Work Text:
Skarbie,
You had to move away from a country that you got familiar with and from the person that you cared so much about. It was really hard for you too. Blocking me and choosing not to talk to me wasn’t something you did to hurt me. It was really to protect yourself. Even then I kept on trying to reach out. I crossed boundaries that you set to protect yourself. You were trying your best to move on and make something out of what you have been given.
I didn’t understand at the time that it is often the case that people need space after breaking a deep relationship, and that pushing for communication after is likely to cause the door to close. I am sorry.
I am so, so sorry if I had caused you more pain, more trauma, more turmoil, and more tears. I thought what I was doing was kind to you, but it was actually cruel and disruptive.
You had, and might still be having, a great burden placed on you. You must have felt enough about having to leave me, and it didn’t come easy to you. You did the best that you could. Thank you so much for choosing to see me, to look at me, and hold me while you said good bye. Thank you so much.
I knew you were trying so hard to keep yourself together. I knew you were trying your best to hold back your tears. I knew you were hurting so much as well. I knew you didn’t mean to hurt me. I know you had no choice. I know you were just trying to make the best out of an unfortunate situation. I am sorry that I kept making you feel bad about it. I shouldn’t have kept reaching out to you.
My own anxieties, trauma, and pain that had been caused by people other than you are not a good reason for me to have been inconsiderate of your own anxieties, pain and trauma, and subsequently ignoring your own boundaries.
The letter that D. had so graciously helped me to deliver to you would have been enough. It would have been PLENTY ENOUGH. If I had let you go, maybe you would have come back. If I hadn’t let my demons, my insecurities, my anxiety take hold of me, maybe you would have come back. If I had actually respected my decisions like I said I would the night you said goodbye, maybe you would have come. But I don’t know. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t made those decisions, and I might never know.
I can only say to you that I did it out of love.
I kept thinking about you, about how you must have still been throwing yourself into work, days and nights, without a thought for yourself. How you must have been trying to keep it together in front of your students and your coworkers, only to cry alone after work. How you must have been dealing with both the physical pain after your surgery, and the emotional pain of having lost me. How you must have missed me so much, but maybe you were afraid of reaching out, because it had been so long, and that I had moved on. Then I found myself overthinking, about how my letter might have made you feel worse and not better.
The thoughts of you suffering in silence and alone hurts so much. I was seeing your pain. I was seeing your tears. It was too much, the pain and shock of losing you. Losing you so suddenly. Losing you so unjustly. I wasn’t meaning to pressure or control you. I just wanted to reassure my love for you, my devotion to you. I just wanted to help you, but I didn’t know the right way to do it. I wanted to give my life to you. I wanted to always stand by your side in this hellish world. I wanted to give you the love that you deserved. But I went about it the wrong way.
I wanted so much to spend your birthday with you. I wanted so much to spend Christmas and New Year with you and D. I wanted that so much.
And came this year…I didn’t know whether or not you had read the message my friend Claire had helped me deliver to you. I had a breakdown again in May, and I wanted so badly to reach out to you again, to ask you how you are doing, if you are okay and well, if it was still flooding at your home. But I was so, so afraid of being blocked by you again. I was overthinking, once again. My demon, who I know is myself, whispered to me that, perhaps, in my previous attempts of reaching out to you, I had sounded too happy. I regretted having said to you that I didn’t need you in my life. Then, I thought about your inner demons, ones that you once told me about, and that perhaps, your demons are stopping you from wanting me back, because you thought that I would be better off without you. I wanted so badly to stop wearing the mask of being okay every day, and I wanted to tell you how much I have been hurting without you, how much I needed you in my life. I wanted so much to tell you how much I have been hurt, and that I wanted to be comforted by you, to be protected by you, to be cared for by you again.
But once again, I did not respect or trust your decision making and your autonomy. I had tried to make you feel pressured into feeling bad for me. I had tried to pressure you into responding to me. That was awful and unforgivable. Not to mention, I had made it all about myself and my feelings and my grievances, instead of asking about you and your wellbeing.
All I had accomplished was guilt trip you again. I am sorry. You probably expected better of me, and I failed you again. Those were the context for my actions, they are not justifications.
My selfish heart kept fighting with me, telling me that I had been abandoned, had been discarded, even though I knew it was not true. People in my life just kept telling me to forget about you, that you weren’t worth it, that you would have fought for me if you had actually wanted me, even though I knew it wasn’t true. I know that it had taken you a long time to come to this decision, that it wasn’t easy for you, that you had wanted to be with me, but you saw no other way. But I succumbed to those intrusive voices, and became a self-absorbed person with little regards to your and Domi’s boundaries.
I just wanted to be understood. I just wanted to be told what I have done wrong so that I could fix it. I thought, maybe if I reached out to D. again in order to explain everything to her, to give her the context, to ask about you…About how you are doing, how you are feeling, if I had hurt you that badly… I thought it was the right thing to do, but what I had actually done was not treating her as a person, but instead as a proxy to talk to you and trauma dump on her. She didn’t deserve that either. I am sorry.
For over a year, I have been overthinking, catastrophising, overanalysing everything. Every day, feelings of intense guilt, despair, shame and regret took hold of me. I thought, and still am thinking that, I have hurt you so, so terribly, that maybe you felt every time that I had reached out to you, I had meant to deliberately make you feel worse or guilty about your decisions, while nothing, NOTHING could be further from the truth. My mind was, every day, occupied by terrible thoughts that I might have caused you to cry again, that I might have caused you to drink, to self-harm, to hate yourself. That perhaps, because of me, you couldn’t bring yourself to write or to make music again, things that should be your oasis and help you through tough days.
I never want the memories that we shared together to carry burden and pain. I am sorry if I have ruined your memories of me. I am sorry if I have ruined my goodbyes and my parting gifts to you.
I am sorry for the broken promises. The promises that I would respect your decisions, that I would wait for you to reach out to me on your own accord. You probably don’t wait to do that any more, and I understand.
Then again, I don’t know for sure how you are feeling, how you are thinking. It’s all just speculation from me. I just want to be able to talk to you again. I just want to be able to apologise to you, even if we can no longer be with each other any more. But I know that trying to reach out to you again is a terrible thing to do. It’s been a long time since we parted, and if you are healing, if you have moved on, I will just end up reminding you of sad old memories.
But, if by any chance, some day, you happen to read this, please, just know that I am sorry.
I still long for you. I still yearn for you. I still want to feel your presence in my life again. I just want to cuddle you, to sit and watch TV together with you, to dance, to watch you play video games. I want to read to you again. I want to hold your hands and walk with you again. I want to sit in the park with you again. I want to cook a meal for you again. I want you to make me those peanut butter brownies again. I want to walk with you to Circle K to get ourselves midnight snacks again. I want to feel safe and comfortable around you again. I want to be able to cry on your shoulders again. I want to be vulnerable with you again. I want to hear your love songs again.I want to be kissed by you again. I just want to be caressed and held by you again. I just want to be wanted by you again.
Perhaps, in another life, it would have worked out. Maybe, if I hadn’t been so stupid, so stubborn, if I had understood myself better, if I had understood you better, it would have worked out.
I need to let you go. I need to forgive myself. I need to let go of the guilt and live. Hurting myself won’t help at all. It won’t help me, and it won’t help you either.
I don’t ever want you to go through your life thinking that you have hurt me terribly either. You haven’t. I hurt myself because I couldn’t heal, couldn’t let go of harmful behaviours and ways of coping, and then I just kept making bad decisions that ended up hurting both you and myself.
You deserve to live your own life, and I deserve to live mine. Know that, comes what may, I will always treasure the memories that we shared together until the day I draw my last breath.
And if, by some miracles, should I ever hear from you again some day…
I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to beat yourself up. I don’t want you to say sorry to me ever again. .
I want to hear you say that you are okay. I want to hear that I hadn’t hurt you that badly like I thought I had.
I want to hear that you are doing a job that you love, a job that treats you well.
I want to hear that you and your family are safe and sound and financially stable. I want to hear that you are no longer suffering from any horrible floods.
I want to hear that you are physically healthy and not hospital-bound.
I want to hear that you are no longer overworking yourself, that you are making time for yourself and your own needs, you deserve it.
I want to hear that you have gotten back into writing and music, and that you have made wonderful things. <3
But most of all, I want to hear that you are living a life that is free and at peace.
I hope you had a gentle birthday, surrounded by your family and people you love. I hope you are having a gentle Christmas, and a pleasant new year.
Goodbye darling. And once again, thank you. For everything.