girlfrandletters

[girlfrandletters]

I Love You In So Many Ways And I See That Everytime I Do Basic Tasks

Our conversation the other day about what your favorite color is really struck a cord with me for some reason. I told you that you must not be my real boyfriend because you said your mood changed your favorite color. And then it reminded me of how you said when you were happy, your favorite color was orange. And that in turn made me think about how I've always loved fall and fall colors, but now it had even more of a meaning because most of the fall colors are shades of orange. Fall makes me happy, and orange is your happy color. Maybe that's why I get so damn excited for the autumn months.

I've been thinking about this exchange a lot over the last 24 hours and it just instills even more love for you. For no reason. Literally just thinking about your happy color makes me happy. How pathetic does that sound.

...

I was listening to Crooked Kingdom on my way home from work, which is the book from which my cup and crow tattoo comes from. I've read this duology (Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom) about 4 times, I've listened to the audiobook two or three times. I could tell you what is about to happen in the book if you were to open up the page and read me a few paragraphs. All of this is to say that these two books really hit something deep inside me. On the surface, the book is about a bunch of criminal kids pulling off heists, beating odds, and winning over the bad guys. But deep in the heart of the book, you find the true meaning to be about having flaws, making mistakes, having traumatic histories and getting through them, working through them, and coming out on top of them.

Each one of the characters has something they end up working on throughout the two books, be it PTSD, physical trauma, gambling addiction, drug addiction, personal shame, or fighting to think outside of what they were raised to believe. And the other major point of these books is to help you see that you do not know what anybody else is doing through. Who would have thought that the eternally upbeat, happy boy was 7 feet deep in gambling debt. Who knew that the hard, rough edged boy who everyone fears, can't touch human skin without blacking out. Who'd think that the boy who can put together bombs and create perfect schematics of a complex system was disowned by his father because he can't read. I relate to these books because I have my own issues that I'm working through and they have helped me be more interested in healing myself and getting better. I will never know the fear and physical trauma of being sold to a brothel, or of risking my life for a drug addiction, but I will know the fear of emotional abuse, of waiting to be reprimanded or put down because of a comment, of feeling too clingy or obsessive, or not having enough emotion. Who would think that the girl who comes into work with a smile and hugs sometimes thinks about driving off a bridge or jumping off a cliff and drowning.

Every time I listen to these books, I also think about how other people are also going through their own struggles and fighting their personal demons. I've always found that after I read these books, I'm able to maintain a level head for people that frustrate me because I consider that while they may be angry at me or at a situation, maybe there's something else going on that I don't know about.

To tie this all back to you, I have to go back to the beginning of my side tangent here.

I was listening to Crooked Kingdom on my way home from work today and I got to one of my favorite scenes. In this scene, Kaz (the boy who can't physically touch anybody without having a panic attack) and Inej (the girl sold into the brothel), have one of the most emotionally charged moments. Inej was covered in deep knife wounds and Kaz offers to change her bandages for her. Which, in the grand scheme of things in this book, is the equivalent of him proposing to her. And you see his struggle - he WANTS to touch her, he wants to be able to change her bandages without panicking, he wants to be close to her, but he struggles because his immediate reaction is to run as far away as possible. But in the end, he does change all 3 bandages, he gets through his panic. In the end, he does back away and pushes her away because he can't fight off his panic all the way, and I think he's very ashamed of that.

It's weird that this scene made me think of you in that context. But the thing that I thought while listening to this scene was that I want to push through all my internal struggles and fight all my demons with you. I want you with me when I have to stave off my passive suicidal thoughts. I want to know your arms are there when I hate myself and my face and feel like you could do better. I want you around me when I fall into my pits because your face, your voice, your mere being helps me get up. And I want to be here for you too. I want to hold you and talk to you and hear you when you are working through your stresses with work, with school, with your general feelings.

This scene made me think of you because we are this already. We are each other's rocks in the storms that go on in our heads. We hold each other's hand and refuse to let go, no matter how rough it gets. And I appreciate that. I love the fact that I can count on you, and no matter what I feel about myself, you can count on me too. Because I will always be here for you, and I know you will always be here for me as well.

I love you

and I love the color orange too

because we are happy

even when we aren't

because we have each other.

I love you

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Feeling Weird Things That I Don't Know How To Explain

I feel like I need something. I don't know what I need though. I don't know what I want or wish for, or why I feel sad or why I'm sitting on the floor in a lump with multiple games around me to play, books to read, relaxation to do... and I don't want to do any of it. But I feel like a wasted lump of space if I do nothing.

I know my birthday has always been a sore point with me and I haven't really given myself the opportunity to feel the true emotions I get around my birthday. I've generally had people do mini celebrations and stuff when I was in school and I went with it because I was supposed to be the friendly outgoing person and why would anybody want to do anything with a mean grumpy miserable person. But the last couple years, I've had an opportunity to grow and learn myself and learn things about me that make me realize why I do certain things and lash out about seemingly stupid stuff.

As much as I hate putting my emotional baggage on my parents all the time, I have to admit that they are part of the reason I have these feelings. Even just this summer of bullshit they've pulled - saying we would spend our birthdays together and then just deciding to leave for Hawaii at the drop of a hat. Coming back after both our birthdays and not really realizing they aren't going to have time to really spend time with me when they get back. All that just adds to the feeling of not being a real child and not having importance other than being a storage container, a hotel, and, oh yeah, their adopted daughter, but that's just an added side bonus.

I know I'm being cynical and that's not fair. All the other people I've tried to be close to who made me happy to celebrate birthdays with also just let me drop and feel like a waste of time. I've got my own anxieties and depression that make me feel the same way. This isn't all on one person.

But I hate the way I get edgy and upset when people are literally just trying to care. I've sheltered myself from people caring so much that I don't know how to let down the barriers. I'm scared to let down those barriers because I don't want to be hurt and damaged further. And it's so stereotypical and ridiculous and it makes me want to cringe but I can't help the feelings. I wanted to cry today because I was getting overwhelmed by the amount of care I was feeling from everybody, from the happiness and enjoyment I get out of spending time with my work people and the joking and laughing that we do. But I also wanted to cry because I feel like I can't open up to them fully and I will never be able to remove the barrier I've got up between us. Not just the doctor-tech/receptionist barrier, but the "I'm damaged and you don't actually want to know what I'm really like so I'm hiding behind this wall that you don't know is here and won't ever know is here until something drastic happens which it will never happen because I will prevent it."

I hate having a wall between me and my friends but I don't really know how to remove it. I will never be comfortable removing that wall and I'm not sure I ever want it to go away fully. But at the same time, I was going to CRY because people were caring about me, actually fully caring about me. I feel like I shouldn't be in tears because someone loves me.

[girlfrandletters]

Sitting in the Study Room, Unsure of What Exactly I Want To Do

Have you ever tried to fall asleep and ended up staring at the ceiling because you can feel your heart beat pulsing in your teeth? I'm not sure how I ended up in that position but you can bet your socks that I laid there thinking, "You might be wondering how I got here."

Somehow that was the peak of my depression. Not being able to sleep is one of the worst feelings that I can say I've experienced. At least with painful things, hurt emotions, hunger, those I can work through and fix. Not sleeping is... well technically I can fix it, but it's very difficult and can take a very long time because, you know, I don't have the mental capacity to do the right things. Because I'm exhausted.

Chronic pain such as the type I've felt is something that has always gone hand in hand with my insomnia. Whether because my shoulder is hurting and I can't get comfortable enough to fall asleep, or because I'm just thinking about it and worrying about it and wondering if it'll ever get better and if I'll be able to sit at a desk without rolling my shoulder hopelessly, wishing that the ache would go away. It's not a pain, per se. I don't feel a sharp stabbing feeling in my shoulder (all the time), and it's not something any antiinflammatories have ever helped with. It's more of a deep, dull throbbing, aching feeling that is always present, always there, even when I don't think about it too much. When it's hurting, it affects everything I do - bending certain ways at work, sitting in my chair, lying in bed to relax, even walking. When it doesn't "hurt," I still feel the discomfort, it's just not as poignant (<< Improper use of the word but that's just because it's for "taste and smell" and I can't think of a word that fits for feelings).

This chronic pain and up-and-down with the feelings has caused the insomnia I feel. It used to be a lot worse during school just because of the stress which made it flare up so much. Which would cause more stress. Which would make it flare more. It was a vicious cycle. And while it's better now than it ever has been, when it flares it still affects me and even now, sitting down to type all this, it's flaring and it hurts and I know it's going to be difficult for me to get comfortable to sleep.

I hate complaining about it because it's something I've had forever and haven't had the chance to get fixed so I just managed it and worked through it, and if I did it for so long, why can't I just keep doing it now. It's frustrating for me to feel so weak with this. You always tell me you want to be like me and work through your pain but I'm telling you it's not good. Me working through this pain has just made it a lot worse and I don't know how to make it better. The chiropractor has helped a lot but I still have hesitations and skepticisms about if it's going to fully work. And that makes me want to cry because I want so badly for it to work. And I hate my natural inclination to just be suspicious of everything and everyone who tries to help. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it and not let my own personal biases get in the way of healing.

I know he has helped you a lot, and I look to you for positivity in this as well. Because if he can heal you to the point where you feel like he did a great job (given your own history with doctors and people who have tried to help you), then I can trust this guy too.

[girlfrandletters]

Sitting on a Tuesday Waiting For Food and Thinking About How Much I Love You

I thought of this last night and finally decided to write all these thoughts down because I think them every day and I don't know if I properly convey them to you. Side note, Azriel is literally sitting on my arms, pawing at my fingers, and generally just trying to get me to not type this and give you more attention, he'd rather I just pay attention to him instead.

One of these recent nights, I told you that I appreciate you so much and I don't tell you often. And I was thinking that I do tell you that I appreciate you, but not nearly as often as I should. I always had this policy to always say "I love you" when I feel the urge to say it, because it might be the last thing you say to someone. Is that horribly morbid? Yes, entirely too morbid for the purpose (which is supposed to be sweet and happy). Someone once told me that and it stuck with me. Someone also once said to me (or I read it or something), about always saying "I love you" whenever you feel the urge to say it so that the other person knows how often you think about them (more of a sweet happy vibe for a sweet happy statement). These two reasons are why I say I love you, give you a kiss, walk three steps, and then say I love you again. I wake you up with an a I love you, and you will never fall asleep without me whispering it into your ear. I'll tell you 30 times an hour if feeling wells up. I probably HAVE told you 30 times in an hour.

I'd like to start adopting this thought process to literally every other thought I have about you, that I don't say.

I appreciate you

You're handsome

I can't wait to see you smile again

I love making you laugh

I want to hold you

You're beautiful

I want our future now

All these things, and a million other things go through my head every time I see you. Every second I look at your face, 17 thoughts pass through my mind of everything I love about your face, your smile, your laugh, your hands, you're caring and patience, your affection, your empathy, your humor, your everything. If I said every thought about you that I had every single time I had a thought, I'd never be able to say anything else.

You have become a very huge part of my world. Not my whole world, of course, because that would be co-dependent and we are not co-dependent. We might be code-pendent. Because our language is sort of like a code. But we are not co-dependent. We are, however, very close and more intimate than most, if not all other couples. Because you are a huge part of my world, I see you a lot. And because I see you a lot, I think all these thoughts 90% of the time. And i don't know if you've noticed, but ever since we stopped talking obsessively about work every day, my topic of choice is usually telling you how much I love you, and fantasizing about our future together, the Billy we will one day have, what our next adventure is going to be. That because if I don't have work to think about, I literally only ever think about you. (And Azriel. Maybe that's why Azriel hates you so much, because you literally stole his #1 On Tara's Brain spot.) I am literally so obsessed with you and crazy about you and never stop thinking about you.

So I will start telling you all my cute thoughts the second I have them to prove to you how much you are on my brain. And you'll think it's so adorable and do your little giggle laugh and I'll tell you how cute I think that is too.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Death Of A Character That Was Never Mentioned

I forgot to mention in my book report that at one point, in this battle where the kits are taken, a cat is killed who was defending the nursery. Her name was Rosetail. And she is NEVER mentioned. A cat was literally created in the moment to be killed off so that none of the rest of the main characters died. wtf.

[girlfrandletters]

Book Report For Warriors - The Prophecy Begins: Into The Wild

Good morning, and welcome to my book report, in which I tell you about this book which I could do without having read it again and gotten every detail right because I was OBSESSED with these books when I was a kid, but wanted to read again because I wanted the nostalgia and have, in fact, realized some little details I never picked up on before. So strap your seatbelt and get ready for a ride because this is one HELL of an adventure. Full of cats. That's all there is. Cats. Everywhere.

Allow me to first give you some history and set the scene. This story takes place in a forest and acres (assuming cats have a concept of "acres") of land where a great many wild cats live. These cats are divided into Clans and each Clan lives in a different area that is best for their particular selves. There is RiverClan, a collection of cats who live near the river, and who can swim, catch fish. WindClan lives on the highlands, and are known for their speed and ability to catch rabbits, hid when there is no cover. ShadowClan lives in the pinewood forest, they are portrayed as the "bad" clan, full of evil and dark hearted cats though not all the cats are dark, though some of them start off good, and become more dark in though and action - they are a great commentary on the Nature vs. Nurture topic. But we can get into that later. ThunderClan, our main clan, lives in the oak forest. I call them "our main clan" because this is the one that our main character is inducted into. But I'm getting ahead of myself. These Clans are separated by boundaries on the territories - for example, RiverClan and ThunderClan share the boundary of the river. There is a set of rocks on the river that is, TECHNICALLY, ThunderClan's side of the border, though RiverClan often tries to fight them to take it over, a point of contention that is very important. RiverClan and WindClan have a gorge to mark their border, WindClan and ShadowClan have something but I'm actually not sure what it is. ShadowClan and ThunderClan have a road, or "Thunderpath" to mark their territory. Finally, there is a place called FourTrees, where all 4 territories touch each other. This is an area of peace, and at the full moon every month, a small group from each clan goes to FourTrees to share news, stories, discuss topics of importance, etc.

The Clans are ruled by the Warrior Code, a series of instructions that they are all taught from the time they are young kits. The most important one is that the Clan is your family, you owe them love, loyalty, and protection. You are not to kill anybody in your Clan (obviously), and you are not to have friendships or relations outside of the Clan - excluding medicine cats, but, again, I get ahead of myself. If you are found to be interacting with a cat outside of your Clan, you can be punished, as deemed appropriate by your leader.

There are different roles inside the Clans, of course. Starting from being first born, you are a kit, and given a 'kit name, such as Nightkit, or Longkit. When the kitten is 6 months (or "moons") old, they become an apprentice, and take on the 'paw name - Nightpaw, or Longpaw and are given a mentor to teach them DE WHEY. After going through training and proving themselves as competent and skilled - which doesn't seem to be super regulated, by the way, some apprentices are apprentices for a long time while others train a little, fight in a single battle, and go onto the next stage quickly - our apprentices become warriors. Warrior names have a great amount of variation. Nightpaw may become Nightstripe, Nighttail, Nightstorm, whatever. Some names from the book, to give you some more examples, include Mousefur, Darkstripe, Brambleclaw, etc. You get the point. Warriors are the ones who go out on patrols to mark the boundaries, make sure no enemy warriors (other Clan cats) cross into their territory, hunt for food, and generally take care of the wellbeing of their Clanmates. Female warriors who choose to have kits move to the nursery and are queens, ready to bring forth the next generation of warriors. When a warrior becomes too old to fight, too old to gather their own prey, they become elders and move to the elders den. The rest of the clan cares for the elders until they pass.

A warrior has the potential to become the Leader as well. Each clan has a leader and each leader is given 9 lives (literally, they can die 9 times) but their warrior ancestors, StarClan. I'll touch on this later. A leader is mean to, well... lead the clan - into peace, into battle, to make sure everyone is cared for appropriately and punishments are doled out if needed. When they are chosen as leader, they are given the name 'star. Nightstar, for example.

Another clan cat can become the Medicine cat. This cat is typically discovered when they are an apprentice - they have a penchant for knowing herbs, or seem interested in helping the medicine cat. However, this doesn't always happen. Sometimes a medicine cat apprentice fall into the lap of the current medicine cat surprisingly - either a warrior apprentice who was planning on being the fiercest warrior, or a warrior cat who becomes a medicine cat. Medicine cats cannot have mates or kits (important), because the whole Clan is supposed to be their duty and they cannot be distracted by their own personal needs. Seems rude, but it works. Mostly.

Medicine cats are the only cats who can have friends across clans. This is because medicine cats are healers and have the respect of the clans as the ones who literally keeps them all alive. Medicine cats share herbs, share stories of illness, and how best to treat them.

Basically, medicine cats are the veterinarians of the warrior world.

Finally, I must discuss StarClan - this is the ancestors of the Clans. Literally, all the dead cats who passed, either recently or way in the past, become starry warriors who guide the living cats as best they can. StarClan will send down prophecies to the medicine cats, will sometimes tell the leaders things in very vague confusing terms, because of course they can't say anything directly. There is a place far outside the cats territories called Moonstone, where the cats will go occasionally to be closer to StarClan and hear what they have to say. Basically, Warrior Vatican. Watican. Only the medicine cats get messages from Starclan without going all the way to Moonstone. The leaders and any other cats must travel there to talk to them. Unless you're a particularly special Main Character Cat.

All of these positions are listed in the beginning of the book, by the way, so nobody gets confused.

Okay, are you all caught up on the history yet? I'm sure I've missed some things but I will touch on them as I remember them later on. Let us move onto the actual story!

Into The Wild starts off with a fierce battle occurring between ThunderClan and RiverClan over Sunningrocks, the area of rocks on the river that I mentioned earlier. It was an ill-fated battle and ThunderClan is forced to flee. The scene cuts away from the battle to the leader, Bluestar, and medicine cat, Spottedleaf, of ThunderClan discussing the injuries from the battle. Spottedleaf gets a message from StarClan (dramatically, of course) that "Fire alone will save the Clan." Which is like "whooooaaa wut? fy-ah destroys ALL clans that makes no sense!" But of course we are rolling with it.

Cut away to Rusty, a pure and bright orange cat staring out into forest that is behind his home, longing for a taste of the wild after having multiple dreams about it for a while. There is no subtlety here because you're right, children have the attention span of gnats. He decides to take a step in the forest to see how it is and bumps into a ThunderClan apprentice, Graypaw, who naturally becomes his most best friend on first meeting. Rusty then meets Bluestar and warrior called Lionheart. Bluestar offers Rusty a position in Thunderclan because there are "Thunderclan needs more warriors and there aren't enough apprentices." EVEN THOUGH THERE IS LITERALLY 4 WHICH IS LIKE 2 MORE THAN THE OTHER CLANS BUT WHATEVER. Rusty has a friendly neighbor housecat named Smudge who he discusses the forest with and leaving. Says goodbye. THEN YEETS HIMSELF OVER THE FENCE. He just went "See ya sucka."

Rusty is introduced to the clan and is mostly scorned because he is a "kittypet," or housecat. He has led pampered life of being fed whenever he wants and never had to suffer a starving night, which, for granted, he was pampered. But one of the warriors attacks him and he has to prove his worth, so he fights and fights well somehow even though he's never had a cat fight in his entire 6 moons of existence. His kittypet collar is ripped off and this is considered a sign that he was meant to stay in the clan (not at all a sign that this other cat was literally trying to choke him to death). Rusty is given the name of Firepaw (SUBTLE), and thus our adventure begins.

This all happens in the first like... 3 chapters by the way.

During this induction ceremony of sorts, a black apprentice runs in, Ravenpaw, and announces, quite dramatically, that Redtail, the clan deputy is dead - the deputy is 2nd in command to the leader, by the way. I forgot to mention that role. Every leader has a deputy. President and vice president. King and heir. Leader and deputy. Ravenpaw says that Oakheart, the deputy of RiverClan killed Redtail, and Tigerclaw killed Oakheart in revenge. Cue Tigerclaw, who drags the body of this poor dead cat in and everyone mourns him, so sad, heartbroken. Boo hoo. Tigerclaw sees Firepaw and while Firepaw is trying to please him and fit in, you can already feel the seeds of tension being planted and they are bounded to be enemies forever. A new deputy is named - Lionheart. And life goes on.

Firepaw trains alongside Graypaw, his best friend, and Ravenpaw, the skittish black cat from earlier. Graypaw is Lionheart's apprentice and Ravenpaw is Tigerclaw's apprentice and he always seems very scared, he never gets praised for anything and is always being beaten up by Tigerclaw which is really sad because Tigerclaw is supposed to be Ravenpaw's mentor and guide. Real good commentary on parental abusive relationships here. Anyway, Firepaw is trained by both of these cats because he does not have a specific mentor yet.

There are two other apprentices - Dustpaw and Sandpaw, but there's not super important at this moment other than the fact that they both despise Firepaw

He learns to hunt properly, smell his prey, smell other cats and the different scents associated with the clans. He's shown the boundaries and taught all the components of the Warrior Code. Firepaw manages to basically break all the clan rules within the first three months - he's caught talking to his old neighbor cat, he's eaten food prior to bringing the prey back to the clan (Clan comes before Cat, and all). But he manages to keep up. Then. comes the shocking news that ShadowClan has driven WindClan out of their territory and has taken over DUN DUN DUUUUUHHHNNN. On a random hunting trip, Firepaw runs into a cat that smells like a ShadowClan cat but she's all bedraggled and thin and pathetic looking. She is Yellowfang, the previous ShadowClan medicine cat. Of course she is brought back to ThunderClan camp, immediately scorned and there's a lot of mistrust going on here. Firepaw is told that he must care for her because he's the one who found her and gave her food and shelter. She's utterly grouchy and kind of a bitch, but it's like the relationship that A Man Called Otto had - Otto and his neighbor. Whatever her name was. Marina. Malina. You know who I mean. Also, Firepaw gains Bluestar as his mentor in this whole process.

At last, Firepaw is selected along with Ravenpaw and Graypaw to go to the full moon Gathering, where no WindClan cats appear, and the ShadowClan leader, Brokenstar, demands that the other Clans give hunting grounds to ShadowClan because "Our kits are stronger than yours and have survives where as yours have not." RiverClan of course rolls over and says yes because RiverClan is basically ShadowClan's bitch, and ThunderClan is defiantly not giving an answer - but they would never do such a thing. Firepaw and another warrior note that the ShadowClan apprentices look small, but they insist that they just come from small breeding stock. Essentially. That's not what they said because you can't say that kind of stuff in a kids book. At this same Gathering, Brokenstar informs the other clans that they drove out Yellowfang because she killed kits in the Clan. Which is so obviously a blatant lie, but Firepaw rushes back to the Clan to warn Yellowfang to leave because she has grown on him and he doesn't want her to die. The rest of the clan cats return and Bluestar says Yellowfang will stay and be protected because she heard the bullshit undertone in Brokenstar's message.

Bluestar decides that she would like to go to Moonstone to converse with StarClan. She chooses Tigerclaw, and our three main apprentices to go with her.

Allow me to take this time to mention, by the way, that Firepaw has developed this infatuation with Spottedleaf, the medicine cat. He asks her for a lot of medicine when helping to take care of Yellowfang, and other brief interactions. He describes her medicine den and the smell in there so much and the impression is that the two of them have developed a love for each other. Except... I didn't really read anything about Spottedleaf liking him as more than another member of her clan. Like she didn't show him any particularly affectionate things, didn't single him out or anything. He was clearly special, but I didn't get the vibe that she was in love with him. This whole side tangent will make way more sense later.

Anyway, Bluestar & Co. go to Moonstone, Bluestar has a terrifying message and she rushes them all home. On the way home, they meet Barley, a loner cat who lives on a farm. He tells them that they should go through the cornfield because the Twolegs around there (humans), got dogs that are let off the leads at night to protect the home. They go through the cornfield and are attacked by rats and Bluestar loses a life! She says it was her 5th when she jolts back awake and just moves on like NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED. I'm sorry, how do you just DIE, come back, and then just move on. Imagine doing that 8 FUCKING TIMES. No thank you.

They get back home and find that ShadowClan had attacked the camp while they were gone, which is what Bluestar saw in her dream when talking to StarClan. Why they couldn't tell her before she make the 2 day journey, who knows. In this battle, Lionheart dies, which was actually very sad and I got a little depressed from it. But after Lionheart dies, Bluestar must name a new deputy. That deputy is Tigerclaw. Ravenpaw is immediately upset.

Now, let me explain to you Tigerclaw real quick. Tigerclaw is known as a loyal, strong, and protective warrior. Everyone thinks he is amazing and will save the Clan from any danger and that they are safe with him. They are WRONG. He is power-hungry and ambitious. He has no pity for weakness, which is part of the reason he treats Ravenpaw so shitty because Ravenpaw isn't as power hungry as he is. He sends Ravenpaw to hunt in the adder's den, sends him across to hunt in other territories, overall causes trouble for him. Tigerclaw also doesn't trust Firepaw, as we know they were destined to the enemies. Tigerclaw sends Firepaw to hunt near his old home and Firepaw is caught talking to his old friend Smudge which is punishable - but of course Bluestar doesn't care. Also note that Tigerclaw is capable of

MURDER.

At this point, Ravenpaw finally reveals to Firepaw that he saw TIGERCLAW kill the clan deputy in the beginning of the book. Ravenpaw says that Tigerclaw killed Redtail in an effort to become deputy. I always had a theory that he killed Lionheart as well. Firepaw realizes he must tell Bluestar and help Ravenpaw stay safe. Tigerclaw has, inevitably, ssupected that Firepaw knows the truth and their enemy tension grows further. Firepaw tries to tell Bluestar at their first ever training session (because Bluestar is actually a horrible mentor), but he forgets because he's all excited to learn fighting skills for the first time ever. She confides in him that she lost her seventh life, not her fifth because she didn't want them to worry and protect her because she's like "The Clan comes before any individual cat."

And immediately after this conversation, a queen runs out and says her kits are missing! The cats all search the camp and no kits are found but Spottedleaf is found dead! And Firepaw is devastated and already misses his medicine cat with whom I felt like he had a 1 sided relationship but whatever. Firepaw is tasked by Bluestar to find Yellowfang, who is no longer in the camp - everyone thinks she took the kits are want to find her and kill her, but Bluestart wants to find her and talk to her. Firepaw uses this opportunity to save Ravenpaw - he and Graypaw take him to the edge of WindClan territory and Ravenpaw leaves the clan forever to become a loner cat. Sad, but at least he's alive.

Firepaw and Graypaw find Yellowfang who explains that she was trying to find the kits. She says that Brokenstar was starting to train kittens as young as 3 moons old and making them warriors at 6 moons. He was training them to the point of death and she was blamed for it, which is why she was kicked out. So now she finds outcasts and elders of Shadowclan - because Brokenstar has no need of elder cats because he's a dick - and with those cats and ThunderClan's might, they save ShadowClan and the kits. Brokenstar and his cohort are chased out and everything is all great and happy.

Firepaw and Graypaw are made warriors after this battle - named Fireheart and Graystripe. How they became warriors sooner than Dustpaw and Sandpaw is beyond me and those two resent that as well.

But at the end of the book, there is an ominous moment where both Fireheart and Tigerclaw lock eyes and know that they are enemies once and for all.

..... en fin.

The next book reports won't be so long. Because there won't be the whole history set up in the beginning.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

I'm watching YOU And I Love It Because It Is Literally Us (Except Without The Murder)

As I watch You, I'm reminded again of how incredible an actor Penn Badgley is. He's always been amazing at fitting into a character. More importantly, I'm amazed at how similar his facial structures and his thought process is to... you.

Pun intended.

Which of course leads me to ask - are you, in fact, a manipulating human who has been stalking me and perfectly positioning himself into my life at the most convenient times, appearing right when you needed to on Tinder, being so charming, and nice and caring.

Clearly.

I am very lonely tonight, waiting for you to finish at your event, waiting for you to call me and tell me all about your night of events. Watching this show has, in a weird way, made me think about when we first started dating - this first season Joe stalking and making a girl fall in love with them, sharing their first kiss. Reminds me of when we had our first kiss. I miss the newness of that budding relationship.

But the thing is, I don't miss the "new" in the way that most people do. Most people crave something new because they are bored of what they have, they are ready to find someone different who can spark a feeling of lust and affection again. Key word being "someone different." I am not "most people." And when I say "I miss the newness," I mean I miss what I initially felt when we were sitting on that couch together, watching 500 Days, when you looked down at me and I stared up, begging you to kiss me. I miss leaning against you and you touching me, pressing against me. I miss our first night we had sex, that thrill of touching you and feeling you inside me.

And I want to recreate those moments with you. I can't wait to see you home again because I know that the second you walk in the door, I will see you, and I will smile, and I will fling my arms around you and kiss you and drag you into the bed with me. And it will be like I'm seeing you again for the first time.

I've always loved that about you. When we first started dating, and when we started driving to see each other more often. No matter how much time had passed or how little time had passed between seeing you, looking at your face and seeing your smile and hearing your laugh all made me feel the same butterflies - like I was meeting you again for the first time and feeling excited about it. Whenever I get wrap my arms around you, I feel like I'm touching you for the first time and I love that feeling so much.

I can't wait for you to get home so I can hear you make that Contented Ginger Noise, to hear "GIRLFRAAANDD!" and our weird snorts. I can't wait to have you around and I can get the flutteries that always appear whenever you're around.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Discovering That I (We) Have Not Just A Little Amount of Separation Anxiety

I wish that I had taken the time to sit down and write all the thoughts I had earlier today when I had them instead of telling myself that I would write all my thoughts later after I finished reading and after Kathleen had left. I had felt like, at the time, that the emotions I was having and the thoughts going through my head that I wanted to write down would have been better done alone, lest I start tearing up with them, which was a highly probable outcome. Now, I feel some of the eloquent sentences slipping from my mind as the anxiety of being alone for the night settles in.

I can definitely say that part of what I was thinking was about what we had talked about last night. About how I was simultaneously scared and excited to spend the rest of my life with you. Somehow feeling trapped, but not by you specifically. About how the thoughts of needing to be free and able to fly away at a whim kept coming to me and then the guilty feeling that came soon after. You telling me that you have had those thoughts too, that they were normal, that they were not something that I should take as "real" and merely a regular emotion to have after being offered eternity with one person... that was something that made me calm down so much more than just speaking those thoughts to you.

I did not realize how much of those emotions I was holding in. I know that for the last few weeks I have been distant, but I couldn't tell why I was being distant. I knew I was being snippy and mean to you, but I couldn't expressly explain to you or even to myself why I was on edge and that alone was pushing me even further towards the brink of insanity. Now, after talking to you, I see that my long seated fears of commitment, either my own or someone else's, was amplified since being offered the ring. Similar to the way I never really knew my fear of abandonment was deep seated all the way back to being a child, I didn't realize that my frustration and anger and guilt was being caused by my fear of a healthy, happy, committed relationship. I feel so silly, for all these weeks, being rude, making mountains out of molehills, finding things to get angry and frustrated about, trying to get you to fight with me.

The thing is, it wasn't like my normal pushing-away tactics. You know, how I try to get you to fight with me and yell at me and I tell myself that I want you to tell at me and say you're leaving and then walk out. I wasn't in the mind set of trying to make you leave me. I wasn't falling down a rabbit hole of hating myself and thinking I don't deserve you and how you should leave me because you shouldn't be with me. I wasn't thinking about how you deserve better than me and I could never be a good girlfriend, fiance, or wife to you. None of the usual things were floating through my brain. And THAT is the thing that was really throwing me for a loop, the thing I couldn't pin down that was frustrating me so much. When I was making mountains, when I was being snippy, I realized I kind of sounded like a bitch, I realized I was being rude, but I wasn't doing it with any ulterior motive. I didn't expect you to fight back. I wasn't expecting an argument. I wasn't thinking how you should yell at me and leave. I wasn't thinking anything at all. I would say my snip. Apologize later. But then it would start all over again, for no reason. Over and over and over again.

And the more I couldn't figure out WHY I was getting so frustrated and easily angered, the more frustrated and angered I would get. Until it all just bubbled over.

And then on Saturday when I was driving home, it all came together in my brain, all those pent up thoughts I was having just came out and I felt like such an asshole for thinking them. Was I in love with you? Did I want a future with you? Of course I did, what was I thinking, asking those types of questions? I loved you to death and I was excited for our future. Wasn't I? And then came the guilt with those thoughts. But being able to talk it over with you, knowing you're here with me to work through these thoughts... I feel so much more at peace.

I wish I could say I will always come to you now when these thoughts crop up. And I can honestly say that when I do think them, I will tell you, and I will reach for your arms to wrap around me, and your forehead kisses. I will beg for your warmth and love and gentle voice to bring me back down to earth and make me realize that everything I have now is real and what I want and what I have always wanted. But the truth is that I don't know if I will be able to every single time. Mainly because sometimes I don't know if I am feeling those thoughts. And as much as I don't want to put the responsibility on you, I may need you to help guide me sometimes. When you notice I'm more snippy or acting weird and I haven't said anything, I may need you to talk to me and pry out those thoughts again, just like you did today.

And I feel comfortable asking you to do this because I know you will. Just like I will do whatever it is you need me to for yourself, I will talk to you, or just listen to all your thoughts. Because we are a team, we are an equal partnership. And this whole weekend has taught me that. Not that I didn't know it before, but now I know it from a different perspective. We are evolving as a couple. We went from strangers to lovers to being fully committed to each other and we have had different ranges of love. You're right, you know. Love is a range. And we are feeling all of the range. And I am here for you, just as I know you are here for me, for all of these types of love we will have for each other. The frantic, needy love. The gentle love. The cute and dopey love. The deep, emotional, heart pounding, breath taking, finger tingling love.

You being gone for the last 9 hours has been stupidly difficult and I know I'm no better than the dogs I treat. The fact that I'm sitting here telling myself "Maybe I need 1/2 to 1 whole tablet of hydroxyzine every 12-24 hours as needed for anxiety" makes me both laugh and roll my eyes. I don't like to consider myself "co dependent." I have my own job, I have friends, I do things outside of our relationship. Well. I did. Now I don't. Now you are my whole life and I love every second of it. But maybe we have become some level of codependent. So maybe we need to find another level of love. One where we are always here, but we can do our own things too. And honestly, once you're in school, I think it'll be easier to do that. You'll have your classmates and the things you'll be doing for school and studying.

So in the mean time, excuse me if I take up every opportunity I can to be the most co-dependent, clingy, needy, loving girlfrand that there ever possibly was. I have no shame in saying I am actually very unhappy to go to bed without you and without your leg to wrap my legs in and without your chest to suffocate in.

And allow me to allow say that our 7 year anniversary will be a very big deal and an exceptional show of affection and love because we are not stereotypical people and I refuse to allow us to have a 7 year slump.

I love you too much for that.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Sitting At Home After Being Horribly Sick, and Realizing How Lucky I Am To Have You

I've been in a weird spot ever since you "popped the question." And I don't mean in a "Starting to doubt you and us and second guessing everything we are." I just mean... nothing has really changed since then, which, obviously nothing was meant to. This is just another form of appeasing the outside world and making them aware of something we already knew for ourselves - that we love each other deeply and want to spend the rest of our lives together, but apparently the only way to signify that is with a ring (a very nice ring). I didn't EXPECT anything to change, nor do I WANT anything to change.

And yet.

Things are changing.

In a good way.

Somehow, I look at you and feel even more in love. I see your smile and fall head over heels all over again, and again, and again. This has always happened, but somehow, seeing this ring on my finger, and seeing you just just makes me tumble more and more in love with you. It's so stupid, because I know it's all in my head. I've wanted to have you and be with you for the rest of my life... like a year ago. Even if you never gave this to me, even if we never promised eternity to each other, I would still want to be with you and want you in my life.

I love telling people about you and showing off my ring. And as much as I protest silly societal traditions and how ridiculous they are and overpriced and unnecessary, I am finding with each passing day that I love being able to say "We got engaged," and the concept of a wedding, although stressful and expensive and wholly unlike us, makes me excited because I get to show the small piece of the world we inhabit how much, exactly, I love you. It's one thing for them to hear me talk about you and how much I adore you and how happy I am with you. But it's something else entirely to show them.

They don't know how I look at you with love and adoration, unadulterated affection. They don't see how, when I hold your hand, I feel like I'm clinging to my hope and my future. They don't understand that when I say "I love him so much," I mean that I am so deeply, irrevocably in love with you that I scare myself but I don't want that feeling to ever go away, and even though the fact that it grows exponentially every single day terrifies me, I wouldn't want it any other way.

We care for each other. When one is sick, the other tends to them. When one is feeling sad, the other gives a pep talk, touches and hugs. When the one is happy, the other is happy for them. And I value that so much in our relationship. I know I keep apologizing for being so down and out yesterday, and I realize that it's silly because I was... well I was literally sick. And I'm so thankful that you took care of me. I'm still getting used to this dynamic of an equal and loving partnership. Where I am not a burden to you or a waste of time, or an exhaustion (though I will try to figure out the sleeping situation for both of our sakes).

I love you and I am very excited to spend the rest of our lives together :)

~(Forever) Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Valentines Day Letter That Can't Possibly Fit On A Generic Card

I never thought I'd say this, but I sometimes wish that our anniversary and Valentine's Day were not so close together. Obviously, that's not something that we can really choose - the first day we spend together that would unknowingly become "The Anniversary." Maybe we could make our new anniversary that day in October when you said you loved me for the first time ever. The only reason I'm stressing about this is because everything that I want to type to you now, in your Valentine's Day "card," is literally everything that I should say to you on our Anniversary. You know, the day that actually matters the most. But I could also just type a different post with similar words and meanings and you would still enjoy every second of it. I would enjoy typing it. I always love telling you all the reasons why I love you.

Anyway, enough of that rambling. I'm typing this because I tried to get you an obnoxious card, which I didn't have much space to write on. And the space I did have to write on was annoying because the front of the card was too lumpy bumpy. So here I am, typing away to let you know how much I love you and how much I mean to you.

Today is the second Valentine's Day we have celebrated together. Well, we haven't celebrated yet. We are going to. With Kumo (maybe), a movie (still deciding which one), and mind blowing loving sex (obviously). And to be honest, even if we were just going home to sit in bed stare at the ceiling and talk about silly things for hours, that would be just as perfect for me. For us. Because that is us. We are the people who don't overdo the romanticism. We have our own form of romanticism that doesn't fit into the usual mold. We don't get caught up in the flowers and chocolates and premade cards so symbolize our love. We don't have to put each other's faces on social media to tell the world that we love each other.

I always found that kind of stuff very shallow. Even back when I was a stupid romantic nerd who liked grand gestures and verbal declarations of love and affection - I always thought the cards and posts were stupid and fake and not a real show of affection. And maybe I was always bitter about it because I never had someone that I truly felt like cared for me. Or just because I used to do that kind of stuff and never got the same in return. But maybe I just realized those kinds of displays of affection hid a plethora of other problems, and the people truly in love never needed anything like that.

I would be lying if I told you I didn't sometimes want to put our best photos on my Facebook and go on a whole rant about how much you've helped me, supported me, and given me the best feelings of love I could have ever asked for. But I also like that I don't have to do that, that you just know me enough to know all these things and when I tell you and only you, it means nothing less.

If I were to make a Facebook post, or if someone did ask me about you, this is what I would say:

"Anthony has been... a wonderful additional to my life. Even back when I wasn't really romantically attracted to him, he helped open me up to the idea of exploring - exploring people outside my comfort zone, adventuring to places I never would have thought to go to, doing crazy things like driving down to South Carolina with a stranger with no worry about life or death. Maybe I was a little too naive. But I am glad I did everything I did with him. Because by doing all that, we developed such a new and different relationship, and we have both grown into people that we love very much. We are not the same people we were when we first started dating. I drove out an hour and a half to get into someone's bed for a night periodically, and now I drive 45 minutes home to get into his bed for the night every night. I love him to the ends of the Earth, and I hope to go there with him."

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of Love is as follows: 1) strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties 2) attraction based on sexual desire  3) affection and tenderness felt by lovers 4) affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests

Love is such an interesting concept. Because all of those definitions of apply to us. We have a strong affection for each other. We are definitely sexually attracted to each other. We have affection and tenderness between us. And we admire each other, are benevolent to each other, and have common interests.

How is it that nearly 2 years ago, two strangers met in a town (ironically, a town that pushes love all the time), knowing nothing about each other at all, having no feelings towards each other other than "I need to fuck someone," and we have become these people who literally hold each other at night and are content with being wrapped up in each other, laughing and smiling, and if we get to have sex, it's an added bonus. We have come a long way.

We have developed a love between us that I don't think will ever go away. I certainly hope not. I am so happy with the way that this feeling between us developed too. We didn't just fall in love. We tumbled headfirst down a rabbit hole, flailing our arms, laughing, shouting into the dark void.

I'm still falling.

Happy Valentine's Day. <3

[girlfrandletters]

Post Open Letter Feelings To Actual Boyfrand

I tried to write down the things in my head that have been floating around for weeks. I've had this overwhelming urge to write an "Open Letter" to my exboyfriend for a while and in that letter, I expected to have a good mixture of explaining my feelings to him, telling him where he went wrong, letting him see that I also went wrong and I made mistakes, and in the end, say how I am happy now, and I hope he is too.

I'm not sure what actually came out.

I do know, however, that throughout the whole time I wrote that letter, I was listening to you breath next to me, sleeping peacefully, even though I know you're stressing about today (2/12). I was thinking about all the ways my ex went wrong, and how you made all the right choices instead. I thought about how all the negative shitty things that he did, you do the exact opposite.

I was trying to explain to him how you have been so amazingly supportive and loving, without sounding like I was bragging. But it's so fucking difficult to not brag about you. You are literally my everything and I love to tell everybody about you. I almost silently beg people to ask me about you so I can just go off on the kind of person you are, the goodness that you exude, and the happiness you bring me. I tell everybody at work about you and our adventures, all the cute things we do. I'm sure they're sick of it. But I don't care. I'll tell them the same stories over and over again if only because I get so much joy reliving them.

You've been such a positive force in my life and i wouldn't have changed a single damn thing of my past, if it meant it would all always lead back to this - lying in this frankenstein of a bed, hearing you snoring to my left, and Ginger snoring by my feet. I just want you to remember that I love you so much and will never let you go, not for a second until the end of our days.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Open Letter To My Ex-Boyfriend

This isn't an accusatory letter, nor is it a cry for pity. It's not meant to place blame or cause harm, merely to explain and, maybe, allow for some understanding, on both of our parts.

~~~~~

Hello.

I hope this letter finds you well, and I truly do hope you're living a peaceful happy life right now. I know I am. Even when I am shaken by bouts of anxiety and panic about certain things, I am happy.

I am working at a good practice, as a veterinarian. Whether or not that surprises you, I'll leave that up to you. After so many years of watching me flounder in the stress that school caused me, I hope you are at least a little pleased to know that I did end up making it through to the end. I have two very sweet, loving cats of my own, one a long haired black cat named Azriel, and a short haired black cat named Cassian. They always want to be snuggling with me. I know you would have hated that. There is a third cat, an orange and white girl named Ginger, who belongs to the man I currently live with - I guess she is also technically my cat as well. She was his, but we share an apartment and share our lives and our time so... she's mine too.

Right now I'm lying in bed, him lying next to me, Azriel hugging my arm as I type and Ginger lying at our feet. I'm not sure where Cassian is. I'm thinking about how odd it is to be here, and all the things that had to happen for this to have been made real. I met this guy while on a last scroll through of Tinder before I deleted it forever. I had the Tinder after you broke up with me. You broke up with me after years of clearly being unhappy with me. We had those years because you were the friend of my previous boyfriend, who I met through a work colleague. He started dating me because I was complaining about my first boyfriend and after we had broken up, he had jumped on immediately. It goes on and on. I wouldn't change a moment of any of it, even the bad stuff.

I think I am going to marry this man. I love him deeply and he has been nothing but the most stable support I could ever ask for. I know marriage was never on the table for us, and I never really realized how much of a fundamental difference that was. This guy has made me realize that I am very much ready to get married, have children and really settle down. But it took a lot to get to this point. 2 years in, and I am still having moments of doubt and concern that I am not good enough, that one day, in 2 years, he will decide he's had enough of me and he needs to leave.

You did that to me.

I gave you all of me, wholeheartedly, without real concern. I gave you my precious time, my money, my attention and my affection. And you enjoyed it, for a time. Until you didn't. Not only did you cheat on me and ruin my confidence to its very core, you manipulated me into doing what you wanted, got annoyed when I wouldn't talk to you about how I was feeling, then put me down for feeling certain ways when I did work up the courage to speak to you. You got angry when I would take the time to gather my thoughts and send them to you in a text message, claiming you hated the "novels" I sent. And I'm starting to realize you never actually read a single one of them. Because I told you things that were very dear to me and important to me and the working of our relationship... and you completely ignored them. You used to get annoyed when I would have my moments of panic in school, telling me that if I wasn't confident in myself, that I'd never be a vet and I should just give up and do something else then. How do you say that to someone? You put down my fears and anxieties, then got mad when I joked about yours. You made me feel like I was crazy for being upset for you not answering the phone for hours - after you told me you'd be ready for a call in 10 minutes. I realize that being long distance was hard, and I know that maybe the times when we had time differences made it different. But towards the end, I would cry myself to sleep, cause I hoped to talk to you at least to say good night before I went to bed, and you wouldn't answer - not even to tell me you were busy. Then called 2 hours later, when it was 1 or 2 in the morning for me. I used to lose sleep, waiting for you to call me back.

The night Jacqui messaged me, with her message about sleeping with the same guy, I thought it couldn't possibly be real. You would never do that to me. And when I woke you up, when I heard the way you responded when I told you about her... that's when my heart broke. And I'm not entirely sure it was ever truly fixed after that. I tried to do everything to make it work. I tried an open relationship because that's what you wanted. You explained your feelings about having different people in a way that didn't make sense to me, but I tried anyway because I wanted to make this work. I even tried to sleep with someone while I was at school. I thought, if you had someone, then maybe I could try it. I couldn't. It made me physically ill to kiss another person, knowing that I was in love with you. I put so much into changing my beliefs and desires for you. And then when I finally told you that I couldn't do it, you said that you knew that. You knew I'd never be able to do an open relationship. And yet you continued to watch me struggle with it.

The day that Jacqui wrote that horrible comment on a photo - asking if the photo was taken before or after you told her I wasn't good enough for you - and you sided with her. You told me to not be so sensitive, not to allow other people to affect my emotions like that. You told me to stop crying because I needed to grow up, instead of telling her to not disrespect your girlfriend. I think I knew then that we would never make it far together. I still tried, I think, to save face. I had defended you and our relationship to my family for so long, I couldn't just give up on it now. I continued to allow myself to endure the emotional abuse because I didn't want my mother to say "I told you so." And you know her, she absolutely would have.

In that final year, I started to wonder what it would be like to break up with you, to no longer have you as a fixture in my life. And I found that...

I wasn't upset with the idea.

I didn't cry because I feared losing you. I would worry more so about how I would make it happen. HOW I could make it happen. I was always terrible with communication. But I thought that maybe at the right time, I could tell you I'd had enough. But I never could. I couldn't bring myself to cause that heartache to you. But now I know that I should have, and it wouldn't have caused you much heartache at all.

I wonder sometimes if you felt anything at all after you hung up the phone that day. I wonder if you knew that I cried for the whole night, not really for you and for us and what we just lost... but because it was over, and I had let myself endure so much for so long... to be told that I wasn't good enough.

I'm not fully in the clear in this, and I am aware of this fact. I clung to you like a drowning man clings to driftwood. I made you out to be this savior, to be my salvation and that was unfair. I came to you with anxieties and worries that you were not mentally equipped to deal with. You pretended like you did in the beginning, but as we got further along, you realized that it was more than just a rich-bitch-crying-for-help type of thing. I think you started to realize just how deeply fucked up I was, and you were not able to handle yourself and me at the same time. And I'm not blaming you for that. Over the last few months, I've learned that there was a lot of deep seated past traumas that were so far repressed in me, that I didn't even know how to acknowledge them, and yet they dictated a lot of how I acted, and felt, and thought. And I used you as my driftwood. Which was unfair. I held you to a standard you could never have been, not at that time. When you weren't Just Perfect, I got upset. When you didn't say the right thing, I would cry. When you tried to have a healthy balance of life, I got jealous. Can you believe that I used to. get jealous of RetroFitness, because of all the time you spent there? It's so stupid, I know, but I was jealous of that time, because that was time that we were not together. I was not a healthy person, though I thought I was. Seeing where I am now, I can see that I was as far from healthy as a cancer patient. I was a dying human.

I don't think you really knew the full extent to which I felt my emotions. I never really got to explain them fully to you. And I hope you'll bear with me as I go through these next few thoughts. Again, I mean them not to garner pity, but merely for you to understand the things that made me who I was and am.

I was passively suicidal. I would think about cars hitting me while I drove, I fantasized about a burglar breaking into our house and either killing me as a primary crime, or to remove a witness. I can't tell you how many times I used to sit on the beach, and wonder what would happen if I just swam out too far and drowned. That first night we ever talked on videochat in that stupid dingy Philly apartment, you were seeing an aftermath of one of the worst raging panic attacks I've ever had. I've only ever had 2 since that moment. I know I told you this, but you cannot understand the abject terror I felt when I blinked and realized I was standing in the kitchen with the largest kitchen knife held over my wrist. I don't remember going to the kitchen. I barely remember making it inside the apartment. I've never used a knife before. I cut myself with my fingers. I scratched and scratched and scratched until I hurt deeply. I used to drink myself into blackness every night because I thought maybe one day, I just wouldn't wake up. You seemed like a light at the time, and I grasped you and held you aloft and used you to work my way out of that darkness.

But I ended up feeling more alone as time went on. I realized that you couldn't save me, nor should I have ever expected you too. I lost my ability to be able to talk to you, I lost the outlet I once had. I had all these pent up feelings and no way to release them. And I started to get more and more in my own head, more and more incapable of accepting and working through my traumas and flaws. By the time you broke up with me, I was a shell of what I should have been, I felt unloved, unappreciated, underwhelming, and like I'd never be good enough for you. Or anyone for that matter. I tried to use that time afterwards to heal, but I wasn't ready for that. I was able to drink without fear of disappointing you. I was able to sleep with whoever I wanted for whatever reason I wanted and I did. I fucked guys because they were attractive for a night. I fucked them because I wanted to erase the memory of you. There was one guy though, a guy who I thought was just going to be around for a night, but ended up making the rest of my time in school bearable. But he ended up just increasing those feelings you had instilled in me. Not that he's super important to what I have to tell you. But he was another person who I allowed to push me and manipulate me and get me to that ledge where, with one more word, he could have sent me spiraling to my death.

....

It's funny.

The night I started talking to the guy I'm with now, I was going to quit online dating and go on that mediative reflective journey to "find myself" and "become a better me," or whatever horseshit phrase the cool kids are saying now.

In the end, I did go on that journey, but I did it with him by my side.

Since being with him, I've realized all the things that I'd been missing with you. He provided me with the unconditional support, the encouragement, the sex, the affection, the interest that I never really got from you - not to the capacity that I needed it. He was able to see where I was going wrong and steer me in the right direction, whether or not me meant to do that. I'll never presume to know where you were in your own mental health journey, but I think he understood where I was a lot better, because he had been to that brink as well. You used to talk a lot about wanting to "jump off a cliff." But I don't know if you were ever actually at that point. You loved life too much. You loved attention and people and stories. Not to sound like an asshole, but you were, in a way, a very selfless person and would never have actually killed yourself.

But this guy... he stood on a bridge and contemplated that jump, just like I sat on a cliff and contemplated mine.

When I was in the throws of a raging panic attack, struggling to gulp down air to breath, clawing at my skin, crying until my eyes burned, he was able to talk me through a lot of things that made me realize that a lot of what I felt and how I reacted was from the way I grew up, from the things that happened when I was a kid, and even before then. Before my adoption, before I was really cognizant of what was happening. Without boring you, I can say that he helped me realize that I have a very deep core fear of abandonment, likely from being left by my birth family. I have a fear of attachment and, ironically, touch, because of what happened with my brother. When I am in a very bad spiral, I can't stand being touched. I don't know if you ever knew that.

The point of all this is to say that he knew the right words, the right actions, the right looks and touches. He knows how to communicate to me when I am in a spiral, no matter how deep. And he knows how to talk about his own concerns - paranoias and fears and worries, and stresses.

We are a couple of people with similar experiences and are able to share them with each other. You and I were never a couple who could do that. And I think that, at its core, is what kept us from working. We were two vastly different people. We were not "the same people with different view points," as I like to see myself and this guy. We were two very different people with two very different view points.

But I have found the person that I am going to marry, the one I intend to spend the rest of my life with. I am happy with him, and comfortable. I like what we have built and I look forward to what we will be continuing to build in the future.

I hope you have found the same, or that you will find the same. I know everybody grows up, everybody becomes different given enough time. And I can only hope that you have found a way of life that is good for you. I hope you've got a life that you are content with and I hope you have a long life, for whatever it's worth. I never wished any ill to you, even if those videos of me cutting that pillow and breaking that mug might speak otherwise.

I know you will never read this, and this letter is actually not even the important things I wanted to say. Maybe I'll write a different one next time, more concise, to the point. To drive those points home that actually matter. But until then, I'll be happy with this novel of word vomit and hope it brings me a little more peace to help me sleep at night.

Sincerely, Your Ex-Girlfriend

[girlfrandletters]

In Which I Give You Much Of The Same Pep Talk I Did Over Text, But Now I Can Type More

I've realized that since I've been here, I've typed you a letter almost every single day. I had planned on doing this from the very beginning of my idea, but haven't had the chance to. I think I've typed more today than I have since I started this thing.

Anyway.

You were just telling me about how you're paranoid about going to school because the last time you were in college, you drowned. That's why you've been studying so hard, and kicking yourself for not knowing everything you've studied immediately. And while I do not know exactly the feeling you're experiencing, I can empathize with you. Having a past of going to school and having to leave because for whatever reason you couldn't continue is very difficult, and I understand that it can be stressful to put yourself back in that situation. You didn't have a good support system back then, you were struggling for basic survival needs, like food, you had little money and no help.

This time around, you will never have to worry about money, or where you next meal will come from. You will have my support all the way, from the second you walk into that building to the moment you walk down a graduation aisle. And aside from me, you will have the support of your classmates while in school. I get the vibe that the students of Won won't be like the students of other colleges. They aren't out there to "do better" than you, they're out there to help people, and they know you're doing the same thing. The environment is not competitive, it's going to be uplifting, and supportive. When you are studying something that you don't understand, one of your classmates or teachers will be there to explain it to you. Just like you will jump over tables to help someone if you see that they are struggling.

You've been in environments where those around you who are supposed to have your back have not been supportive, so I understand if you are hesitant to believe that mutual support is real, that there are groups out there who want to help you do better and do good. But believe it. You're about to be a part of a field that depends solely on support. You're going to be recommended by your colleagues, just as you will be recommending colleagues. Your whole future will be based on mutual support.

I can promise you that as scary as it is to leave your job and start school again, it will be worth it. I swear that you will graduate, you will be a successful acupuncturist, and you will heal a whole bunch of people who would not be comfortable and happy without you. You are going to play such a crucial role in people's lives. One day, you will heal someone with this knowledge you are obtaining, and that experience will change them so much that they will get more interested in acupuncture and will go to school themselves. You will spark a whole new generation of acupuncturists.

You are such an incredibly smart human. You are kind and gentle, but inquisitive and interested. Your goal is to help others, but you also want to learn more and strive to better yourself every single day. I can think of no other combination of traits that would be more perfect for what you're about to go into. I trust that you will do amazing and you will BE amazing.

So trust yourself.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Sitting In My Futon Bed At My Parents, More Content Than I Have Been, But Still Missing You

I ran today. It's the first time I've run since August 14 - at least, according to Strava. Which is probably accurate. I only ran 1 mile and I ran it slow, but I ran 1 mile today without stopping. I spent about 30 minutes in total between walking to the park and running, and walking home. And since I've been back from running, it's been easier to get along with my mother and my family. Literally just 12 minutes of endorphins, and then 30 minutes out in the fresh air instead of being inside on the couch playing video games has rejuvenated me in a way I didn't even know I needed.

I arrived here on Tuesday planning to be a happy ball of good news, and I've been thwarted at each turn, either because of my family's ridiculous notions about you, or their snide backhanded comments. Today was especially rough and I was ready to start yelling at everybody. I just wanted to be sulky and by myself and alone. And I know that the combination of my depression and their attitudes were getting to me.

But going for the run allowed me to clear my head - in fact it allowed me to clear it so well that I had no thoughts at all, other than focusing on my breathing and enjoying the stretch of my legs and muscles. I enjoyed dinner with them, was able to joke around with them, watched a movie with my mother without resentment, spent some time with my dad.

I've decided that running needs to be a crucial part of my daily routine. Running and yoga, weights occasionally. I am really riding a high of happiness right now and I enjoy it. I think it will be very important to have this every day because it will allow me to be more present and aware and appreciative of the moments I have with people. I'm still a depressed little POTATE, but I'm not as depressed as I was, and I'm fairly certain that it will decrease the more I run. I'm really happy with this realization too, because as exhausting as it might be some days, it's actually a really easy habit to implement. And I know you will be right beside me, pushing me to get better and better, as you always do.

I've always appreciated your ability to get me to do better, be better, without being pushy about it. You never make me feel like I'm a shitty person for NOT being better. You make me feel important and good and loved every single day, and every day that I become more kind, more patience, more understanding, you make me feel EVEN MORE important and good and loved. And that's what I love the most. I don't resent you for wanting to make me better, because you don't think I'm bad to begin with. You see my flaws, my imperfections, and you love them, even as you help me smooth them all out. And even if I were to fix all the problems that I have, I would still have other things that aren't perfect and you would love them too. The more we are together, the more I learn that it's okay that I'm not this Perfect Woman to you. I am beginning to understand that my little oddities and habits are the things that make you enjoy me, and my company.

You love me for me, and you love me for the ways I improve.

And I love you for that.

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Sitting In My Futon Bed At My Parents Wishing I Was In Bed With You

Currently sitting with a cat under my legs under my blanket, typing up your Christmas letter while also messaging you, teasing you about being horny and not being able to masturbate because I broke you WHILE ALSO snapchatting you pretending to be a tease ;) This is pretty fun.

I do wish I was at home with you though. I think this is the first week I have been gone from you since we moved in, and certainly the longest amount of time we've spent apart since then as well. I worry sometimes that we have become some measure of codependent because I absolutely hate being separated from you. But at the same time, I figure if we're both able to function without each other (which I believe we mostly are), then we are fine.

I'm mostly missing you because I try to explain how happy and content we are and everything we do together and I'm met with judgment and silent annoyance. And it's so frustrating that I can't be excited for us around my family. Outwardly excited. But as I've been learning from you and growing with you, I've realized that whatever their opinions of you, I know the truth, I know that you've been nothing but the most amazing human to me, and we make a fantastic couple, both in physical appearances and in attitudes, careers, mindsets, and personalities. And that's all that really matters. As long as we treat each other as perfectly as we have been, I don't care what anyone else may think because none of them will know the truth. I have picked you as my human and no single person will be able to shake me from you.

There have been many times in my past that I've doubted myself with my partners and wondered if I was making the right choice. And after we became as attached as we did (after I went through the phase of second guessing myself about being happy and in love and in an equal partnership), I never once thought that you were a bad person for me. I only ever thought about how I didn't deserve you and you were far too good for someone like me with a black stain over my heart and soul. I've always felt like with my personality and my easily angered emotions, I would never deserve the patient, gentle soul that is you. But you are helping me realize that your patient, gentle, and kind personality is a counterbalance to my quickfire temper and protectiveness. We are similar in ways that make us compatible, but different in ways that allow us to grow. From you, I have learned to let things roll off my back easier, not to get so worked up over things that ultimately do not matter, and to be more understanding of people's shortcomings. it's a slow process, but I am becoming better already (for example, telling asshole drivers that I hope they get stuck in cement rather than get into an accident. That's a pretty massive improvement). From me, you've learned to set boundaries and demand the respect you deserve from people.

I'm very happy with the people we are slowly becoming, and the people we are becoming to each other. I am so very excited to have you in my life and cannot wait for the rest of our years. We have so many adventures to go on, stories to tell, TYYICKS to create. And I'm here for all of it.

I love you, my wonderful, sweet boyFRAND

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Final Notes From Previous Post That I Thought About After Closing The Laptop, But Still On The Plane, and Was Too Lazy To Type

For the record, I do know that if I were to ever raise a hand against you, we would be finished. So I try very hard to not even pretend slap you because even if you're able to joke around about it, even if that is your coping mechanism, I cannot bring myself to joke about it. Nor do I ever want to. I realize that my coping mechanism is also joking, and that's why I enjoy coming up with these fake scenerios where you cheat on me, or I cheat on you. Because it's entirely a joke. But to me, having some insecure unfaithful boy child fuck around with another woman is nothing, NOTHING in comparison to having a person you love, who is supposed to love and cherish you, hurt you like that.

(*Totally unrelated - watched some woman walk by in some like... long sleeved/long pants onesie and her ass was jiggling. But not in a good way. Like, it looked like she had two balloons in her pants. She was, you guessed it, black.*)

Sunday morning, when you were standing over the sink going "Oh shit, where did that bruise come from?" I can honestly tell you I was very, very scared and worried. Because I had been feeling like I had blacked out and done things I couldn't remember at all, and you just weren't telling me to spare my feelings or emotions. You didn't want to add more fire on top of an already fragile puddle of kerosene (the tears represent the kerosene BTW). So I saw that bruise, heard you say you didn't know where it came from and thought for one, heartstoppingly horrifying moment that I had somehow hurt you. I remembered that I was grabbing onto your arms all night, holding you, touching you to make sure you were real and I was alive and everything was not some illusion and I thought that maybe I squeezed you harder than I thought. Or maybe I did something that I entirely did not remember. And I was so sad. and upset. And didn't want you to think that the thought of hurting you would ever cross my mind.

Because it doesn't. In fact, merely the thought that she did that was infuriating to me. And I will never be able to throw that particular abuse around as a joke.

I know you told me that if I were to ever treat you even close to the way you were treated, we would be over. And that is absolutely valid. And I can promise you that I will never, ever treat you like that. I will never raise a hand to you, I will never manipulate you, I will never do anything to break the trust we have developed. Our relationship is built on a foundation of mutual trust, vulnerability, and love. And having this foundation is what I think makes us stronger than most couples. We have both been through a lot and to be able to open ourselves up to a stranger like we did for each other takes a lot. And I think we both recognize that and appreciate that in each other.

I love you to death. And even after you read all these posts, the ups and the downs, and love ballads and the depressive spirals, I hope you know that I will love you to the end of my days. I love you so much that I sobbed at the idea of losing you. I love you until the end of days, mine or yours or the worlds. I love you until the sun burns out, and the waters flood out Manhattan.

... Actually, the latter may happen sooner than we think. Just when the sun burns out then.

What is that Daenerys was told about Drogo coming back? " When the sun rises in the west, and sets in the east When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves."

Obvious way different context. She was talking about her dead husband who will never return to her. I'm talking about my undying love for you. Semantics.

I've got to get to my next flight. <3

~Girlfrand

[girlfrandletters]

Flying Through The Air, Trying to Verbalize The Roiling Thoughts In My Head After The Episode From Last Weekend AND Panicking On The Plane (May or May Not Be Deleted)

I’ve been trying to explain the exact thoughts and feelings that I felt from this weekend, and the things that they have made me realize. Speaking the words aloud is impossible, because my mind is running at about 400 miles a minute, my brain cannot process fast enough and just tries to spit out sentences that potentially make sense, and my lips cannot keep up. So writing without thinking, without really allowing myself to read what I’m writing and hear what I’m saying in an effort to just word vomit it all out is possibly the only way to allow these things out of my mind, out of my head, and maybe clear up some space for other, more important things… like the fact that our new TYACK is making weird noises when there is silence in the car. 

I should know myself better now than to allow myself to indulge in any form of mind altering substance, whether that is alcohol or THC, when I already feel like I’m falling down a spiral of negative thoughts and emotions. I spent the whole time at your mother’s when your Aunt Tikki (Tiki? Like Tiki Bar? Or Ticki? Tika. Tuna. Turkey) was visiting thinking about how I shouldn’t be there, I don’t deserve to be there. I wasn’t a part of your family, I never feel like I will be able to be a part of your family. Even after we get married, I’ll just be “Anthony’s wife” and I think that feeling comes from the fact that I never feel comfortable around your family, since their views and mine are so far misaligned. Not out of any intention from either parties. It’s just that being as negative as your mother can be, I get miserable being around her and I want to distance myself as much as possible - your sister being her unable-to-determine-the-proper-adjective self, I want to spend the least amount of time with her as possible - Sam and Marc being a slave to their individual woman, knowing there could be some way to change everything (not necessarily leaving them, but setting boundaries and life choices), but not doing it… I’ve been very proud of the fact that, while I was also in  their same shoes for a while, I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’ve grown, and I don’t like to be around people who are like that. But at the same time, I know that I love you more than anything and I will have to make certain sacrifices for YOU, so that WE can have a happy, healthy life. I know that keeping my distance makes things strained for everyone involved and I do plan on really reigning myself in and being kinder and more open to the family. But at the same time, I also feel like I don’t want to get closer to them, because by opening myself up to them, opening myself up further to you, I run the risk of one or both parties just abandoning me entirely because of exhaustion of tolerating me. 

But we can go into that portion a little later. Because I seem to have found the root cause of that particular feeling. *Cue gif of chihuahua war veteran*

So with that whole paragraph of things in my head, I had one of two choices. I could have not taken any alcohol or weed, allowed myself to feel and process those emotions, then discussed them with you to try to get comfort, and words of encouragement, maybe a hug and a snuggle that would make me realize that you wouldn’t leave me, barring any majorly asshole moves. Or I could drink or take a shit ton of THC to try to block out those emotions and forget they exist, bury them under the age old rug I have in my mind’s living room where all my other pent up emotions live. (For the record, under that rug, there are about 4 layers of emotions and feelings and memories. Maybe more. The ones wayyyy deep deep down are the repressed memories that were never supposed to be uncovered again. More on that later). I had the small glass of wine thinking I’d be fine to drive on a small glass. Was going to sip my wine and make fun of Kyle’s girlfriend with you. I’ll be honest, I completely forgot that I had that drink when Edwards offered me that first cookie. Definitely forgot by the second one. I think the part of me that tries to just block out and cover up the negative emotions took over and just wanted everything to mask the emotions. I used to do that often. I honestly used to drink wine until I was too tired to lift the glass. And that’s how I got through a lot of my earlier years. 

I thought the whole drive home you were upset and angry. Maybe not at me - I was able to at least convince myself of that for a little while. But you were stressing about the CT scans and you were upset about that potential risk of increased cancer, which I know health problems are you main concern always. I knew you weren’t feeling well before I took the wine and I was supposed to drive home because you didn’t feel like you would be able to. And I still took all those things knowing that. Even asking you if it was okay was not a good decision, because maybe you said it was okay because you wanted me to have fun and put yourself and your own needs to the side. Which I never want you to do. I’m always afraid that you do things for me or let me do things even though you’re uncomfortable with it because you want me to have fun and enjoy. But you are important too, and I don’t have fun unless we are both having fun. So you were getting upset about the CT scans and I didn’t feel like I was properly doing what I should to help you, or at least provide someone to rage to about it. And I felt worse because I was the one who sent you down that whole path anyway. If I wasn’t so stubbornly ornery about medicine, I never would have mentioned CT scans, you never would have looked into them, and you never would have gotten stressed about it. And the car following us so close was scary too. And then (as stupidly vain as it sounds), I felt like you were upset by the fact that I always say I don’t want you to tell people I’m a veterinarian. I know for me I don’t say it because of the connotation that comes with telling people. But I also know we went there to make fun of Kyle’s girlfriend and passive aggressively show off to them that we both are doing wonderful and you’ve done better than all of them, for all their jokes about you. And I wouldn’t even let you do that. I felt all those mix of emotions - scared, upset, anxious, annoyed - I felt it coming off you in waves and I didn’t know how to process it. By the time we got home, I was certain you would start laying into me about everything. And I deserved it. 

There are some times that I feel like I’d feel better if you just yelled at me, screamed at me, told me I was doing things wrong or something, anything. 

When I was in the shower, I didn’t realize anything was wrong at first. Just me taking a shower to try to clear my head, breath in the steam, and the smells of the soap and shampoo. I think it was another way for me to try to drown out the thoughts. But they got worse. I could feel the water on my skin, I knew it was hot. But I couldn’t tell if it was too hot and burning me. It was around where I normally put it, but I felt like I was burning my skin off. But when I turned it down, it wasn’t hot enough, so I turned it up more. And I thought maybe I was just trying to burn myself because I had done horrible things and was trying to punish myself. So I turned it down again to stop myself from doing the self harm thing, but it wasn’t hot anymore so I had to turn it up. And somehow, while doing all of that, I lost the feeling of water on my skin entirely. I don’t know how else to describe the feeling other than I thought my literal soul of was leaving my body. I felt myself lifted upwards, out of my skin, out of this reality. And I Panicked. With a capital P. Because I didn’t want to leave this reality. I loved this reality. So I tried to tell myself, “This is real, this is real” over and over and over and over again. While I poured the shampoo in my hand, “This is real.” While I scrubbed my hair and felt the individual strands on my fingers, “This is real.” Frantically staring at the moon patterns on the shower curtain, hearing the water going down the drain, smelling the soap, feeling the water. I tried to ground myself with every sense but none of it seemed to be working. 

And then I had a thought that struck absolute fear into me. If I left this reality, I would be leaving you. I would be leaving behind this whole life we have built together, that we had planned together. Your smile, your laugh, your voice and your arms - all of it was about to disappear forever. That’s when I got out of the shower and tried to dry off as quickly as possible. But the whole time I was drying off, I had this scene playing out in my head. Or maybe it was real, I don’t know. But I had this overwhelming understanding that I was not supposed to be here. I was supposed to be in a place that was not this good. I don’t think I was meant to be in a place of absolute hell, but I knew that my real reality was a world where my partner was not so kind, where my job wasn’t as comfortable, where my family and friends were not as loving. But I was put in this reality by accident - whether because of a mistake, or someone was giving me a helping hand, I got placed in this reality where you exist, where you hold me and love me and remind me every day of how much you appreciate me and want to be with me. And I wanted to stay in this one so much. I was sobbing to myself because I thought I wouldn’t get to stay and then… like a final judgment was made, I was back in my skin. Sort of. I knew that my skin was not fully dry from the shower, but I didn’t care at all. I opened my eyes and you were standing in the living room, over that air purifier, arms crossed, one hand on your mouth (I guess this is the point where you were thinking it wasn’t working at all). 

That whole scenario I had stepping out of the shower, fighting to stay with you, that all happened probably in about 30 seconds time. Next thing I knew, I was running for you. At least, I felt like I was running for you. I probably wasn’t. But I had to touch you. I had to feel your skin, your shirt, see your eyes looking at me and hear your voice. And just having your arms around me, hearing you ask me what’s wrong, if everything was okay, was like a final damn breaking in my hand. And that’s when I started sobbing out loud. Because you were asking me if I was okay, because you cared about me and you were worried. You were trying to help me, keep me grounded, because you cared. And I couldn’t stop crying because I got to stay with you even though everything in me knew I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know how to tell you to keep talking, that I needed to keep hearing your voice, but you knew, instinctually, that I needed you to continue. You talked to me, you tried to make me laugh, you danced with me, all the things I needed from you that I couldn’t verbalize to you. I felt like I was floating in the air around the living room, watching you help me. All while also looking at you through my eyes and seeing you for my own self. 

I thought I was settled down enough to get back into myself, but I somehow went from standing in your arms to sitting on the floor by the table, bookshelf side of the table, holding myself in a ball and sobbing about not wanting to be left alone. And I can honestly tell you that I don’t know how I got there. I thought I was okay. But I wasn’t. And all I felt in that moment was abject terror of being alone. Of being abandoned and left by someone who shouldn’t have left me. I don’t know how to explain that feeling. I was a little girl. Standing on the side of the road. Crying to my mother to not leave me. But I was also in my body, felt myself rocking, heard you talking to me, and I was telling myself, in typical me fashion, that I wasn’t actually feeling this emotion, that I wasn’t reliving a memory, I was just making up a story to excuse my behavior. I felt like I was making shit up to continue getting your attention. But the further into the memory I got, the more I realized that this was not a made up story. This wasn’t some lie I was using to make you look at me, touch me. Because I don’t need to lie to you for any of that. And I’m not that type of person. I think. Or maybe I was in this other reality, which is why I didn’t belong in this one. 

If what I saw was a real memory, a real suppressed memory from when I was little, then I can fully understand where my inherent fears came from. The memory was that of a little girl, maybe two or three years old (meaning maybe I really am older than my parents were told. Like when a shelter dog is labeled as “6 or 7 years” so that people adopt them because most people don’t want older dogs. I was the child at the adoption shelter labeled as younger than I was because I hadn’t been adopted yet. Maybe I was there even longer than my parents know). I felt that my family, mother for sure, maybe a father too, were walking away from me. I was told to stay where I was and they were walking away from me. And I was begging them to come back, to not leave me. I remember the feeling of rubbing my eye with one hand that had tears pouring out of it (the way that little kids do, you know what I mean?), and the other clenching my shirt, begging, begging them to come back. 

And I remember telling you over and over again, “Don’t leave me, don’t abandon me” or something along those lines. And when I was able to get back into my body enough, I know I was sobbing about the fact that my family didn’t want to keep me, that nobody wanted to keep me. And I heard you, over and over, saying I was kept, I was kept. And I tried to cling to that to bring me back to you. You were going to keep me and I wanted to come back to the one person that I felt was going to keep me. As irrational as that sounds. 

Even now, after 3 days, I still have flashes of dissociation. The drive home yesterday I saw the twinkling lights and felt myself leaving my body as I was driving, which was so scary. Driving to the airport today, before the Easton exit, I couldn’t remember where I was going. Was I going to the airport or were we on a road trip drive? I recognized nothing on the road, didn’t recognize the exit signs or the environment at all. I’m not as bad as I was in the shower, but I am still having these moments that make me doubt that this is all real and this is not “the wrong reality.” I hear your voice still talking to me, still telling me you’re keeping me, and I want to keep hearing that but I don’t know how to ask you without sounding stupid. How do I ask “Are you going to keep me” after you’ve already told me seven times that you will? How many times can I say that before you get fucking tired of me. But I think a part of me also hears you when you say that I can ask you whatever, whenever, and however many times, because I still cling to you and ask. Or if I don’t verbally ask, ask least I’m able to convey my need to you in some way. With a touch, or a squeeze. And you know.

To bring this  all back to my other comment from earlier (As a reminder: “But at the same time, I also feel like I don’t want to get closer to them, because by opening myself up to them, opening myself up further to you, I run the risk of one or both parties just abandoning me entirely because of exhaustion of tolerating me.”) if this memory was real and this really happened to me, then I understand exactly why I have such a massive fear of abandonment. I’ve always had this fear, by the way, this is a new fear that developed because of my exes always leaving me. I think I always had this fear, at least subconsciously, which made me act in certain ways and made me so scared of people leaving, that I pushed away my previous partners until they left me. And I think that’s why even now, I sometimes will inadvertently try to push you away, or come up with fights in my head or things to argue about, thinking you’ll start getting angry, and then leave. But at the same time, I don’t want to say the same fears and same things over and over again, I don’t want to do the wrong thing constantly because I do not want you to leave. It’s a weird combination. I don’t want you to leave me, but I also try to push you away because if I’m not fully 100% attached, it will hurt a little less when you do abandon me. And I think I’ve had this philosophy my whole life. I remember telling my mother when they first moved to Colorado and I had my first breakdown, that I had on a subconscious level, but so scared and upset when they moved to Colorado and I had to stay in Philly for school, because in some way, I saw that as a type of abandonment. 

And to wrap this all up, I was thinking about all this on the car ride to the airport. And had a new flurry of emotions. Because I had all the above going on in my head, no way for me to explain it to you, and then last night (completely unintentionally and I by no means hold what you said personally and I know you meant no harm by it and literally just wanted to help me), you said that it would be better too just try to not explain it. And let it pass. And while it may not have been intended to sound the way it did, I heard that and thought “You’re tired of hearing me stumble about trying to explain it. And it would be better to just not say anything. Let it pass. Let it disappear and block it out just like everything else.” And you were also feeling depressed and sad and I didn’t want you to take up all your energy trying to help me, when you needed help too. And with being so tired going to work, and being depressed on top of it, I felt like I was being an extra burden to you. I should have driven myself because you were so tired. And then I started getting upset because your mother was all concerned about you driving this morning and between that and my natural guilty conscious I have, I felt like I was overtaxing you. And then I thought about everything I’ve done since the beginning of the relationship, driving 1.5 hours all the time to see you, driving that early in the morning to get to work, how often I would come up even if I was bone tired and I suddenly thought about how that was entirely unfair. All those drives I did for you, and then you have to drive this one time for me and she gets worried about it. And then with those comments and my inherent disposition, I felt like I was being forced to feel guilty. Felt like the codependency of your family was rubbing off on us and I should have been disgusted with myself for leaving you, or taking that time away because if I wasn’t spending it with you, then clearly I was up to no good. And I hated that I was “being made” to feel that way. I thought so what if I want to take a week with my family by myself. Why should I feel guilty about that and why should anybody make me feel like that was a bad thing to do. Why should I spend the time with them worried about you and if you’re okay because I’m not there, instead of enjoying the time with my family that I haven’t had in two years or so. It was entirely unfair that you and your family got to spend so much time together while I only get a week, and then made to feel guilty about that week. Because as much as I joke about your family being too close and me not talking as often to mine, I do get upset that they are so far away. I am upset that I can’t just drive a few hours to see them and go out to lunch with my mom whenever I want. I think I get a form of jealousy when you spend time with your mother or your sister because I don’t get to have that whenever I want. And I felt like it was unfair that you get to do that, but I’m forced to fly a plane and feel bad about leaving you for my family. Maybe I feel uncomfortable and unhappy around your family all the time because it’s not MY family and by being friendly with them, I feel like I’m betraying the people who first kept me.

And then I felt even worse because I know you did so much for me in the beginning too and you cared and wanted to make sure I was also okay anytime I was tired and drove up. And I know you are not intentionally making me guilty - that’s all in my head. And that I only ever drove myself into the ground because I never let you see how tired I was, or never let myself acknowledge how exhausted I was, or how upset I was with not being able to see my family and I have only myself to blame for any of this. And I was sad and upset for getting stupidly upset at you for no reason.

And I think that’s the mindset I have with everybody and everything. You’re upset and depressed, so I need to buckle up my own shit and help you. And I don’t resent that. I love helping you and making you smile and being there for you when you’re down. But I think I do it so often to everybody that I no longer see myself and hear myself and take time to understand me. I will ignore the fact that I’ll have worked 12 hours 4 days in a row if I know someone else is exhausted or upset. Because my time and efforts don’t matter, my feelings and emotions on the matter are unimportant when someone else needs help. That is my purpose in life, at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for years. My purpose is to help others. And I do. But I push myself too far sometimes and I don’t even realize it. I don’t have to be happy and upbeat at work all the time, but if I’m not, everyone else seems down and angry. I try to be happy so that everyone else can at least know there’s a ray of sunshine and smiles in the building. I have to be happy for my parents because if I show even the smallest sign of being sad or depressed, they’ll find a way to blame it on you. Or if my mother sees me depressed and I try to explain it to her, she’ll tell me I need to learn how to tolerate it because everyone gets depressed like that. Not that she means it in a bad way, she just doesn’t know. And she never will. Sometimes I feel like I have to put on a face even for you, because I don’t want you to be so worried about me that you make yourself ill and don’t care of yourself.

I have this feeling that I never do enough for you - even if you think I’m doing above and beyond. I feel like I’m never doing enough for anybody. I’ve always felt like I’ve let my pent up emotions and past experiences dictate the way I act and speak and that it’s not fair to anybody I interact with because I’m not giving them my whole self. 

But my whole self is a small sad girl, curled in a ball on the side of a dirty road, abandoned and alone. My whole self is a black ball of depression and negativity. If I had to put my whole self into an image, it would be that doodling I did when you and Marc were discussing finances and I was using my pen to draw on the notebook. Just a few lines of bad thoughts, which tumble weed itself into a black hole of badness. And why should anybody be exposed to that every day? How could anyone see that whole unfiltered part of me and not walk away disgusted and scared. Why would someone want to dive not that and untangle it, or at least break it up into small pieces and work through it. Why should they? 

I think that’s what I’ve always wanted. I wanted someone to untangle me, or just sit with me and break these chunks up, and work with one chunk at a time. And I’ve never felt like I’ve been with anyone, or know anyone who I trust to do that. I have never been around that I thought would take the time for me and care for me the way you do. And I’m slowly realizing, even now, that you are that person. You will take the time for me, you will help me sift through all these emotions, these repressed memories and fears I have, you’ll work with me to get better in all aspects of our life. You will sit with me and hold my hand when I am ready to sob, and you will laugh and dance with me when I’ve cleared my head and my blockages. You will be there for me. You will keep me. 

I hope. 

~Girlfrand