The unwanted punch

I knew it already. To be honest, I was kind of expecting it. Also, it makes perfect sense, when I think about it. It is the right path, and it is what I wanted as well. And it's not the first time I heard it, and it certainly won't be the last.

Nevertheless, it hurts. Every time I hear it, it hurts. Like a punch in my heart.

You, me, him and the big picture

Today I made two big decisions about the place of our friendship in your life and in your relationship. This is not something that just came to me, it's actually something I've been thinking about for a while, and recent events only made me certain that those are the right decisions to make.

1- Redacted.

2- Redacted.

There's another thing: Redacted.

I will post this on the blog, but I will redact most of it, in the off chance that you see this. Cause I don't want you to know about this before something actually happens, so it can't influence you and your decisions. But when the time is right, I'll make sure you get the full version of this letter.

Dear A. - Nov 2019

It's been more than 8 years, and I am still not sure if I am ready to write you. There is so much anger, so much resentment, so much pain... I wish I didn't feel anything when I thought about you. And believe me, it is getting better, but there's still a lot there. I still get extremely upset when I think about you.

A big part of this is due to the fact that I'm upset with myself. I look back and I still cannot understand why I got so in love with you. I was blind, but in a way that I have never been before. My feelings for you were obsession, and I let you do to me things that I would never even consider with anybody else. Both physically and psychologically.

Thoguhout the years, I developed many theories to why I let it happen, why I let it get so big, so powerful and so destructive. I may never find the answer, but I know for a fact that I will never let it happen again. And I do have a never say never policy, but this is one of the few exceptions. I learned a lot about myself, about how I react and where I can be taken, and I will never go to that place again.

I want to forget you, I want to erase your role in the story of my life, but I know that, not only this is not possible, it's not productive. I need to have the constant remind of you and of the person I became around you, so I won't be that person again. I need to feel that pain, so I can be sure never to let anybody hurt me the way you did.

I know, in my mind, that you were not only bad to me, that there were good moments, that you helped me, that good things happened between us two. But those moments are so insignificant, when put close to the suffer you caused me. I try to think about positives, but I can only remember the negatives. I can only see the darkness. How you kicked me out of your place in the middle of the night, after I made a massive effort for you. The way you chose to break up with me, and where you did it - how you hurt me using the things that you knew would hurt me the most, like bringing up the fact that I was unemployed and had no money, that we were from different levels, how you met someone you actually connected with. And how you did that in another country, in the middle of all your friends, where I was a stranger, completely out of my comfort zone, defenseless. And how I had to share a bed with you after being broken up. How, after having disappeared for months, you called me and asked me to travel with you, disregarding my job, my boyfriend, my life, just because you needed someone to be your translator. How you couldn't even remember my birthday. I still remember yours, to this day. 

In essence, there's just too much hurt there to even give the good things a chance.

I hope one day I will think of you and I won't feel anything, neither good nor bad. That day is not today. Today, I truly wish you are burning in hell. And bear in mind, I don't believe in hell. But for you, I want hell to exist. I want hell to be real, and I want you to suffer on it.

Does that make me a bad person? Maybe. But I don't care. Or maybe I do. I want to get over you, I want to be indifferent to the fact that you live or die. And I'm sure that day will come, sooner or later. It always does. At least for now I have the peace of mind that my life is better in a way I cannot even calculate. My husband is the one who saved me from you, and he showed me what love is really about. You'll never be 1% of the man he is. It took me a while to realise that, but I got my happy ending. You were only a plot twist to make the audience gasp, but you are nothing more than a secondary character. You would never get a spin-off or sell any books on your own.

Anyway, I've written you more than you deserve to get from anyone in life, so I'll finish this letter here. From now on, I won't have anything else to tell you. I'll just work towards feeling nothing about you. Because that's all you deserve: nothing.

...

Gilda

Dear Rita,

it took me a while but I think I finally understand what you say. Of course, we are talking a whole lower scale here: I am not an international movie star from the 40's (thanks, google!). I am just a simple guy with around 5000 followers on Instagram. But I, on my own way, feel like Gilda and Rita.

I have a social media persona, who, like every social media persona - or every persona - is not real. It is me in the pictures and the pictures are real, but it is all one dimensional and isolated from reality. I choose what I want to share and how people will see that persona. I have active control of how that persona should live in my follower's minds. And I am starting to feel like that is coming back to bite me in the ass. The same ass I post there.

People look at it and assume I am this great guy: a world traveler who is always surrounded by the most amazing and the hottest friends, who has a perfect husband, no insecurities and who is an absolute sex god. And although these things can be true here and there, I am not that guy all the time. I am someone normal. I am someone who will order McDonald's and binge watch Netflix beside a snoring husband whenever I am home on a Friday evening. Someone who does not have lots of friends, who finds his job boring and lonely at times, who owes money to his credit cards and, most importantly, someone who has insecurities like everyone else.

And this is not part of the fantasy, this is not something other people will see. People want the entertainment, people want Gilda. Behind the phone screen, I am just Rita. And more and more I am noticing that, after they get to know the real me, they go away. Their investment does not pay off, so they just leave. When people set off to get to know me, they expect to be sucked into my fantastic perfect and happy world, and not to be shown problems like their own. Inevitably I will disappoint them for starting with the bar so high.

One would argument that I am better off without those people, that at least they are showing their true colours now better than later, when they are sentimentally involved in my life, and that it is their loss. And I agree to all these point - rationally speaking, they all make perfect sense. Unfortunately a friend that waled away from me once taught me that we are not entirely rational, and that the emotional bit means a lot. At the end of the day, no matter how much "better" I am for being myself and for not having those people in my life, I am still the one who's walked away from. I am still alone.

Usually this is the part of the text where I write something hopeful, that will make the future look brighter. And the future will be brighter, it has to be. I cannot give up, I have to keep trying until it works. Rationally speaking, I know that the wheel turns, and if now it looks grim and sad, it is just the bottom of the spin, but soon I will start going up again.

But right now the emotional is being stronger. Right now I just want a hug. Or maybe I wish you could come back from the dead to tell me that none of that matters. In 70 years, you'll be dead and someone will be talking about you in a blog no one will read.

A big bear farewell

I am so upset and so disappointed with you, that I could write a whole book about it. One letter would not be nearly enough. But, at the same time, I don't want to write to you or about you. You're not worth my lines, you're not with the energy my finger muscles use to type. You're not even worth the bandwidth I will use to post this. These lines are way more than you deserve.

Next, please.