but perhaps that’s just because right now that’s just what this relationship is. The problem I was talking about earlier was I have all these random bits of info that I’m sure would mean nothing to them, that hold such significance, things like songs we shared together, playlists, memories, routines.. just so much I’ve managed to associate with them no wonder it was impossible to run away from it. There was always something near by to remind me. This means too much to me and I wish it didn’t mean anything because it’d be so much easier to have walked passed this time of my life. It means something to them of course, they wouldn’t have messaged me if it didn’t matter to them anymore, but I worry they more just wanted to relieve their conscience and I mistook that as a request to be back in their life, and was upset when they didn’t actually ask to be back. They didn’t do anything, and they have mostly continued to do nothing but I guess just chat. It’s what I asked I suppose. They’re putting an effort but probably only because I asked. I don’t know if I’ll ever know for sure if I want them back in my life because I feel like I’m guiding this thing despite wanting to be able to take a hands off approach but I’m afraid if I do that this car will just veer off and we’d just end up naturally separating (which I suppose is something I wanted in the first place but now after this back and forth it’d just be another level of shit that comes with this whole thing). And things are going what feels like super slowly, but I guess that’s because I’m juxtaposing this with my memory of how we used to be, where every day I had to look forward to a good morning message, a random message when I was playing with someone else just asking how the game was going or if they could join or even just watch, and I didn’t feel weird to do the same. We were well intertwined in each other’s lives. Now I don’t know whether what you’re telling me is either because you do want me in your life/to spend time with me or just because you don’t want to hurt me and go through this mess that this whole shit fest has been again.

So I suppose that sort of transitions me into what the second option I say I would also “want.” For it to feel like I’m actually their best friend again. I think this is ridiculous obviously because I’m not anymore. I don’t think I ever will be, they have people in their lives which I think they are more like how the end of the last paragraph described. And that’s okay. At least it should be. That’s where that point I made about me thinking this person and me would’ve drifted apart already comes back because of that I think I’ve slowly distanced us each time that we’ve tried coming back. Last time it was because at the time my main group was with someone else and there was enough time in between that I didn’t want us to be close again. I didn’t want to be away either, I just meant I wasn’t actively desiring for our relationship to change when we got back into this friendly cordial version of our relationship (that’s the best way I can describe this). It was thanks to that extra time apart and the fact that I was actually in a relationship when they came back then so I had a lot of other things to worry about at the time. Not to say that having a girlfriend is the reason things were easier to adjust, just that it allowed more of a distraction so at the time so those times where I did freak out about what it was we were even doing and how uncomfortable I felt “easing back into things” but I didn’t have a lot of freetime to reflect on that and let each question and anxious thought snowball into a whole bowl full of thoughts that end up keeping me up at night like they do now and did the past recent times we’ve tried again. That relationship ended probably because of something related to all of this. Well let me correct that, it ended because of something I was still hung up on, distracted with, or just otherwise still upset with something related to this. They knew everything about this situation, because we kind of knew everything about each other. But once I started giving them rainchecks often and just generally being distracted because I was spending time with this friend of mine, who at the time said she needed me. And this time she actually did need someone, not me per se but someone and I was glad to be there and to have been able to do what I can. I didn’t think anything of it. I really hope that this doesn’t become a repeating problem for me, sabotaging new relationships to latch on desperately to old ones that maybe are already living past it’s expiration date but this is 100% I know a me issue so probably wasn’t worth mentioning in this post but this is going to be my own passworded vent post, probably my one for the year. Anyway what I’m trying to say though is now that we’re back in this “easing” phase and that I honestly have not come anywhere close being okay with this.. There’s still a reflexive reaction to defend myself, to just be cordial and friendly like they’re being just to avoid letting them know this whirlpool of thoughts that I’m going through that at the end of the day wouldn’t mean anything at all to them or change anything between us if I did. It’s just hard to go from this easing phase now after seeing again what it was like to be close with you to have you seem excited to talk to me.

That’s asking too much though I know. That’s essentially asking the universe to turn back it’s clocks so I can experience once again the feeling of being just as important to somebody’s life and routine as they were to mine. Time only goes one direction and no time that I spend looking backwards is going to help change that. This is why I consider this a paradox of sorts. Probably not the right usage of that word but what the fuck ever. Neither is going to happen, and even if either did happen there’s no guarantee whether that option will bring me happiness or pain. I’m certain both options will bring me an equal amount of both happiness (or content-ness) and pain and there’s just no getting away from feeling shitty from one aspect or another of each situation this ends up resulting in. All I know is I’m probably going to end up thinking about this whole ordeal way more than needed and it’s going to still be fresh in my mind way after it’s become a distant memory for them and I’m going to end up not saying a damn thing end up stuck in this “easing” phase, which will essentially just be a casual/distant friend that they can keep around to at least say we aren’t technically out of each other’s lives.. even if we aren’t really. Something which I’d be okay with if I too had moved on from this thing and had a group friend to go to but it’s been unfortunately a time in my life which I’ve kind of separated and or distanced from those that would’ve definitely helped, and definitely did help these past few months but maybe that was the problem is they felt like that’s all they were there for. That’s not all they were to me, I cared about them immensely and even now I still think of them fondly often, but it does feel like that’s mostly what I relied on them for so I’m sorry. Maybe I’m just trying too hard to move on that I end up focusing too much on this that I end up doing nothing but delaying my moving on process. Hopefully I’ll have an easier time figuring this shit out in the coming months because I am not looking forward to going through them but maybe it will bring on an actual moving on process and not just a distraction one this time because as much as I’d like things to be just all smiles and good mornings and us best friends holding hands helping each other get through this shitty world together… that moment for us is already gone and I have to accept that.

-T.