s8nist

[s8nist]

I don't know what to do.

I thought that one day I would tell you, but I'm not sure you would even want to know. What would that do? What would that achieve?

Perhaps I will one day, if only to know that yes, you can be loved like this in this way. I am living proof of it.

But then to know that since high school you've been single for what, 6 months in total? You deserve to have time to be and to learn yourself should that occur. I want that for you.

Would I be able to wait for you? Is this even what I want? Could I be the second? And is it childish of me to believe that matters?

I just don't know what to do. I don't know what the right choice is. I want to protect you, but from what? From me? You don't want that, but how could you know? Is there a chance that we would be mutually destructive? Would we both sacrifice and sacrifice, if only out of habit, and end up miserable?

And you say these feelings are independent, but how can you know that? How do you know that if you were happy right now with the rest of your life, that you'd still want me? I want to say I have to think about myself, but I don't want to. I want to only think of you. I want to get better for you. I want to know you in every way there is to know a person. But I'm terrified.

I don't know what to do. Is there even a right choice? Or is every path one that ends in pain? Why do you have to love me in such a perfect way?

[s8nist]

God, I just love you so much I don't know what to do.

And what if I did tell you? Then what? You're so much braver than me.

"in some universe if something were to happen" why can't it be this one? I so desperately want it to be this one. But would I even be okay with that? What would my family think? Does it matter? I feel delusional. I feel sick. I can't tell you.

I will, one day. And it will be a selfish, terrible act. I already feel terrible about it.

Why does it have to be this complicated. Why do I have to love you. Why does it have to be so incredibly easy and natural to love you.

Do you know? Can you tell? Is it written all over my face? I genuinely can't tell and that terrifies me.

"even if you did, feel like you even have to tell me one way or another" Are you just letting me know? Leaving the floor open should I choose to? I'm going insane.

I don't think there is anything wrong or bad about the way you feel - so why can't I turn that inward? Why am I so angry at myself? Why do I find my own feelings so horrible, and evil, and wrong?

I will be your friend until the day I die, and only your friend for now. I can turn it off for now. I want to be your friend. But then there's the little voice that says "maybe someday." I hate that little voice.

[s8nist]

I'm a hypocrite, plain and simple.

I champion saying how you feel, being open and honest, feeling everything to it's fullest capacity and dying with nothing left unsaid, but I can't even do that. I'm shoving so much down. Maybe it's self preservation, maybe in some way I think I'm protecting you. It's not that I believe my love to be this vile, wicked thing. It's that my love for you is. You're not mine to love. I'm guilt ridden. Masquerading as some kind, caring friend when all I want is to hold you. I want to grab you and tell you that you deserve to be loved in every way for all that you are. The good, the bad, all of it. You deserve to be loved "for everything you are, everything you will be, and everything you were before."

I feel sick. I'm disgusted with myself. I want you so desperately it makes me light headed. When we're together, I can turn it off. I can be the good friend that you need. I can be a safe person for you. But the moment we are apart and I'm left to my own devices I become this volatile, love sick thing that wants nothing more than to care for you.

All the same, I want everything to work out for you. I want HER to be the one to love you in the way I do. I don't want you to have to turn your life around. I don't want you to have to go through any of that, or any of what you're currently going through. As much as I love you, I want her to love you more. I want her to be your person, to be your safety, to love you for all that you are.

It's such a sick and twisted and beautiful and lovely feeling. To love someone so much that you'd break your own heart. I can handle it. I can handle the burden of my feelings for you. I'm tougher than I look.

[s8nist]

It's getting harder and harder not to tell you how I feel. How overwhelmingly in love with you I am.

---

God I really am just fucking sick of feeling like this. I'm so violently depressed right now. Why am I 23 wanting to clench broken glass in my fist just to feel something other than this all-consuming, nauseating dread I feel? This is fucking pathetic.

[s8nist]

I would give anything to hold you in my arms and let you know how much I love you. How much I adore every part of you that I've known, and how excited I am to know the rest.

How desperately I wish to grab you by the hands and tell you "Me too! I love you too!"

I've spent so much of my life begging, pleading to be loved. So much of my life settling for what I thought was comfortable, what was easy, what I could swallow. Love that only loved parts of me, not all of me. Love that didn't truly know me.

How badly I wish for you to know me - all of me.

And how badly I wish to give you everything I have. To hand it over to you and entrust you with the depths of all that I am. To give it to you in a desperate plea for you to be happy.

I want to make you happy.

But, if all I can do is this, then as long as I can bring you even a fleeting moment of joy, of respite, then that's enough for me.

I wish you knew how much I loved you. How could I not?

[s8nist]

I'm really starting to understand the appeal of a year-long hibernation.

[s8nist]

I will explain this further later in the night but it has come to my realization that I have the habit of never talking about how I'm feeling when I'm feeling it. Past an "I'm feeling funky," nothing. Today was a big step.

[s8nist]

Today was hard. Beautiful, but hard.

He called me today after his run while he walked another mile to chat. Said he looked at the time and realized I was probably still driving home. We talked for about 40 minutes.

The main thesis, the purpose of the call, was to confess that after we talked today about November being only in 4 months, and briefly talking about how I'm considering Durham, he was hit with a wave of depression at realizing our time together was almost up.

He ended up making me cry like a baby talking about it. Talking about how hard it is for him to realize that when I'm the only person in his life making him happy right now. Didn't have the heart to say that I feel damn near the same. I think mine is for different reasons though. It's not like I'm not happy with my other friends - of course I am - but it's not the same. He gets me in a way I've never been understood before. That on top of me being completely and entirely latched, the idea of this time (getting to see him every day) ending is completely gut wrenching.

I know it's good for us, and we both deserve to move and to find joy in other places, but knowing that there's a very real possibility that wherever I go, he won't be is killing me. Why? It's not like he's been in my life that long. But even so, I can't help but feel that there are two time periods of my life. Before him and after him.

He said somehting that really hit me hard and started the waterworks. He told me that he thinks he's just kind of felt that this entire time, wherever he goes I'll be there too; or that wherever I go he'll follow. But today he realized that might not happen. Crushing to say the least. I'd guarantee it if I could. Grab him by the hands and tell him, "Wherever you go, I'll follow."

He told me that selfishly, there's a part of him that's okay with staying the course. Sticking to the routine of a miserable and terrible job if only to continue seeing me and being around me. Even more crushing. I would be happy with that.

Some lines post-phone call that nearly killed me:

"I'm just not ready to leave you yet."

"I would literally follow you around this country."

And you know what? I don't care if it's him just being dramatic, or just saying that, or just being silly. To even have someone say that to me means so much to me.

I can't imagine leaving him. I've gotten so used to him always being there. No matter how terrible my day is, no matter how hard I have to work to keep my head above water, he'll be there the next day. Or the day after. To think that there's a day where I won't have that certainty makes me feel like I'm drifting out to sea. He's my rock, my buoy, the one thing keeping me close to shore right now. What if I can't swim on my own?

I know I can, or at least, I can learn how to, but why does it have to be so damn hard? Why do I have to be so incredibly attached?

I so desperately wish things were different. I wish we could plan our lives together, even as friends. I could be happy with that. Happy to know that no matter where I go, he'll be there too.

I wish I could tell him how I feel. Wish this was all easier. Wish wish wish wish wish. But for now, I'll try to enjoy the hell out of te next few months. Soak up every minute I can. That, and write a few more drafts of my letter.

God I'm terrible.

[s8nist]

Another rant about love

Do you believe there are different kind of being in love?

I can't help but answer yes. I can't explain how I feel without believing the answer to that question is a resounding yes. Or perhaps it's my way of coping with this terrible sin I am commiting.

To be in love with someone I simply can't - as a matter of principle, of morality - there has to be a different explanation. And maybe that's not it, maybe that isn't the reason and what I am feeling is simply a truth of life. A fact as undeniable as the sun rising each day.

We know and acknowledge the simple truth of there being different types of love. Platonic love, familial love, romantic love. They all exist within our world without the batting of an eye. So would there not also exist, by extension, a form of being in love that can apply to these?

Is it not possible to be in platonic love? To hold the belief that someone was simply meant to be in my life, that our souls are intertwined in a way deeper than friendship. Can soulmates be anything other than romantic?

Even accepting this as truth, though, it does not fully explain how I feel about you.

Perhaps it's because I've never fallen in love with my best friend, and this is simply the middle stage between platonic and romantic love. Sure, I've had platonic and romantic love grow side by side. Falling in love with a person as I get to know them more and they become my best friend over the course of our relationship, but I've never had this experience of questioning my romantic love for my pre-established best friend. It's terrifying, and nauseating, and oh-so-dramatic ( as most things are with me), but I can't help but feel excited. To hold this small light in my chest with joy. A secret between me and the world that I whisper to the grass in hopes my love finds you. That you can feel it in the breeze without me ever having to say a word.

Of course, were our situation different, I would write some grand gesture of love into a letter and send it your way, anxiously awaiting a response as the hours tick by. But, the world doesn't always work as you'd hope. So instead, I'll sit, with this innocent love in my chest, holding it with gentle hands like the precious, tender flame of a candle, hoping only for you to feel the warmth and care from it.

I've said it before and I will say it again, right now it doesn't matter how I love you, as long as you know that I do. I love you more than I can use the english language to describe. More poetically and dramatically than I could ever hope to write, and more innocently and tenderly than the first light of morning.

I just love you - that's all there is to it.

Maybe it's beause I want to save you from the experiences I know all too well, maybe it's because I know you hold some form of affection for me and this is my response, maybe, maybe, maybe.

If I'm being honest right now, it doesn't matter to me why I feel this way because, for the first time in a very long time, I am happy. And happiness is not something to be taken for granted. It has the tendency to be far too fleeting. To fill me with dread of the next time it leaves. But with this, with this love - though hard, and difficult, and confusing beyond measure - I am happy. Even though I know it shall never come to pass, I can be happy for now.

[s8nist]

I miss you so desperately. I wish we could just sit on the couch together and talk forever. This is such an innocent love.

[s8nist]

I don't know what to do.

You're envious of the person who will get to listen to me every day? How do you not know that I so desperately want that person to be you.

To tell me I'm so smart, articulate, beautiful, and that whoever I end up with is incredibly lucky. To tell me you don't understand how someone couldn't see what a catch I am. To tell me that you're jealous of your brother for messaging me. How can I tell you your words both keep me alive and are killing me? Like radiation both killing the cancer and causing it. You are incredible in ways I cannot even begin to express, and this just makes it all harder.

I wish I could've listened more. Could've understood you better. Could have said more. I wish I wasn't so violently anxious about this all.

I'm such a terrible person. The worst person alive. I want to hear you say it without guilt. Without fear. It hurts.

Why can't I remember more of the call? It's killing me to not be able to remember and to be able to have hung on to every word you said. I know you're embarrassed, but as anxious as it made me i so desperately wish to be able to remember.

[s8nist]

Wow.

[s8nist]

I think I'd be content writing you a thousand love letters you'll never see. Even if it hurts, I'm happy to love you.

[s8nist]

Embarrassing to want to kill yourself and have body dysmorphia at 23.

Why can't things get better and stay better with time. I feel like yes, I have more better days now, but the hard days are so immeasurably hard.

And I don't know how to fix myself.

Convinced sitting outside will fix me today. We shall see if this great experiment succeeds.

It worked! But! The horrors found me once more. Why does this have to happen. Why does it have to be this way. This shit sucks.

[s8nist]

I wish I could read your mind (more than I already can). I wish I knew what you truly thought. I wish I could say what I actually think. I wish I was older and more mature. I wish I was less confused.

[s8nist]

Sometimes, I wish I could start life over. I wish I could wake up with a clean slate, reborn, fresh as a daisy.

But then I wonder: would I make the same mistakes? Who would I be without them? Do I truly regret any of it? Even the bad things - the terrible things - have made me a better person. More empathetic, more understanding.

If I had the knowledge I do now, would I make all the same choices when face-to-face with them?

I know the conversation we're having is a joke, but I can't help but wonder.

I know if I hadn't made the same mistakes, I wouldn't have met you. But I also wouldn't be in this situation that we find ourselves in. But, it is all worth it to know you and to love you.

If I hadn't made these mistakes, I wouldn't be able to empathize so closely with your sister. Wouldn't know exactly what you're going through right now. Wouldn't be able to marvel at all the similarities we have.

Now that I've written this out, I do think I'd make the same choices. Cause that's what they are. Choices. You regret mistakes, but I don't regret this.

[s8nist]

What I couldn't say:

It feels like a knife in the chest to hear all of that. You are one of the best people I have ever met, and to know that the person who should be the most aware of that simply isn't is nauseating. You deserve the world and then some. You are so caring, intelligent, passionate, and kind. You are a good person. To hear that you don't even feel normal is so so painful. You brighten my life every day and I wish you felt that she felt the same way.

I love you, and I've decided it doesn't matter how I love you right now as long as you know I love you. You are my best friend.

Also: meds work!