Some days, I feel like screaming.
Like running outside, climbing a tree, and screaming.
We're told as kids that life isn't fair. It isn't until adulthood that we realize just how true that statement is.
It's losing the people you love. It's being abandoned by people that are supposed to care. It's finding out that death is coming to someone so sweet you can't fathom why. It isn't fair.
WHY?
What happened?????????
ReplyDeleteMy dear, wronged Sayuri,
ReplyDeleteI thought of this blog today, and when I thought of this blog, I remembered us. I read a few of our posts, and I laughed and cringed and sighed. Though I tend to think back on that time in my life as one of dreadful awkwardness and anxiety (two traits which I still have, only behind a new façade) I remember you and Summer and I feel happy for the friendship we had.
I know I was cruel when you last heard from me, though I tried express my intent in careful and rational terms. I won’t make excuses for myself, but I do want to explain my actions a little better, in the off- (and highly improbable) chance that you glance back at this blog, read my words, and find a warm thought for me. So this time I will try to carefully explain less coldly and cruelly and with a bit more heart.
It was summer in the South; hot, humid. And we were both irritable. You because you were pregnant and lugging around an extra person in the heat (though a very small person at this point), and I because I had driven 2 and a half hours to get you and now I had to wait another hour because, in my mind, you thought the state I had chosen to make my life in was so dangerous that you needed to bring a gun.
It sounds petty now, because it is.
I think I was a bit predisposed to irritability as well. I thought we had been drifting apart for a few years—you didn’t even tell me about your pregnancy for some time, and I hadn’t planned on making you my matron of honor but you talked as if you were from the moment I told you I was getting married (my reason for this was stupid, cruel again, eye-for-an-eye logic—I wasn’t in your wedding, you weren’t to be in mine).
Still petty. Sigh. Self-critique is hard.
I was already mad about the gun, then you insulted the mall because it didn’t allow firearms. We argued for some time.
ReplyDeleteI took you downtown, I tried to point out a pretty building. You disliked the building because it didn’t allow firearms.
We took you out to eat. You didn’t like the food because it wasn’t like home. You didn’t tip the waiter. Later you insulted the food my future mother-in-law bought you because it wasn’t authentic.
Before you arrived, I was filled with all these grand plans. I chose a new far-away state to make my life in, one that wasn’t Cali-fricken’-fornia. And I wanted more than anything for you to like it. I wanted to take you to all the little used bookstores, I wanted to show you the old brick downtowns, I wanted to take you to the jungle-like gardens and universities so old they look like Hogwarts.
I felt like you rejected me when you rejected my home.
It got worse from this point. It’s almost not worth writing about. I would like to apologize, and say we only decided to go to that bar uptown because you had refused every other activity we had planned. We didn’t expect you to come along. We should have been more gracious hosts.
I became so frustrated that I started acting childish. I said things I knew would annoy you. I did things I knew you wouldn’t approve of. You left earlier than planned because of me.
At first I felt angry. Then anxious. I wrote you a letter, saying, essentially, “we had a great run, but I think it’s time to say goodbye.” You tried to save our friendship, to understand, but by then my anger and disappointment overwhelmed me and in weakness I felt I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I couldn’t deal with us anymore.
I would like to say that I regret every bit, to say let’s pretend that it never happened, and beg to be taken back. However, I think that solution far too simple for the situation. So much has happened since then, and what I did and said can never be undone. And part of what I wrote that summer was true—we have changed and grown apart. We are different people now, and perhaps we are less compatible people than we were.
ReplyDeleteWhat I will say is that I am sorry. I deeply feel the loss of our friendship. I hurt for all of the happinesses I cannot share with you. I missed the birth of your beautiful daughter, the community you built with your family, the students you successfully mentored. I couldn’t tell you of my adventures on the Silk Road, how I swing-danced under the stars after my wedding, or the way fireworks thundered over the bank of the Thames. I wasn’t able to comfort you during hard times, and neither was I able to share with you my troubles. I know you would’ve been strong for me when I needed, and I hope I would have done the same for you.
I chose to write to you today in remembrance of our lovely times together. I wrote here because we are both too stubborn to approach the other, and at this point, it is something I never expect to happen. I hope that maybe you are still nostalgic and romantic as you were, and that you look on this blog once more and find my note in a distant future.
Please forgive my pettiness, my failings. When I think of my past loves, I always hope that they still think of me. I hope you occasionally spare a thought for me, because I will always do the same for you.
Love,
Regette