An Open Letter

I find it kind of beautiful that Eden’s first album was called End Credits. I ended up listening to crash several times on loop once it came on from autoplay. I guess the feeling I’ve been struck with for the last few days was like a glass bottle in freefall. The crash eventually came, and it wasn’t horribly bad or anything like that. But it did come.

So many emotions hit me at once.

I wrote something down to talk about tomorrow at therapy – my first gut reaction to a certain thought was “if I was good enough at music I think they’d love me”. I need to preemptively clear up any potential misunderstanding – I don’t mean love in the romantic sense at all. But I just was washed over with the wave of thinking if I was able to play or make beautiful things then maybe I’d be deserving of platonic love. I find it pretty painful to think about how – I guess scratch that. I feel like it’s a painful thing to think that the only reason I could be loved is by proving value. I don’t know why that’s such an ingrained thing in me, maybe because all the love I received as a child was conditional. I never really heard my dad say I love you, or at least I don’t remember any times where he did growing up. The only praise I ever heard was an occasional “good job” when I’d do good in grades, or tennis. The more I think about it, it always felt kinda automatic. Like I could have said “I got an A-” and he would have said good job the same way as if I got the highest score. I guess it always felt like I was chasing after his validation that I never got, and it wasn’t like he was there often anyway. I still find myself sad about the fact that he wasn’t there for my graduation. I told him that I wouldn’t care and it was fine for him to miss it for work, but even then I knew I wanted him there. I guess I set myself up for a trap hoping that he would somehow cancel his business trip to stay and watch me graduate highschool. Well I walked right into the trap I had set, and I can’t ever change that. I think he would have came if I asked him to.

I remember one time I started keeping track of how long it would take until my Mom said “I love you”. It’s pointless to include my dad in that as he didn’t say that anyways. In highschool when I did that it turned out to be around a year long. She finally said I love you while hugging me while I was leaving the car after I had resolved another fight she had started, and it was her way I guess of apologizing for the hurt she caused again. Every day in highschool felt like a blur, but that day especially felt like a void. I think it was irreparable damage for me to have no one to talk to or have going through all that shit growing up. When it rains it pours.

I remember one time I told J how I wanted a hug in some way or other, and she told me “Ok! The next day when I see you at school I’ll give you a big hug”. I remember I felt like crying that day, just seeing that text. The next day when she hugged me, my body fully shut down and I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t remember what it felt like the second it stopped. I couldn’t even show emotion. I felt like such a broken person for that being my response to that. I guess I would have hoped I would have broken down crying in some ways, but the rational part of my brain quips back up again to refute that.

I’m incredibly grateful I met S, T, L, M, B, and even Y. I’m glad I had an online group of friends, they are kinda who I consider as my family. I guess I see a lot of parallels when people talk about family stuff, like them doing bad things but at the end of the day you forgive them and make up – after all they’re family right? I think it’s kinda sad to say this to be honest, because I don’t think those people see things the same way. Maybe T. But I guess I never really got to know what it’s like to have a family, so maybe we experienced the same thing. But to me it mattered so much more. I love them all.

It’s crazy how a song can tie me back in more ways than one. Whenever I hear pride, I think about sitting on the bathroom floor in San Diego for hours on end. I used to play that song on loop. Whenever I hear that song I somehow come back to seeing me in my studio apartment laying awake at night staring at the roof. God, how lonely things must have been before Hash.

I’m a bit – scratch that plenty envious of S and L. I keep thinking about them moving in together and being able to just constantly interact with each other. I know I’ve tried to process reasons why it wouldn’t be feasible for me to live with them, but I guess now I’m just envious of them both. I feel like I’m an abrasive person in some ways, I’m too specialized in my niches growing up that I find it hard to share common ground with N. I’m jealous of L for that, she has a connection over history or something. I think this isn’t a problem with N specifically, but more a sentiment I feel fairly often. I feel like it’s hard for me to meet people who get it. Like in a weird way, see it all happening around them and want to punch back against it. God knows what I’m saying at this point, I’m tired and I’ve been rambling without a filter for a while.

I know I told myself I wouldn’t consider it until I hit my 1k goal, and I did hit that. So I guess I’m free to think about it again. I don’t think I want to right now, just out of habit of not considering it. But I do think that if I could lay down on the floor and dissolve like a pill, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. I guess I am depressed. Pretty badly so, huh? I went and looked at that guide again, and I guess I have been making that joke a lot recently. I’ve been almost instinctively saying “be honest do you want me to kill myself” or saying those kinds of jokes. I hope I just find them funny. I remember last year skipping a lecture because I planned to do it, how dark of a time that was. I think I ended up just walking to the back roads behind the rec cen and just crying in the field looking out on the airport lake. I’m glad I’m not there, or anywhere close to that now – but I’m a bit scared of the direction I feel. I don’t want to concern anyone, I am just rambling anyway. I’m barely lucid enough to process the sentence I’m writing, I can’t even remember what I just said. Thoughts really are just swarming me.

R – 3 breaths

E – I feel myself going downwards, or at least walking around that basin. Let me come away from that.

S – Let me stop listening to Eden, and listen to a bit more uptempo music again.

T – I will skip this song and go to a higher pace song.