A very specific Saga
**Attention**
This was something I wrote. While the person I wrote it to is painfully obvious, there is nothing "emotional" about this. This is a work of complete truth. Painfully clear and utterly devoid of any offensive style content. The following is just a summation of what and who I am, how I honestly view things, and everything I am currently.
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I think this is probably the best avenue I have to express some things without either taking up too much of your time on the phone or boring you to death. I know there is some degree in which I misrepresent myself. I'm probably not as bad off as I make myself out to be. I'm just bored out of my mind, and in that boredom, all I see is an endless sea of what I would much rather my life resemble. The truth of the matter is, I could easily make new friends. I could strive to overcome my situation and somehow create a solid foundation of a person out of what's left of me. However, I honestly see little to no use out of doing such a thing.
Often, I explain it in what I call a rational term of agreement. I realize that I have this desire in my life, and living that desire out will remove me from any connection I either create now or have from the past. James would chastise me, and he does, over such things. I believed for a long time that friends were the key to a successful or at least happy life. I have seen in the last several years, as I develop more as a person, that many of the foundations I took as concrete in this world were completely incorrect. Friends are nice and certainly provide that exit from the day to day routine in which we all be boggled down by. It seems however that it is that one specific person you share some form of intimacy with which really holds the stitches together. Somewhere along the way I had to come to grips with this and accept it. I certainly didn't do so willingly or easily.
I had a conversation with my father not too long ago. I asked him if he wasn't married what he would do with his free time. I think a part of me wanted to find one person who could actually somehow see the world through my eyes. He really didn't have an answer for me. We both agreed that at some point the easy and consistent paths, one usually takes to socialize, seem to disappear. You come to realize that people around you have all grown up. They are getting married, having children, working on their careers, and creating their own life outside of the usual "whose place are we hanging out at tonight." When I accepted that I was nearing the point in my life, perhaps past it, that this was my current position, I cried. I realized that I was the one left out. I realized that what I tried and failed at for several years passed me by, and the friends I turned to fell into that lifestyle I couldn't manage.
This is how I explained to James that the last few people around me were people I really didn't want around. When I mentioned Derek, James instantly knew and understood where I was going with my reasoning. He said, "It's like looking in a mirror of possibility isn't it? You realize that if you don't do something now, that is going to be you in a few years." James was just as potent as ever. It isn't that Derek is a specifically bad person; he just doesn't care enough to progress. I know I've been lazy in many different areas when it comes to taking care of me and my future. I then look at Derek and see how if I don't become more serious about doing so, I could certainly find me alone in my mid thirties alone and having nowhere to go with regards to changing it.
James and I have always had a knack of understanding each other in a way that either no one else ever has or just that little bit better than someone else. He and I may not see eye to eye on a subject, but we understand where the other comes from with respect to our reasons for coming to that specific outlook. Then there are also the times in which we do see eye to eye but get to the same end via completely different paths. The one thing he and I do see clearly is that we are running out of time. He and I have always been the sort to try and look at a situation, weight the likely-hood of all possible outcomes, vary the chances of each, and then succumb to that which is more probable. If things go well, I'll turn 30 a few weeks after I get done with my first degree. If things go well with him, he'll be 32. We recognize that nothing is certain, but there are the likely-hoods. In my situation, if lucky, I'll leave the year I graduate to teach in Japan for 1-5 years. I figure it's more like 2-3. If I don't find another job there, I'll most likely return to the states (Birmingham due to familiarity) and try to finish a second degree which should take about 2 years. So, under the assumption I don't stay in Japan, I'll return to this area around the age of 32-33, spend 2 years finishing another BA, and be 35'ish.
It doesn't sound too bad, but the simple education isn't what he and I are after. The down side to this is that we recognize that at that age our chances of creating a family are very slim. We both realize that we'd be lucky to be married by the time we're 40, and unless whoever we marry is younger, the chance of children significantly decreases. James isn't really in any different boat than me. He is planning on taking a position in France for a year or two working with a theater production after school. It's basically the Theater Arts version of the JET program that I plan on doing. James and I certainly know that nothing is certain or ever set in stone, but we can't help but face the reality of the odds against us. I know that it is extremely unlikely I'll get involved with anyone while I'm finishing up school down here. I can't really see me doing it. To be honest, neither can James for that matter. I'm still too bitter about my past and probably not at peace with most of it to do so anyway.
People have joked that there is always the chance of meeting someone while I'm in Japan, but I usually fall back on my same response of "I'd rather not get involved with someone because they want a visa." Which to be fair, that would be the single thing stabbing my brain the whole time any female over there showed any interest. Well, either that or the fact that they probably want to find someone to practice their English with. Seems that happens a great deal. Women come on to male ALT's with the single intention of practicing their English. I find that to be pretty funny actually. I would probably do the same thing so I could practice my conversational Japanese lol. I don't think even that fake relationship would last long. She'd want me to speak English, and I would be bitching about her not speaking Japanese. Ah man, it would be like dating Monica all over again. "Listen, could you please speak English? I don't speak stupid." Alas I digress.
I know none of this really has anything to do with you, but I wanted you to really know what makes me "me". Why that's important probably would make less sense. I guess, anymore, I feel the overwhelming desire or need to express why I'm not happy. I suppose it just no longer sits well with me for people who know me to always assume that I'm unhappy because I'm just an unhappy person. Perhaps that latter is true, but I would argue my case that there are reasons for it and that I honestly believe if certain aspects of my life were different, I wouldn't be that way anymore. However, it's like most things in life which present themselves as a challenge. Everything in my life I feel needs to be changed or rectified is not a simply task. Some of those things could or will take months too years to fix. Sadly, none of it happens to be a "weekend project." All the while I find me looking out a window wondering if it's worth it in the end anyway, given the slim chances I foresee.
Neko once said that I was "the most pessimistic person he ever met." I thought for a moment and then replied, "I'm actually offended by that. I'm not offended because you're wrong per say; I'm upset that you don't know the definition and meaning of optimistic and pessimistic to the point that you'd label me incorrectly." My point being that Neko is usually the grammar and definition Nazi of the group. I went on to explain, "I'm actually the most optimistic person I've ever met. Optimism is the view of holding out for positive no matter what, and that's what I do. If I were honestly a pessimistic person, especially with rationally dominate brain, I would have given up completely a while ago. Despite all the surmounting doubt, believing that it things aren't going to happen, and the overwhelming sense of unhappiness, I still get up every day and push forward hoping that it will all be worth it in the end. I can't guarantee it. I can only hope that it happens, and if I hope that it will happen despite everything else, than I am the most optimistic person I know. "
I even went so far as to look up the definition of the word "optimistic" and read it to him. It was one of the few times I honestly ever really put on over on Neko , and to be honest, it felt really good. I know what a lot of people have said about me over the years. Some of it was more than deserving, but there has always been a great deal of things I've kept to either just me or a very few selective people. In fact, in the last year or so I've become quite a bit more open about things more and more. I've opened up about the sexual abuse which happened with me when I was little, the physical abuse which went on with me, the violence, murder, and lies which surround my family, along with many other things. It used to be I'd tell one person one thing and another person another. I never confessed to anyone everything, and still haven't. I've just become more comfortable letting more than one skeleton out of the closet with any one person. Whether or not I ever fully open up to someone remains to be seen, but at least I've come farther in these last few years.
Maybe none of this was every my choice or anything I could control. A while back I had a complete breakdown to the point where I was on the phone with my father and calling any number I could to get me into some mental facility. It was the first time I ever felt that my father really took notice of how damaged I honestly am. It was also the only time I can remember in which my father actually acted in such a way which I could define as "accepting" of me. Dad said something to the effect of, "You're right. It really is no wonder you're this way. You've known nothing good in your entire life and there wasn't a choice in that with you." It was in that conversation which I honestly ever felt with my father that there was an underlying tone/conversation/statement being said that I've always wanted to hear him say. It was during that phone call which, in his own way, my father came across as if he knew he never did anything to protect me, not that the possibility was always there. But to me, I felt as if there was a final wall torn down in which he realized for the first time from my perspective how fucked everything had always been. In doing so, I believe he finally had respect for me. Not because I'm his son but because I never succumbed to all of it. Yes Sam, I have certainly done wrong by you and several other people please don't get what I'm saying wrong. I mean that I never gave in to heavy drugs or serious crime. I never went down the road that so many others do, some with less of a reason. And to be honest, I've often wondered how the hell I've survived. Sometimes I have a reason and sometimes I don't.
"There is always someone who has a worse life than you." I think that was the one phrase in which my father always justified things. And I believe at some point he realized his life led under that believe helped to create a life worse than his.
It's this life of mine, this tragedy which I have bared witness to, which makes me so miserable over you and others. When you ever realize that there were moments beyond your control in which impacted your life so deeply, leaving nothing but a wake of wanting and pain, you realize you never want to be that wreaking force on someone else. I feel and know to some degree, I have been such a force on you and others. It has made me wonder what my soul would look like. I know inside me there is an insurmountable amount of good intentions and positive desires, but it seems as if it is hidden deep or saturated in this dark mess.
This has been a stance of sorts for a long time. I've always looked at you and others with a raised eyebrow of confusion. I don't know why you want anything to do with me at all. I know in my heart I desire for certain reasons to be the case, but wishful thinking is a term coined for a reason. If my wishes aren't the reasons, I have no understanding where you are coming from. I generally take pride in understanding, to the best of my abilities and sometime beyond, where people are coming from. Be it a political, social, religious, or any other stance. Even in arguments, despite my brash behavior, I understand the logic which leads my opposition to where they stand. However, with you I just don't get it. If you still had feelings or if there was a desire to go down the same route that I wish then I could understand. However, for a long time with you it has always been this concept of fleeting moments, and that it just too far off from myself to the point where I can't grasp how decisions are made or formed.
I'm sorry that I've been so shut out at times. I've never expected you to understand how I can be so seemingly cold and heartless. I honestly hope you never do. I say that because in my mind, the only way for you to ever really understand that is to be in the position yourself. I can't wish that on anyone. It is a constant struggle every day to look at someone you care for and know you cannot touch them or hold them in the way your heart craves. It's as if being cut over and over again knowing that they are struggling and you either can't be the support they need or you are at the root of the blame. Likewise it's just had hard not being able to have them there to support and comfort you in the way you need them to be. It is a situation that causes indescribable anguish, and if there was a better way for those matters to be handled, I'm sorry I didn't find it.
As I told you on the phone, I took a great deal out of me not to run back there. I knew in my head it was a bad decision. I knew doing so would put us in the proximity to work on things, which would have solved one issue. However, not having a residence, not having a job, having to fight for tuition, and several other factors would have inevitably spilled over into the relationship. I knew that too well and it killed my heart to have to face that truth. I honestly believed that if I could find a way of overcoming those issues, you had the best possibility I'd ever come across of actually being there in the long run. One of the last times we spoke you mentioned you had finally warmed up to the idea of having children. I almost broke down and cried on the phone, almost as hard as I have to try while I write this. Deep down, I always knew that was an issue between the two of us, and hearing you had changed your position on it was just that extra slap my face that I couldn't handle.
I've never really known if you've honestly understood why I try to keep you at a distance. I know at times on the phone you seem as if you grasp it, but in the end statements are made by you which seem to contradict any sense of it. Perhaps it has been these last few years which have just weighed too heavily on me. I used to believe well enough was well enough. I believe I took actions in my past unknowingly that I would certainly do knowingly now. That's all gibberish until I put it into context. I can't be your friend. I can't be your friend for the reason of its absurdity. I don't think it is really a friendship when one of the members is doing everything they can to try and have a relationship with the other. As I said on the phone, we all think those stories are cute and romantic, even comical, on modern media, but in the end it's sad and painful, and eventually it becomes taxing on the one who is constantly being pursued. It's hard in my mind to really look at the two and say one is better than the other. Either sucks and doesn't really provide any happiness. Either someone is heart broken or another is abandoned. What fucking fun is that? I used to be the person who could possibly shut their mouth, but I can't anymore. I know that I'd chase you mercifully and problems would only compound. I would cross boundaries and violate comfort zones. It would be perceived as mean and thoughtless, fair enough. However, from my perspective of the matter, if there is something out there which someone thinks will make them happy, they should do everything in their power to obtain it. If a sacrifice is required or has to be made, maybe that is mine. The distance gives me just enough of a barrier from doing that. It provides me with enough space to realize that I could probably only cause more damage on you by doing so and with that regard, it is probably best to keep a distance.
That would be another line of logic James yells at me for. I understand his position. Logically, you can't build something without a foundation, and you can't know about the end product until that foundation has been made. Sometimes you create the basis and realize it won't work and thus a new design must be made. You'll learn that for sure in your business classes. While I understand that, I never side with it. I don't know why. I guess it's like the whole Derek thing. I'm just too scared to keep wasting time in my life on things which don't yield actual results, and because of that I've become too scared to take risks and thus can't build upon anything. Arguably though, I don't want to in a way. I'm not finished with certain other things yet to do so.
I know our entire history can be simply surmised as "tragic." I don't honestly believe that there was anything which could have ever been done. I put blame on me for not being more mature and choosing better decisions in many places, but I don't think in the long run there ever was a chance. I remember what the notion you made to me one day. You expressed to me that you were worried that I was going up and leave you. I was talking about teaching in Japan and places I'd like to move. I remember looking at you and realizing in my heart that you and I weren't like minded in certain freedoms of life. You were right; I was going to leave you one way or another. I want to teach in Japan desperately. By the time the opportunity finally presents its self, I'll have been waiting nearly 11 years to do so. I was always naïve to believe any relationship I had was going to survive that. I guess that's the one thing that has also held me back from really doing anything about you and I. I know there would always be a ticking clock above our heads, a countdown till the dissolution. I learned a long time ago, if you have a dream, you cannot give up that dream for another person. The person can go and then you are left alone and without your dream. You must chase after your dreams, and like children running though a park, you can only hope to pick up someone running in a similar direction.
I want to see you again, desperately I do. I have nothing to lie about anymore. There honestly is no reason I can ever foresee me to do so. I have nothing left. In a way, I was happy to leave three years ago. I was happy to escape on the notion that it might help me not only preserve what of me remained, but it may have also given me passage to rebuilding myself. In the end it didn't matter. I lost more by leaving than I might have destroyed by staying. Few moments in our lives pass us by in which we hold the only choice in a decision. So very few are ever ones we can look back on and know without any doubt were ones in which a different choice led to a completely different life. I have now have two. I have a certainty about me which leaves me with the knowledge that I'll never let go of the choices I made on those days.
Despite all of the shitty things that happened while I was growing up, it will forever be those two fucking choices which haunt and hold me down the most. I live with the ghosts of what could have been every day and it makes me a very unpleasant person I suppose, not that the average stranger would know. However, I always try to keep it close to my heart. I guess in my mind, it is a way of paying respect to that which was and is most important to me in my life. When Rachel asked me how I do what I do. How I live with so little connection and contact with others I told her it was easy. I have everyone in my head and in my heart. I have my lovers in my dreams and my days spent laughing in my mind. I have to because I don't have any other way of getting them back.
I'm sorry this was so long. I know a bunch of reading wasn't something you currently wanted. I hope it is as well written as I believe it to be. I don't know how much if anything you could really say about any of this. Perhaps it is just an act of desperation on my part, some attempt of trying to connect with someone again. I don't really know. To me you've never left. I don't joke when I say I live with ghosts.
This was something I wrote. While the person I wrote it to is painfully obvious, there is nothing "emotional" about this. This is a work of complete truth. Painfully clear and utterly devoid of any offensive style content. The following is just a summation of what and who I am, how I honestly view things, and everything I am currently.
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I think this is probably the best avenue I have to express some things without either taking up too much of your time on the phone or boring you to death. I know there is some degree in which I misrepresent myself. I'm probably not as bad off as I make myself out to be. I'm just bored out of my mind, and in that boredom, all I see is an endless sea of what I would much rather my life resemble. The truth of the matter is, I could easily make new friends. I could strive to overcome my situation and somehow create a solid foundation of a person out of what's left of me. However, I honestly see little to no use out of doing such a thing.
Often, I explain it in what I call a rational term of agreement. I realize that I have this desire in my life, and living that desire out will remove me from any connection I either create now or have from the past. James would chastise me, and he does, over such things. I believed for a long time that friends were the key to a successful or at least happy life. I have seen in the last several years, as I develop more as a person, that many of the foundations I took as concrete in this world were completely incorrect. Friends are nice and certainly provide that exit from the day to day routine in which we all be boggled down by. It seems however that it is that one specific person you share some form of intimacy with which really holds the stitches together. Somewhere along the way I had to come to grips with this and accept it. I certainly didn't do so willingly or easily.
I had a conversation with my father not too long ago. I asked him if he wasn't married what he would do with his free time. I think a part of me wanted to find one person who could actually somehow see the world through my eyes. He really didn't have an answer for me. We both agreed that at some point the easy and consistent paths, one usually takes to socialize, seem to disappear. You come to realize that people around you have all grown up. They are getting married, having children, working on their careers, and creating their own life outside of the usual "whose place are we hanging out at tonight." When I accepted that I was nearing the point in my life, perhaps past it, that this was my current position, I cried. I realized that I was the one left out. I realized that what I tried and failed at for several years passed me by, and the friends I turned to fell into that lifestyle I couldn't manage.
This is how I explained to James that the last few people around me were people I really didn't want around. When I mentioned Derek, James instantly knew and understood where I was going with my reasoning. He said, "It's like looking in a mirror of possibility isn't it? You realize that if you don't do something now, that is going to be you in a few years." James was just as potent as ever. It isn't that Derek is a specifically bad person; he just doesn't care enough to progress. I know I've been lazy in many different areas when it comes to taking care of me and my future. I then look at Derek and see how if I don't become more serious about doing so, I could certainly find me alone in my mid thirties alone and having nowhere to go with regards to changing it.
James and I have always had a knack of understanding each other in a way that either no one else ever has or just that little bit better than someone else. He and I may not see eye to eye on a subject, but we understand where the other comes from with respect to our reasons for coming to that specific outlook. Then there are also the times in which we do see eye to eye but get to the same end via completely different paths. The one thing he and I do see clearly is that we are running out of time. He and I have always been the sort to try and look at a situation, weight the likely-hood of all possible outcomes, vary the chances of each, and then succumb to that which is more probable. If things go well, I'll turn 30 a few weeks after I get done with my first degree. If things go well with him, he'll be 32. We recognize that nothing is certain, but there are the likely-hoods. In my situation, if lucky, I'll leave the year I graduate to teach in Japan for 1-5 years. I figure it's more like 2-3. If I don't find another job there, I'll most likely return to the states (Birmingham due to familiarity) and try to finish a second degree which should take about 2 years. So, under the assumption I don't stay in Japan, I'll return to this area around the age of 32-33, spend 2 years finishing another BA, and be 35'ish.
It doesn't sound too bad, but the simple education isn't what he and I are after. The down side to this is that we recognize that at that age our chances of creating a family are very slim. We both realize that we'd be lucky to be married by the time we're 40, and unless whoever we marry is younger, the chance of children significantly decreases. James isn't really in any different boat than me. He is planning on taking a position in France for a year or two working with a theater production after school. It's basically the Theater Arts version of the JET program that I plan on doing. James and I certainly know that nothing is certain or ever set in stone, but we can't help but face the reality of the odds against us. I know that it is extremely unlikely I'll get involved with anyone while I'm finishing up school down here. I can't really see me doing it. To be honest, neither can James for that matter. I'm still too bitter about my past and probably not at peace with most of it to do so anyway.
People have joked that there is always the chance of meeting someone while I'm in Japan, but I usually fall back on my same response of "I'd rather not get involved with someone because they want a visa." Which to be fair, that would be the single thing stabbing my brain the whole time any female over there showed any interest. Well, either that or the fact that they probably want to find someone to practice their English with. Seems that happens a great deal. Women come on to male ALT's with the single intention of practicing their English. I find that to be pretty funny actually. I would probably do the same thing so I could practice my conversational Japanese lol. I don't think even that fake relationship would last long. She'd want me to speak English, and I would be bitching about her not speaking Japanese. Ah man, it would be like dating Monica all over again. "Listen, could you please speak English? I don't speak stupid." Alas I digress.
I know none of this really has anything to do with you, but I wanted you to really know what makes me "me". Why that's important probably would make less sense. I guess, anymore, I feel the overwhelming desire or need to express why I'm not happy. I suppose it just no longer sits well with me for people who know me to always assume that I'm unhappy because I'm just an unhappy person. Perhaps that latter is true, but I would argue my case that there are reasons for it and that I honestly believe if certain aspects of my life were different, I wouldn't be that way anymore. However, it's like most things in life which present themselves as a challenge. Everything in my life I feel needs to be changed or rectified is not a simply task. Some of those things could or will take months too years to fix. Sadly, none of it happens to be a "weekend project." All the while I find me looking out a window wondering if it's worth it in the end anyway, given the slim chances I foresee.
Neko once said that I was "the most pessimistic person he ever met." I thought for a moment and then replied, "I'm actually offended by that. I'm not offended because you're wrong per say; I'm upset that you don't know the definition and meaning of optimistic and pessimistic to the point that you'd label me incorrectly." My point being that Neko is usually the grammar and definition Nazi of the group. I went on to explain, "I'm actually the most optimistic person I've ever met. Optimism is the view of holding out for positive no matter what, and that's what I do. If I were honestly a pessimistic person, especially with rationally dominate brain, I would have given up completely a while ago. Despite all the surmounting doubt, believing that it things aren't going to happen, and the overwhelming sense of unhappiness, I still get up every day and push forward hoping that it will all be worth it in the end. I can't guarantee it. I can only hope that it happens, and if I hope that it will happen despite everything else, than I am the most optimistic person I know. "
I even went so far as to look up the definition of the word "optimistic" and read it to him. It was one of the few times I honestly ever really put on over on Neko , and to be honest, it felt really good. I know what a lot of people have said about me over the years. Some of it was more than deserving, but there has always been a great deal of things I've kept to either just me or a very few selective people. In fact, in the last year or so I've become quite a bit more open about things more and more. I've opened up about the sexual abuse which happened with me when I was little, the physical abuse which went on with me, the violence, murder, and lies which surround my family, along with many other things. It used to be I'd tell one person one thing and another person another. I never confessed to anyone everything, and still haven't. I've just become more comfortable letting more than one skeleton out of the closet with any one person. Whether or not I ever fully open up to someone remains to be seen, but at least I've come farther in these last few years.
Maybe none of this was every my choice or anything I could control. A while back I had a complete breakdown to the point where I was on the phone with my father and calling any number I could to get me into some mental facility. It was the first time I ever felt that my father really took notice of how damaged I honestly am. It was also the only time I can remember in which my father actually acted in such a way which I could define as "accepting" of me. Dad said something to the effect of, "You're right. It really is no wonder you're this way. You've known nothing good in your entire life and there wasn't a choice in that with you." It was in that conversation which I honestly ever felt with my father that there was an underlying tone/conversation/statement being said that I've always wanted to hear him say. It was during that phone call which, in his own way, my father came across as if he knew he never did anything to protect me, not that the possibility was always there. But to me, I felt as if there was a final wall torn down in which he realized for the first time from my perspective how fucked everything had always been. In doing so, I believe he finally had respect for me. Not because I'm his son but because I never succumbed to all of it. Yes Sam, I have certainly done wrong by you and several other people please don't get what I'm saying wrong. I mean that I never gave in to heavy drugs or serious crime. I never went down the road that so many others do, some with less of a reason. And to be honest, I've often wondered how the hell I've survived. Sometimes I have a reason and sometimes I don't.
"There is always someone who has a worse life than you." I think that was the one phrase in which my father always justified things. And I believe at some point he realized his life led under that believe helped to create a life worse than his.
It's this life of mine, this tragedy which I have bared witness to, which makes me so miserable over you and others. When you ever realize that there were moments beyond your control in which impacted your life so deeply, leaving nothing but a wake of wanting and pain, you realize you never want to be that wreaking force on someone else. I feel and know to some degree, I have been such a force on you and others. It has made me wonder what my soul would look like. I know inside me there is an insurmountable amount of good intentions and positive desires, but it seems as if it is hidden deep or saturated in this dark mess.
This has been a stance of sorts for a long time. I've always looked at you and others with a raised eyebrow of confusion. I don't know why you want anything to do with me at all. I know in my heart I desire for certain reasons to be the case, but wishful thinking is a term coined for a reason. If my wishes aren't the reasons, I have no understanding where you are coming from. I generally take pride in understanding, to the best of my abilities and sometime beyond, where people are coming from. Be it a political, social, religious, or any other stance. Even in arguments, despite my brash behavior, I understand the logic which leads my opposition to where they stand. However, with you I just don't get it. If you still had feelings or if there was a desire to go down the same route that I wish then I could understand. However, for a long time with you it has always been this concept of fleeting moments, and that it just too far off from myself to the point where I can't grasp how decisions are made or formed.
I'm sorry that I've been so shut out at times. I've never expected you to understand how I can be so seemingly cold and heartless. I honestly hope you never do. I say that because in my mind, the only way for you to ever really understand that is to be in the position yourself. I can't wish that on anyone. It is a constant struggle every day to look at someone you care for and know you cannot touch them or hold them in the way your heart craves. It's as if being cut over and over again knowing that they are struggling and you either can't be the support they need or you are at the root of the blame. Likewise it's just had hard not being able to have them there to support and comfort you in the way you need them to be. It is a situation that causes indescribable anguish, and if there was a better way for those matters to be handled, I'm sorry I didn't find it.
As I told you on the phone, I took a great deal out of me not to run back there. I knew in my head it was a bad decision. I knew doing so would put us in the proximity to work on things, which would have solved one issue. However, not having a residence, not having a job, having to fight for tuition, and several other factors would have inevitably spilled over into the relationship. I knew that too well and it killed my heart to have to face that truth. I honestly believed that if I could find a way of overcoming those issues, you had the best possibility I'd ever come across of actually being there in the long run. One of the last times we spoke you mentioned you had finally warmed up to the idea of having children. I almost broke down and cried on the phone, almost as hard as I have to try while I write this. Deep down, I always knew that was an issue between the two of us, and hearing you had changed your position on it was just that extra slap my face that I couldn't handle.
I've never really known if you've honestly understood why I try to keep you at a distance. I know at times on the phone you seem as if you grasp it, but in the end statements are made by you which seem to contradict any sense of it. Perhaps it has been these last few years which have just weighed too heavily on me. I used to believe well enough was well enough. I believe I took actions in my past unknowingly that I would certainly do knowingly now. That's all gibberish until I put it into context. I can't be your friend. I can't be your friend for the reason of its absurdity. I don't think it is really a friendship when one of the members is doing everything they can to try and have a relationship with the other. As I said on the phone, we all think those stories are cute and romantic, even comical, on modern media, but in the end it's sad and painful, and eventually it becomes taxing on the one who is constantly being pursued. It's hard in my mind to really look at the two and say one is better than the other. Either sucks and doesn't really provide any happiness. Either someone is heart broken or another is abandoned. What fucking fun is that? I used to be the person who could possibly shut their mouth, but I can't anymore. I know that I'd chase you mercifully and problems would only compound. I would cross boundaries and violate comfort zones. It would be perceived as mean and thoughtless, fair enough. However, from my perspective of the matter, if there is something out there which someone thinks will make them happy, they should do everything in their power to obtain it. If a sacrifice is required or has to be made, maybe that is mine. The distance gives me just enough of a barrier from doing that. It provides me with enough space to realize that I could probably only cause more damage on you by doing so and with that regard, it is probably best to keep a distance.
That would be another line of logic James yells at me for. I understand his position. Logically, you can't build something without a foundation, and you can't know about the end product until that foundation has been made. Sometimes you create the basis and realize it won't work and thus a new design must be made. You'll learn that for sure in your business classes. While I understand that, I never side with it. I don't know why. I guess it's like the whole Derek thing. I'm just too scared to keep wasting time in my life on things which don't yield actual results, and because of that I've become too scared to take risks and thus can't build upon anything. Arguably though, I don't want to in a way. I'm not finished with certain other things yet to do so.
I know our entire history can be simply surmised as "tragic." I don't honestly believe that there was anything which could have ever been done. I put blame on me for not being more mature and choosing better decisions in many places, but I don't think in the long run there ever was a chance. I remember what the notion you made to me one day. You expressed to me that you were worried that I was going up and leave you. I was talking about teaching in Japan and places I'd like to move. I remember looking at you and realizing in my heart that you and I weren't like minded in certain freedoms of life. You were right; I was going to leave you one way or another. I want to teach in Japan desperately. By the time the opportunity finally presents its self, I'll have been waiting nearly 11 years to do so. I was always naïve to believe any relationship I had was going to survive that. I guess that's the one thing that has also held me back from really doing anything about you and I. I know there would always be a ticking clock above our heads, a countdown till the dissolution. I learned a long time ago, if you have a dream, you cannot give up that dream for another person. The person can go and then you are left alone and without your dream. You must chase after your dreams, and like children running though a park, you can only hope to pick up someone running in a similar direction.
I want to see you again, desperately I do. I have nothing to lie about anymore. There honestly is no reason I can ever foresee me to do so. I have nothing left. In a way, I was happy to leave three years ago. I was happy to escape on the notion that it might help me not only preserve what of me remained, but it may have also given me passage to rebuilding myself. In the end it didn't matter. I lost more by leaving than I might have destroyed by staying. Few moments in our lives pass us by in which we hold the only choice in a decision. So very few are ever ones we can look back on and know without any doubt were ones in which a different choice led to a completely different life. I have now have two. I have a certainty about me which leaves me with the knowledge that I'll never let go of the choices I made on those days.
Despite all of the shitty things that happened while I was growing up, it will forever be those two fucking choices which haunt and hold me down the most. I live with the ghosts of what could have been every day and it makes me a very unpleasant person I suppose, not that the average stranger would know. However, I always try to keep it close to my heart. I guess in my mind, it is a way of paying respect to that which was and is most important to me in my life. When Rachel asked me how I do what I do. How I live with so little connection and contact with others I told her it was easy. I have everyone in my head and in my heart. I have my lovers in my dreams and my days spent laughing in my mind. I have to because I don't have any other way of getting them back.
I'm sorry this was so long. I know a bunch of reading wasn't something you currently wanted. I hope it is as well written as I believe it to be. I don't know how much if anything you could really say about any of this. Perhaps it is just an act of desperation on my part, some attempt of trying to connect with someone again. I don't really know. To me you've never left. I don't joke when I say I live with ghosts.