Dear David:
It's 4 in the morning the week after she left you. You're laying on the zebra sheets you bought her, and you just took two big swigs of sleep aid to help you get to rest before you wake up for Sunday. You spent most of the evening at Comedysportz, starting with a very good matinee show to a sold out house, and then you taught a workshop for a Girl Scout Troop (#5486! Hoowah!). You sat at the bar from 5pm onward, reading, learning to code, planning your week. With your friends. Your life, in all honesty, is great right now. It might be hard sometimes, dealing with the loneliness. It might be hard to just be alone. But it's not bad - it's just hard. I need you to remember that.
She did it, and she messed fucked up. She's the one who quit. It wasn't your fault at all. She will try and tell you that you didn't let her talk to you, or that she needed you to do things - these are excuses. You would have done anything for her. Anything. These are excuses for her to do what she wants. She can do what she wants. She always could, that's the point. And so can you - and that's more important now to remember than how bad it hurts, and how bad you want to kiss her, and hold her curled up into a ball next to you. To make the weird little animal noises she would make back to her, that you became so used to so fast. It's done now, because she didn't want it anymore - and you fought your damndest.
I mean, you pulled out all the stops, did the most cliche of cliche 'don't break up with me' moves --- after a candelit dinner, you held her and danced, swaying in your living room while Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" played in the background, barefoot. And when the song was over and you started crying, asking her to 'just let me fix it', she was unresponsive -- no -- deaf to your pleas.
Well, you go ahead and be deaf honey. I don't want you to not be deaf. I wanted to be with you, in your deafness. I wanted to but you wouldn't let me in my own way. I was slow to it, because I am not a man of fractured civilities. You are a human being first and foremost - then a man - and then white. None of these carry strong cultural roots. Being deaf, or being around deaf people often, is a wild and strong cultural grounding. It was hard for me, but not impossible. Given the right attention, the encouragement, and the knowledge that this was important to her, I might have become fluent in our time together. I didn't hate it. I thought it was cool. These people talk with their hands, for christ's sake. It's phenomenal. And I wanted to speak it and be with her.
All those mornings you woke with her, made her breakfast, drew her a shower, helped make her shake, and when she'd leave you'd be in bed, and look up and say, "I'm so damn proud of you, honey." What more could you have done? What could you? You were depressed and hurt and unhealthy, yes. But you loved her, and you were sure ---- so damn sure, that she wasn't just another bitch trying to get something out of you. But she got the support from you she wanted while going through school - and she dropped you like a sack of moist potatoes the moment she was done.
What a shitty fucking move.
I keep switching pronoun tense and it's driving you crazy.
What's most important now is a few simple truths:
1. Everyone is as lost as you are.
2. No one wants to be alone.
3. Some must.
4. You will not.
Why? Because you are, objectively, rather phenomenal. You took the deepest, darkest depression you have ever experienced, and you crafted a career out of it doing nothing but making people laugh, and using your mind. No one else has ever done this the way you do it.
So you have to stay smart, David. You have to use the tools in front of you. And by will alone, you will become this thing you want to be. Your friends cannot do it, and in truth, they must either join you -- or step aside.
And you have to make the right decisions. And they won't always be easy. In fact, most of them will be difficult as all hell. But they are right.
You're turning 27 this year - let's start making something out of these fractured fragments of a life. Let's get a degree. Let's get a career. Let's get fit. Let's get cute. And then the women will come, while I sip on bourbon in the hotel bar, white collar and black suitcoat adorned. And you will have them, you will carnalize them, and they will love it because you can give them what they always want.
Something they can't have. Your heart. It belongs to you, and you need keep it and take care of it.
"It's yours now", she says, in my mind.
It was always mine - I just wanted to give it to you.
She did it, and she messed fucked up. She's the one who quit. It wasn't your fault at all. She will try and tell you that you didn't let her talk to you, or that she needed you to do things - these are excuses. You would have done anything for her. Anything. These are excuses for her to do what she wants. She can do what she wants. She always could, that's the point. And so can you - and that's more important now to remember than how bad it hurts, and how bad you want to kiss her, and hold her curled up into a ball next to you. To make the weird little animal noises she would make back to her, that you became so used to so fast. It's done now, because she didn't want it anymore - and you fought your damndest.
I mean, you pulled out all the stops, did the most cliche of cliche 'don't break up with me' moves --- after a candelit dinner, you held her and danced, swaying in your living room while Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" played in the background, barefoot. And when the song was over and you started crying, asking her to 'just let me fix it', she was unresponsive -- no -- deaf to your pleas.
Well, you go ahead and be deaf honey. I don't want you to not be deaf. I wanted to be with you, in your deafness. I wanted to but you wouldn't let me in my own way. I was slow to it, because I am not a man of fractured civilities. You are a human being first and foremost - then a man - and then white. None of these carry strong cultural roots. Being deaf, or being around deaf people often, is a wild and strong cultural grounding. It was hard for me, but not impossible. Given the right attention, the encouragement, and the knowledge that this was important to her, I might have become fluent in our time together. I didn't hate it. I thought it was cool. These people talk with their hands, for christ's sake. It's phenomenal. And I wanted to speak it and be with her.
All those mornings you woke with her, made her breakfast, drew her a shower, helped make her shake, and when she'd leave you'd be in bed, and look up and say, "I'm so damn proud of you, honey." What more could you have done? What could you? You were depressed and hurt and unhealthy, yes. But you loved her, and you were sure ---- so damn sure, that she wasn't just another bitch trying to get something out of you. But she got the support from you she wanted while going through school - and she dropped you like a sack of moist potatoes the moment she was done.
What a shitty fucking move.
I keep switching pronoun tense and it's driving you crazy.
What's most important now is a few simple truths:
1. Everyone is as lost as you are.
2. No one wants to be alone.
3. Some must.
4. You will not.
Why? Because you are, objectively, rather phenomenal. You took the deepest, darkest depression you have ever experienced, and you crafted a career out of it doing nothing but making people laugh, and using your mind. No one else has ever done this the way you do it.
So you have to stay smart, David. You have to use the tools in front of you. And by will alone, you will become this thing you want to be. Your friends cannot do it, and in truth, they must either join you -- or step aside.
And you have to make the right decisions. And they won't always be easy. In fact, most of them will be difficult as all hell. But they are right.
You're turning 27 this year - let's start making something out of these fractured fragments of a life. Let's get a degree. Let's get a career. Let's get fit. Let's get cute. And then the women will come, while I sip on bourbon in the hotel bar, white collar and black suitcoat adorned. And you will have them, you will carnalize them, and they will love it because you can give them what they always want.
Something they can't have. Your heart. It belongs to you, and you need keep it and take care of it.
"It's yours now", she says, in my mind.
It was always mine - I just wanted to give it to you.