I can’t believe I let this get as bad as it had gotten before. I had nightmares about those times, how awful my life was and how awful I was.. I loathed who I used to be and I ended up being that person once more. I still don’t know how to cope with knowing how easy it was especially after I spent so long trying to change myself to never go through that again. This must have been a long time coming I’m sure, but I didn’t see any of the signs. Maybe I should have though? I was starting to want to miss work for no other reason than I don’t have the emotional energy to go out and deal with people. I had days where I had to just shut myself off for the night and not talk to anybody. I avoided most of my irl plans, constantly cancelling hanging out with friends or even concerts with people I was excited to see. I could have totally gotten to see Sophie Meiers, Kero Kero Bonito, Frankie Cosmos, and The Regrettes for the third time live but instead I spent those nights at home freaking out. Panicking and shaking. “Oh I’m just going through a funk” I kept saying. I thought I was. I thought they were brief periods of anxiety and/or depression but the time between funks kept getting shorter and shorter. The funks kept getting more and more severe. I know when it started getting noticeably bad and I believe it’s because that’s when my stress levels rose immensely. Not that that’s what caused it, more so just the straw that broke the camel’s back kind of thing. It was almost as if I could feel the physical breaking in my head, the change in the way I was thinking, the distorted perception… it all just snapped and I tried to fight back against it but I failed massively.

My way of thinking before I got close with my best friend again (and at the time I didn’t think we were going to) was hey this doesn’t feel the same, it feels awkward (more than usual at least) and they keep giving off the mood that they’re bored with me. It wasn’t a great experience, mainly because I kept contrasting it to how things used to be (how they became/now how they used to be again…) it just felt awful. And I remember feeling shitty thinking about how I had my best friend back and I was so happy to have them in my life again that didn’t feel so emotionally exhausting, but they didn’t seem the same. We didn’t seem the same at least. One thing actually helped me move on past that. And I remember writing about it in a previous post but I didn’t want to write it directly out because I didn’t want to upset them in case they ever read it. Although I did sort of touch on it more without saying that was what helped me cope with this:

“One good thing that did come out of this is the revelation that I do tend to be more in love with ideas.. and with the opportunity of a relationship than maybe that relationship or with that person. However it doesn’t only apply to past relationships but it’s especially the case when it comes to old flames because you start with this notion that things are going to be the same.”

I was holding on to the idea of them and the idea of us. Whether that idea was actually a real memory or just wishful thinking/nostalgic blindness I don’t know but it wasn’t what I thought it used to be but I came to realize that that was okay because unfortunately that’s just what happens to people after a while of not talking to each other. They grow into different people, they make new friends, they act different and that feeling of hey this is nice and this easy and it doesn’t feel like I have to try too hard for me to enjoy it or for us to actually enjoy spending time together, that feeling just goes away. And I can curse the gods, cry and beg they bring all of that back but what was the point if it had already gone? It wasn’t either of our fault’s then it sort of just happened and I had to accept that. So I did. I don’t know if it was coincidence or maybe it was the fact I stopped trying so hard and that made it easy for us to get close again because I wasn’t pushing back like I tend to do when I think too much about my relationship with someone. In fact how nice that felt, and it did feel so great just for things to feel nice and normal again, makes me think that this space now might be for the best. I’m perhaps not able to handle being close with them, though my mindset towards them has changed drastically. It went from I’m scared this person is using me, manipulating me, and is going to hurt me immensely (while still suffering from pain every day obsessing over these thoughts), from that to I don’t deserve this person, but I love them and I don’t know if I can handle them being gone completely from my life. And I don’t think I realized to the full extent what that meant and maybe this is what’s making me so afraid. I was afraid to even fully admit that to even myself. I already feel broken and I can’t imagine how she must feel too. Well I can kind of imagine. I was hurt because I was scared my trust was being taken advantage of, that I was being manipulated. I was afraid I was being replaced and disposed of. There was a lot to this shit, I wrote a 3 page tumblr post venting about my feelings/thoughts about it (this was written before I could finally convince myself this was in my head), so it wasn’t just baseless paranoia but I do see now it was still paranoia.

I couldn’t get past this fear, I couldn’t think clearly for weeks on end and the fear kept getting worse. I badly wanted someone to notice, someone to care.. I needed help. The only person that seemed to care didn’t help much. Well they helped me have someone to talk about it with at least. But for them, I actually broke their trust. I did what I said I wouldn’t ever do and I became who I didn’t ever want to be and I feel so fucking defeated because of it. It hurt to hear that, that just cold no I don’t want to get close again. I knew it and I saw it coming but once it came it was like my heart hit the floor. Not only that but in my fear of being replaced I essentially pushed them to basically have to replace me and now I’ve just come back to the exact position I feared I’d be in. I did this. This is torture. So was saying goodbye forever. I couldn’t do it. I’m so mad that I couldn’t do it because I don’t know what I’m accomplishing by coming back. I just couldn’t handle the idea of losing her and her not even wanting me back. Never even asking me to stay. I either was already as disposable as I feared I was… or I made myself as disposable.

I have nothing left. Nobody left. I wanted to go and I hoped doing all of this would make it easier to because then I would have nothing left to come back to but I just couldn’t go through with it. Too afraid of permanence. So now I just had nothing to come back to. I’m just hoping to try and learn to cope with moving on and finding a new support system to rely on because I can’t make this person that anymore. I don’t see us getting close anytime soon but at least I don’t have to worry about losing them completely, though honestly they could just drop me without any warning and I really couldn’t be upset with them about it. Upset sure I’ll be very, but not with them. I’ll miss being called their best friend. I’ll miss the morning text messages. I’ll miss having someone to talk to about what was in my head and hearing about all the interesting ideas in theirs. I still wish I had more than that but I know I never will. Especially not now, like seriously Tristan? I still love them. I can’t unlove them I can’t fucking get away from these feelings so I’ll just have to suffer through them. Unrequited love only hurts as long as it’s my only focus. Well the romantic love, at least. It’ll still hurt if the platonic, I care about this person as if they are a part of me, kind of love is unrequited. At least most of this pain can be subsided by doing what I was already trying to do… by moving on. It’s going to be tough though. I felt like a part of me was missing when they were gone.. when I left. I think that part’s long gone though. A lot of me is just ruined and I have to pick up the pieces and try anew. I’m trying some more coping mechanisms to try and deal with these feelings. Made a playlist about my feelings, I’m writing this with while a sort of defeated position.. there’s still an optimistic side that I’m glad things didn’t completely go to shit… The writing might not be a new coping technique but it’s one I haven’t really done in a fair bit. Not like fully unfiltered posts. I don’t intend for anyone to read my posts but I try and avoid being descriptive or being too on the nose for people I know to pick up on the situations and people I’m talking about just in case anybody remembered that I do still have this site and check it out. Although some might still know just by knowing enough about me. I gotta try some other shit that isn’t so public. I’m sure I’ll figure out, maybe try some creative writing just so I can get out feelings without having to actually talk about the people in my life and my cyclic bullshit with them.

While I don’t think it’ll happen any time soon and who knows if I’ll last long enough dealing with the pain that comes with seeing all that I feared happen before my very eyes and know that i have no one to blame but me… Despite that I still hope that we can get back what we had. If I do manage to make it through this and if they ever are able to trust me again. Although after this I don’t know if I trust myself to be close with them again and maybe what we have now is for the best. Maybe this will make it easier for, I was going to say for the both of us but I’m sure they’ve already moved on a good bit ago.. Hopefully that’ll make it easier for me to move on and to accept a new me, a new life with different people. I’m looking forward to that. I already started talking to an old friend again and having that click just like it used to, having her be just as friendly, as funny, as nice as I remembered her being.. it’s just been very nice and one of my few saving graces at this point. And a plus is they aren’t miles away so I actually get to hang out-hang out with them. Aside from that there’ll be more out there I’m sure that will help pick me off the ground I just need to go looking for them I suppose. One thing that gives me hope in a probably negative way is the fact that I already feel defeated, I already feel like this is done. I know what I’m getting myself back into and there’s a huge chance that it’s either going to stay this distant/awful or it’s just going to end abruptly and I have to be okay with that. I prepared myself to have to be okay with it if they said straight out no to not being friends again. I thought it would’ve still hurt but at least I saw it coming. Seeing this as an inevitability will probably make the hurt less severe “when” it does end. I hope it doesn’t but my only leverage/power/say in the matter now is just the hope I have. Does nothing but nothing’s all I can do right now so I guess it’ll do.

Edit: I’m only including a “edit:” because I remembered I wanted to talk about this but totally forgot to include it in. Halfway through I got kind of bummed and that optimism turned into a defeated acceptance so I couldn’t really squeeze it in after that. The song “Tell Me” by Love-Sadkid and Peter that along with the post I saw on the person who I talked about throughout this post’s tumblr. Which is the same How I met your mother quote (it’s sampled in the song). Anyway I’ve learned I was feeling love but I wasn’t really acting on it. Or I wasn’t treating it like I should have been treating love and that is to give your all to make sure they’re happy and even if it destroys you.. you just stay and you don’t stop. You also have to fight for it but I know fighting for the love I want both the romantic part and just the wanting to be best friends again and call you my favorite person once again, I know fighting for that will do more harm than good. And I don’t want to do anymore harm. I can’t afford to. The optimistic part of me is saying I will fight regardless. I’m willing to accept my fate  Whatever kind of fighting is needed/required and if right now that just means stay here and take this pain then so be it. I’ll do it. The defeated part of me says it’ll be for nothing and it might be not be worth the trouble, seeing as it might be worse for the both of us. If anything I just want to prove to them that this isn’t some disposable thing. It’s something that’s stayed with me for years and I can’t lose them. I’ve tried and push them away, when I had begun to think I already passed a road I couldn’t come back from I tried to just completely remove them from everything just so I didn’t have to see them pop up because I couldn’t stop thinking of them and I wanted one less reminder of how they were moving on and I couldn’t. I’m weak and I am an awful person who has no idea how to cope with my feelings when it becomes this overwhelming. Maybe if it does go to shit or one of just moves on completely and gives this no more thought because of how difficult it’s been (it’d be understandable to just not want to put in the effort anymore… from both sides at this point) if it does.. I’ll hopefully at least prove to myself that I didn’t sabotage or completely fuck up my last chance. That last chance was just not very strong to begin with and that’s okay it’s a stronger/bigger chance than I deserve.

-T.