An Open Letter

I used to set my birthday on Skype to the day after. My reasoning was I would see who messages me when Skype notifies them, and I’d know they only messaged me because Skype told them to. I don’t think anyone anyway messaged me, but I realized even then how I was setting a trap for myself to just hurt. I didn’t really have much to gain.

I find myself still doing the same patterns. DBT tries to get me to stop, but it feels like a worn-in armchair. I give myself reasons to have hope, even when it’s consistently crashed over and over again. I told myself at the end of today whatever happens is done, and this wouldn’t be another instance of hope. I’m putting my foot down. Class friend it is. I hate myself for still giving hope by mentioning how “if things change, we’ll see”. I say that too often; yet I can’t get myself to denounce it either. In East of Eden Lee wrote something about how he stopped hoping, as it was only setting you up for disappointment. Grammarly is telling me the tone is “disapproving”.

I want to have respect for myself. Stand up for yourself for once. The only bad outcome is an awkward interaction with potentially 2 people. I have to redact something here to avoid dropping a bomb. I keep thinking about how Cal gave in and decided to be cruel. I have toyed with the idea more times than I want. It can’t lead to any good, can it? Even if I wanted to be fully selfish, it’s in my best interest to make it as easy as possible for the other person. A weirdly benevolent form of manipulation. But still, I feel that inherent desire for karma, with them hurting just a fraction of how they’ve hurt me. An eye for an eye. Who cares if it makes the world go blind if I already am – I am sick of being the only one suffering. I am sick of being the one who is putting in all of the work to fix this shit. I am sick of both of us benefitting from my struggle. The fact that I’m who I am and they’re who they are is reward enough I guess. The work I put in isn’t for waste, I think consistently doing this has made me a stronger and more emotionally intelligent person. I’ve still got a long way to go, but at least I’m not there.

I hate having to understand what it’s like to not know something. But I wonder if everyone always thinks this about what they want to hear. I think I’m fairly good at saying what people want to hear, but I could always be wrong. How would I know?

If I’m being honest, I don’t think E will read this or put in any more effort than what I’ll predict now for fun: 1 unprompted message, and 1 invitation for something non-academic. And I guess that’s all I predict. That’s more depressing than I expected. Expected isn’t even the right word here, I expect nothing anymore from them. All I find swirling in my mind are cruelties gone unsaid. They go back into the crevices when I think about Cal’s regret. I fear the day I go through with something cruel. I pray I haven’t before.