allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

taylor what is this

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

I don’t want to be my mother. I don’t want to be my father. I couldn’t stand to breathe knowing I am the tilted reflections of people that failed to raise me.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

31/2/22

“How do you do it?” he asks me. I laugh, because at the time I think he’s joking. “No, I’m serious. How do you do it? How do you do all the things that you do, all the time?”

“I don’t know,” I answer. That question is reserved for some time later and where there isn’t this many lights around. The answer is too long and depressing. I know he won’t be looking at me the same way when I answer.

    Because the truth is, I don’t. People see all the things I’ve been doing when they look at me. They see success and intelligence. They see sophistication and elegance. Sometimes they see all the things I’ve been. And they don’t get it because frankly, I don’t either. They know some of the things that I’ve been through and it just doesn’t make sense that I’ve been fighting so hard for so long. For so goddamn long.

    How do I do it? I don’t. I get crumbled under its weight. Some nights I can’t sleep. There are days I can’t even get out of my bed because I’m aware of the mess I’ve been. Most days I wonder if I will ever be able to heal from the things I don’t talk about. How do I do it? Every day I think about my father. Every single day. I don’t cry or talk about it but I do. I think about how he died. How he couldn’t live. How he didn’t get to be a father. How he didn’t get to be MY father. How I should’ve had one and never got one.

    How do I do it? I don’t. I think if I stop running for a second it will catch up to me. I think this is my only chance and I think without this I will be another nobody. I have no choice.

    How do I do it? I can’t. My body has been touched so many times, I don’t believe it belongs to me anymore. I look at myself in the mirror and a stranger looks back at me. You look at me and see someone average, maybe even beautiful. I see a cluster of memories and an abused child. When anyone gets close to me I panic so much sometimes I choke on the same air I breathed a second ago. I feel used when someone I love touches me. I look at my abusers some days and I swear I flinch in pure terror. Some nights I still feel his hands around my neck, waiting to finish what he started. I find comfort in knowing I can kill myself anytime I want.

    How do I do it? I don’t. There is not a single day that passes without thinking how much of a disappointment I am. How much of a wasted potential I’ve been. How I have let down everybody who believed in me and loved me.

So, I don’t. If you can look at me and see someone who has it together, someone who can do all of it so effortlessly, then I have reached my aim. I tricked all of you. The person I am today is nothing but glimpses of insecurities.

But you don’t have to know that.

And I am glad you don’t.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

I hate friendship breakups because I still wonder how you’re doing. You made me feel worthless. Are you eating okay? Remember when you told everyone how stupid and ugly I was? Is your grandma getting better? You were all I had for years so I thought friendship was supposed to feel this way. Do you ever think about me and feel ashamed of how you crushed my soul because I let you? I never want to see you again. I just hope life was kinder to you than you were to me. I still have a tugging on my chest when it’s your birthday. I was a child and so were you, I feel guilty that I can’t forgive you. I wish I could take back those 12 years I wasted wishing I was better. I’m so proud of you for getting into dentistry. I bet you don’t recall telling me I could never be good enough to be a physician, but you recall the exact moment I got into medical school. I hope you feel the sting of not being better than the girl you said wasn’t enough. I hope you’re doing better. I hope you learned how to treat a friend.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

5/11/22

I don’t think I understand what a friendship is.

I seem to keep getting it confused with other things, like family. Like love.

When I was a child I thought that was what we were supposed to do. I and my best friend would romanticize the idea of friendship not realizing we couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

We called each other family. We said we had each other. We didn’t need anything else.

That was a mistake.

I think I fell in love with each close friendship I had, and I made a mistake. Maybe I cared too much or maybe I thought I was loved more than what was possible or even realistic.

    “The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways.”

Every friend I had was a sip of water after running miles. Vital but never enough.

I loved them in a way that a mother should love their children. I shouldn’t have, I understand that now, but you could never understand without seeing someone sleeping and covering them with a blanket. Without wondering if they are okay after a fight and buying snacks thinking they would love it.

Truth is, maybe I wanted to save them as much as I wanted to be saved. I wanted to have something of mine. Someone I can call mine, without having to have romantic feelings involved. I always found friendships deeper than relationships and it led me to believe everybody did too.

It doesn’t work like that. You fall in love and the Earth starts spinning around them. You don’t leave much space left in your mind and heart for anyone else.

I had many children, come to think of it. I didn’t mind it. Some of them were terrible people and I completely ignored it, just like a mother would. Some had unhealthy obsessions which led them to make me the villain. I let them. I tolerated them. I prayed it would be over soon. When they get through puberty.

It’s such a funny though, but also a tragic one. We were the same age. I shouldn’t have been more mature or reasonable. I should’ve been a teen like the rest of them.

For some reason I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to drink until I couldn’t walk and make bad decisions. I couldn’t go to parties and kiss people. I couldn’t completely ignore my classes and go out.

And worst of all, I couldn’t be a child. I couldn’t be a teenager, either. I could only ever be an adult stuck in a growing body with so little to act on.

She abused me, humiliated me to the point of no return. She made me doubt my abilities, my strength, my intelligence.

She made me believe I could never be something beautiful.

She reminded me of all the things I didn’t have and beat me with it. She hurt me simply because she could and she wanted to.

And now, after 5 years, I find myself wondering and worrying if she’s okay. She’s in a new city without her parents and money, she must be miserable.

Still, that doesn’t please me. I don’t like that she’s being tested with the things she hit me with. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, because I know how hard it is.

I wonder if she’s struggling with her studies. I could help her if I wanted, but sadly I don’t want that. I wouldn’t help her academically if the world was swallowed by a pig. She is the one that made me into this. An ambitious, hateful mess.

I hope she’s doing okay. She doesn’t deserve it, not one bit but still.

I do hate her. I hate her for all the years she made me believe I would never get better. Never be good enough. I hate her for not being there for me. I hate her for not being kind to me. I hate her for all the times she humiliated me, called me ugly and stupid.

We all know that’s not true. We all know now that I am a very capable and beautiful woman with a lot to offer. But a child will believe anything. I believed it. Some part of me is still trying to get over all the vile and disgusting things she said to me.

I deserved an apology, and I got it. It didn’t satisfy me. I needed her to see that I was better than her, more beautiful, more intelligent. That I was so much stronger than her. I was everything she could only dream of being. And the moment I gave up that thought, I was.

I really was everything she worked so hard to be. Better. Stronger. Smarter. And it felt amazing. I wanted to hit her with it. I wanted to throw her off a cliff with the success and support I had.

Instead, she told me about how her dad’s business went bankrupt and how she couldn’t see her brother anymore and I wished her a good life.

I didn’t throw her off a cliff. I was at the top. I didn’t need anyone to know how good I was doing.

I couldn’t carry the weight of all the hurt she caused anymore, so I left it with her. She can do whatever she wants with it now. I forgive her, but I don’t think the child inside me ever can. For whatever its worth, I am glad I got out of her claws before it was too late. I have only myself to thank for that.

    “God is a woman. Godhood is very similar to girlhood, begging to be believed.”

Nobody believed me, so I raged as any god would. I ran and they told me not to. I sat and they asked me why. I smiled and they turned it upside down, then the entire world filled with men telling me to smile, I would look prettier then.

I was always at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was always trying to get it right, not wanting to believe this was a game I couldn’t win.

I wanted to do it right. I wanted to live fully. Even as a child I thought my life was planned ahead of me. I would become a therapist and have a dog. No spouses. No friends. I was being realistic. I didn’t think anyone would love me then, or ever.

I studied well. I read and wrote. I tried to learn as much as I could. I wanted to find people turning their suffering to art and beauty like me. I went to movies and theatres and museums. I read more. I studied languages. I didn’t smoke or drink. I didn’t get lost in boys and affairs.

I didn’t have a crush on a teacher, didn’t even find interest in any of them as people. I didn’t have a significant other. I didn’t show interest in boys, or girls for that matter.

I wasn’t overweight, in fact I was in shape. I rode on my bike frequently. I didn’t consume caffeine. Didn’t need to.

I never had trouble sleeping. Never stayed up late to study for an exam. Never got in a fight.

I didn’t talk much or too little. Still, I had so much to say.

I was the responsible one. I was the friend that picked you up when you were drunk. I was the one telling you to get your shit together. I was the one teaching you things right before the exams.

I was the one you named to your parents and they let you go, no questions asked.

I was the friend that kept people wondering how someone could do this. I guess I still am. If I still have any friends left, that is.

I tried to do it all. And for the most part, I did. I got into medical school. I kept my promise.

Didn’t bring dad back. Still.

I was the hated friend. I was the one that didn’t let you prank that poor boy. I was the one that kept you from drinking before the exams. I was the one telling you that you are going to regret this later.

Everyone hated me. I wanted them to be safe. I wasn’t fun. I couldn’t afford to be. I was the one that didn’t get invited to things. I was the last one to find something out.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

Cut by Catherine Lacey

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

Here’s everything I have learned about grief as an eight year griever.

1.  Grief doesn’t go away. Grief doesn’t end and doesn’t heal. Therefore there is not a life expectancy for it. Grief starts and you eventually learn to live with it.

2.  Grief isn’t the enemy. There is no enemy in the grief game. As the time passes, you learn to make amends with your grief and let it be a bystander in your life.

3.  The more you fight grief, the more you hurt. That doesn’t mean we should all be clusters of sadness and depression. That just means there’s no point in trying to pretend it isn’t there. Especially in the first few years, if you try to distract yourself from it or forget it altogether, you will find it does you more harm than good.

4.  Grief is something you embrace. It is there for a reason. Because someone you love dearly has passed away. It calms when you remember them, when you talk about them.

5.  It always comes back in waves when you see something familiar, when you accomplish something, when you do anything related to them at all. You want to write them a letter and get one back. Do it. It helps lots.

6.  Grief doesn’t lessen. You grow around your grief. Grief isn’t like a scar that you’re meant to heal and move on from. Sometimes it looks healed, sometimes it bleeds again.

7.  Grief isn’t a straight line. Stages of grief aren’t a timetable. One day you’re so angry and the other you don’t acknowledge that they’re gone, and the other you have accepted it. No matter how many years pass, you may not fully believe that they have passed away.

8.  Talking about it helps, but only with the right people. It pushes you back when you talk to someone that doesn’t understand or care about what it feels like.

9.  You will always carry the mark of the griever. It lasts for a lifetime and luckily, it will help you recognise the others. Even looking in someone’s eyes will let you know that they are going through it as well.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

there are fragments of blame and hurt lingering around our memories together.

Blame is on me. I could never learn the difference between indifference and love. I blame myself for thinking you weren’t supposed to protect me. For thinking you didn’t have to do it all for me. 

A stranger would do all that for me, if they had seen what’d happened. 

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

Michael Gray, I Think Love is Something That Happens to Other People

Dead Like Me (2003–2004), 1x13: Vacation

Shireen Dadkhah, ‘Love Must Be For Other People’

E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

do you ever look at your mother and be like. you are just a girl who made the wrong decisions. you are just the girl i might become.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

letter to an old friend.

Today I wanted to talk to you again and knowing me and you, knowing we probably never will, I decided to write to you.

Did you know you were my best friend? Did you know nobody had been there for me the way you did before you came along?

Were you aware of the trust and adoration I felt for you? Would you stay if you were?

You are with her again and all I can think about is how much we look alike. How all her playlists are a carbon copy of that one playlist of mine and I could never stress to you how happy that makes me. Someone is taking care of you. Someone is laughing at your jokes and telling you that you are enough. I hope you can look at her and not think of me. To me, you have another version of me that can work out better than I could.

I am glad you have me in your life, even if I no longer have you in mine.

I was always afraid that people would know how much I care for them, whereas you were afraid of the complete opposite. I want you to know now. You were the evidence that I could trust people. You were the one to make me like affection. You are the reason I can hug people so well.

I hope you plan to marry her like we did. I hope you told her “When we turn this exact age, I am marrying you.”.

I am glad you found someone to keep the spot next to you and comfort you when you thought everyone hated you, but I want you to know that I never will.

I will never look for someone like you, I will never burn as many bridges as I burnt just so someone could take off their coat. I will never try to find a person who would be comfortable not hearing about my concerns.

I will never risk having my heart torn this way again.

Would I do all this again? Would I smile at you that one day in September, knowing what would become of us?

You know I would. I would hug you repeatedly and I would protect you knowing you would never return the favour. I would tell you that you are enough when you told me I was never going to be.

I would still meet your mum and tell her all the things she wanted to hear. I would do all of it still.

I hope you are well.

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

I wanted to tell you all the things that left me cold. I wanted to put my head on a shoulder not soaked with regret. I wanted to whisper so loud that you couldn’t hear me. I wished you were deaf so then it would be easier. I wanted you to hear it, but just this once. I didn’t want you to think about it after, I just wanted to feel the relief that, the burden had become words and left me. 

Maybe I didn’t really want them to reach you. I just wanted them out of me. 

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]

all i do is listen to music and dissociate from reality

[allmyfriendsarethreeyearsaway]