An Open Letter

I was super excited today and I prepared everything I could think of to feel strong and good for deadlifts, but I still completely failed my top set. Not the end of the world, but I just wasn't feeling physically the greatest. I played basketball for a bit, but my shoulder was hurting so I couldn't really do much. I just left my spin class and I decided I wanted to actually write about it. It's a relatively small class meant for beginners, and I was the only person in the middle row. Usually the instructors near the beginning say good job to the front back and middle rows, and I'm pretty sure it's something they're supposed to do – but the instructor today said good job to the back row, then good job to the front row, and then that was it. That kind of ruined the rest of the class for me, and I kind of just got more and more sad. On one hand I know that it obviously feels pretty bad to be the only guy in the class, and to be trying your best and every single other person gets told good job – but I kept trying to remind myself to not attribute maliciousness to what could be ignorance. Maybe she just forgot. Or maybe she said it and I didn't hear it. Or maybe she felt a little bit weird saying it because I'm the only person in the middle row. Like I know logically there is no for her to single me out and that it wasn't something intentional. But at the same time even knowing that it still made me feel pretty bad. I kept trying to see it in different ways and reminding myself of these facts and even trying to force myself to smile to trick myself into being happier, but I just couldn't. I kept finding myself striving for that validation, like when she would say to Sprint I would Sprint hard – but the validation never came and I'm pretty sure she either forgot to say it, or already did and I just didn't hear it. But I still kept doing it. Near the end I sprinted so hard my right calf completely cramped, and I had to stop for a bit.

I keep coming back to the fact that it's probably not intentional, but that somehow doesn't make me feel any better about it. I know it means nothing also, but I still feel pretty sad about it. Like I don't really care about spin, but it's more the fact that I'm trying to push myself to do things outside of my comfort zone, and getting what feels like special treatment in a bad way. If there had been other people in my row I would have felt better, but since there weren't I just feel bad.

Tomorrow will be deadlifts in the morning, I’m so excited. I need to prioritize my sleep again, I’m wasting time on dopamine-draining activities like scrolling YouTube. Goodnight! Life’s good right now.

I’ve dropped almost all of my commitments from school, and now I just need to pass this exam and I graduate with my masters. I’m a bit scared, not of the exam of but letting go so much.

Holy shit, I took a half scoop and I was straight up TWEAKING. On my bike ride over, I was amped up so hard I was yanking my bike’s handlebars so hard the front tire kept coming off the ground. I’m so fucking happy I bought it I’ve missed my 400mg caffeine and god knows all the other random shit in it. I’m so excited it take it again tomorrow!

We had about a month, and she proposed it again. I would be lying out of my ass if I didn't say it wasn't hoping for this. I think there's a risk of this going bad, but I also don't think it's such an excessive risk to make it arguably not worth it. If nothing else this can serve as a lesson to understand this experience for the future. I'm excited.

It's 16 minutes later and she said she'd be late, but not this late. A small voice in my head says she's doing this intentionally to me, but I don't think that's true. But it's also a nice reminder how the real world doesn't work like I wish it does. I genuinely think that's a good thing.

She's late grabbing food, and so I have a little bit more time to collect myself. I couldn't sleep last night, my brain just kept thinking not always about her but just thinking. When I would start to feel myself drift off I would recognize it and plead for it to come, but it never did. I stayed in bed awake from 2:00 a.m. until sometime past 6:00.

I woke up thinking about eventually by tame Impala. The lyrics hit in a different way now. I really don't want to hurt her, that's my biggest priority. And I'm a little bit worried that I might. But I feel like that's love, it's a little bit concerning to me because I don't want to delude myself and tell myself that it's romantic love. But I also do think that I can have love for someone and care about their self-interest in a different way. In an extreme example, I guess I love my mom. I don't want her to be in my life at all and I am actively ensuring that's happening, but at the same time I don't want harm to come to her. I don't know when that changed.

I spent a lot of the night thinking about what was going to happen today and my brain while falling asleep, losing its reigns, kept going down different paths. I try to tell myself I just don't have enough information, and so I'm just going to take it as it comes.

I went to bed late because I played an extra game with friends. And then I decided to make a steak. And then I decided to watch an episode of TV. And then one more episode. And then I opened up my phone on tiktok for 20 minutes, which I normally don't do. And then I read my chapter. And then I decided to read another chapter, and because of that I heard my phone buzzing on the table and I decided to get up and check it. And because of that I saw that she was calling me.

She sounded somewhat drunk and giggly, and asked me if I wanted to see her art gallery show tomorrow because it was the last day it was there. I told her that I wanted to, but at the same time I'm not sure if this is something that would hurt her when she woke up and when the alcohol went away. She said no she wanted this, and I told her if she wakes up and for any reason doesn't want to do this just send me a text no worries. She kept giggling.

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C taught me an incredibly important lesson. We have gotten in so many fights, and we have both done things and said things that we regret – both in our own different ways. We have vices and we aren't perfect. He also has a big temper and a traumatic upbringing that doesn't make it any easier for him. But also that was what let him understand what I needed and vice versa at our lowest.

Often we would get in fights, and we would either have to talk for several hours until we calmed down and we could realize what we were fighting over, or sometimes things would heat up too much and we would take some space apart in a pretty violent way. Usually someone would leave the call and ghost for a little bit. But then we come back and it's like it never happened. That friendship taught me how easy it is to forgive. And also how that can go both ways. Sometimes he will do things that hurt me and that he wouldn't want to do, and sometimes I would be a huge bitch or annoying. By the next day we are still friends. Sometimes it took more than a day. But I have faith that this storm is not enough to break the bond we have.

Maybe it's because it's late and I'm tired, but I'm really thankful for that experience. I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but I at least feel confident in my ability to leave the past in the past. At least for the things that she did that hurt me, I'm still aware of them, but it doesn't hurt. And so I can act like it did not happen. At least in the sense of not needing an apology or a remediation for it. Sometimes a quiet embarrassment is enough of an acknowledgment to understand that people are flawed and make mistakes.

I thought about being a landlord the other day, and how I would want to be a kind one even though you really don't get any recognition for being kind – you only get recognition when something is bad. And I thought about why I would want to do that and how I could even justify that. And at the end of the day, all I could come up with is saying “I can sleep at night”. But that didn't really capture it, because I feel like that comes from a place of shame. And I still don't know if I can find words to capture it, but the closest thing I can find is wanting to be kind, for just the sake of making another person's experience better. It doesn't help me at all to make someone else's experience better, and arguably it sometimes hurts me. But it doesn't hurt me much, and I somehow feel good about that. It's probably some hardwired, pack animal behavior in my brain – and I can try to intellectualize it by saying that it's a reflection of hoping that someone else is kinder to me, if we all share this value of kindness. But I guess I don't really think about that. I just enjoy the thought of making someone else's life a little bit easier. And so I'm really thankful that I'm able to let go of things. It's not like something super amazing or wonderful or anything like that, but it's something that I could not have, and so I'm grateful that I do.

Near my chest, I could feel his shame, burning a hole. I get up to comfort him. In that my own shame grows. I endure this because I know that after comes the apology. And in that moment, I will feel the most loved I ever will. He says he will never do it again, until it happens the next time, and he says it again. I stay in the cycle for the apology.

Yesterday I decided to make a Tinder account again. I have been thinking about it for a bit with the intention of making a stupid profile, but I ended up just making a normal one with some help from friends. I still miss some of the parts from my relationship with A, but at the same time, my memory is pretty hazy and so I don’t have anything concrete to hold. I think missing things is not necessarily a bad thing, but as my therapist said, a reminder of something you want in the future. And some sort of incentive to push yourself to get something like that again. I hope she’s doing well. I wanted to reach out to her just to talk and I guess convince myself that we are on good terms, but my therapist talked about several other things I didn’t consider and how it may not be a good idea. Eventually, I settled on the thought that it would ultimately hurt her, since I don’t think she’s been able to take the time to really process it or work through things; now it becomes selfish for me to reach out to her again since I know that it would likely hurt her and so I don’t want to do that. I think I can comfortably say that I still love her now, but in the sense that I want good things to happen to her, just not involving me.