An Open Letter

A digital journal

S – During the trip S showed how volatile the friendship was and how he was willing to end it over something small rather than try to resolve it.

T – This shows how little I mean to him and ultimately means that he could leave my life at any moment over a miscommunication. This means I need to always walk on eggshells and try to predict all these situations or mind-read him so it does not explode. This isn’t reasonable, and so it’s essentially over.

F – I’m afraid of instability and losing my BFF, who I consider my lifelong friend.

B – I sack the friendship now to avoid it all.

T – There was a lot of stress on the trip as this was an 11 day thing, and of course this was everyone at essentially their worse. But regardless, this is something that’s consistent with what I know of him, but this doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I just need to understand that I cannot rely on him in that sense, but absolutely can just randomly text, play games, or send stuff with. I should also look into more friend group options for hobbies I enjoy doing.

F – I still feel shitty, but at least it’s like a non-nuclear option. I think this is the healthier approach, of keeping things at an arms distance to avoid the issues. Not everyone has to be super entwined with my life in that sense, and he can still be a fun friend to interact with.

B – We still stay friends the way we have been, but I also look for other people to become close with for my own needs.

A called me today at new years when it was her timezone, and as much as video calls stress me out, I’m left feeling almost warm and fuzzy inside because of it. Another filler just obligation post since I’ve been playing league like a degenerate for the season end the last few days, but yeah I guess I just wanted to say I’m very thankful I met her.

The season ends in about a week and I didn’t know, and so I have to grind out the games for ranked now. I was playing with someone who was supposed to be GM but we ended up 3W6L and so I just gave up and dipped. F invited me to play, and after knowing I was already pretty tilted he said he would support me next game, and then proceeded to play pretty badly and steal kills and refused to take any accountability. Pretty shitty end to the day, because it’s kinda just a reminder how he’s hypocritical and regardless of role or context he needs to be right and can’t be wrong. Oh well.

Why did I stay up like this? I’m kinda stupid for this. I worked a bit more on A’s present but holy shit this will take too long so I don’t think it’s reasonable. Dear lord I suck at it.

F hit me up again at midnight and we played a few games of league as a group. I kinda remember how this feels comfortable, and how it feels to have a semi-regular group of gamers. I kinda miss it if I’m being honest.

I’m absolutely exhausted and I ended up taking an accidental nap for 3 hours earlier today. Somehow I’m still tired right now at 1AM but I just don’t want to sleep yet. It’s bad of me but I might just watch some youtube or something.

Because of time zones on the flight, I start writing this post at the end of my second Dec 26th. Kinda cool, isn’t it? Now time to write something down I guess. I’m pretty exhausted as I’ve basically pulled an all-nighter due to jet lag, and I think that’s definitely taking a toll on me mentally. I’ve been kinda fending off depressive thoughts for a while now and it may just be time to call it and go to bed. No point trying to squeeze some analysis out of my brain now anyways.

I guess I kind of want to start this with a positive note. I'm more than a little bit afraid of a lot of things, mostly regarding other people right now. It's scary because I can't control it the same way I can control myself – and so there's always a level of uncertainty that anxiety can use as a lever to sway me to its whims. I want to remind myself that no matter what, I will survive it. Even if I somehow lose every single support network at once (as a worst case scenario) I will overcome that and survive. It may be hellish, but I've done it before. Still terrified but I guess there's less dread.

Tonight me and C went on a bar crawl, and he was drinking since noon (we left at midnight). He was incredibly drunk, and after the first two bars he was struggling to stand upright. The third bar we found was an all you can drink for just about $7 per 30 minutes, and we drank about 3 each until the thirty minutes was up. He went to the bathroom and I was talking to the waiter about her life and her experiences, as someone working the night shift at Japan. She was incredibly interesting, and I hope I don't fuck up her name as “iiya”. She was Korean and had lived in the Philippines and was currently in Japan for 6 months to a year on a work visa. She ideally wanted to live in Greece, funnily enough in Illios (from overwatch lol). It was fascinating to hear about another person's perspective so drastically different than my own, but right as we started to talk about the cultural pressure to be attractive she asked about C and if he was ok in the bathroom. He didn't lock it (thankfully) and was passed out on the floor of the bathroom. I had to cut out conversation short as he couldn't stand up and it was time to go home. I was sad I couldn't learn more about her perspective, but safety was more important. Honestly part of me wanted to get him to sit on the barstool and to keep talking but he's more important to me. We were somewhat of a walk from our Airbnb and so I had to support him on our walk back.

We got home with minimal sleeps from him, and I got to share the experience with L and A. But with that context out of the way I think I have a bit of space for drunk introspection. I've been weirdly afraid of A because of how much I trust her for lack of a better term. With her I have someone to tell things to, and also someone I feel comfortable asking for support from. It's kinda terrifying because what if I get used to that and then it goes away? I don't want to scare A off potentially by using this term so liberally, but let me at least preferace this: I have love for my friends, and also just generally everyone as a whole to varying degrees. That being said, I've loved A in a very gradual way. I was afraid of a firework relationship where it spikes and fizzles out, but as time has gone on I've cared for her more. I keep seeing things in Japan and just wanting to get her them. I just want to protect her and make sure she's happy I guess. It's that stupid hero complex, or being overly-compassionate, whatever you call it.

I don't know why I'm like this if I'm being honest. I care too much about other's feelings, and I struggle to prioritize my own. In an ironic twist I almost need someone to similarly take care of me, by regulating my own feelings from empathy alone. The alcohols taking a downturn as I'm starting to feel bad about myself. I wonder if being aware about the scientific effects on neurotransmitters lets us ignore them. Maybe me being aware of this lets me ignore it's effects. But at the same time there's a heavy pull for me to hate myself and I'm not sure why. I want to verbally abuse myself and give myself more reason to hate myself. I don't think I do but not from lack of effort. I hear both A and L whispering, but not enough to decipher what they're saying. I don't mention I can just them because I don't want them to feel perceived and I want them to enjoy this limbo rather than breaking it by acknowledging it. Another example of being overly compassionate. I don't know, I miss A however. I feel like I end each post in that vein “I don't know”. I do know, I just want to stop typing. How hypocritical I am, what a silly little creature.

I’m right now settling into our final Airbnb in Shinjuku. I’m pretty tired and running out of time on this trip so I want to try to get as much shopping done as possible tomorrow. I keep seeing things and wanting to get them for A instead, and so my luggage is basically more her stuff than mine it feels like. But I’m happy with that. It feels weird that I can’t really get much stuff for friends since they’re all either too far away, or with me on this trip lol. Let’s see how this goes.