How do I know the difference between being pathetic and making an honest effort to be a friend?
Pen Pal is back in the states. He's back on Facebook too, in fact, that is how I learned he was back (you can imagine the rush of negative emotions running through me when I saw that). It was like a punch in the stomach, like the moment when I read in his letter that he wanted to "just be friends" and all the air in my lungs seemed to escape and my throat closed up. I had to live it over again, sitting in front of my computer and I am wondering if I will have to live it all over one more time when he returns here in August, when I have to see him in person. I hope by that point I will be okay.
I waited some more, since waiting for him is a bit of a habit now, but he never wrote. I kept waiting for something, anything really but nothing came. I was left feeling completely discarded and I wondered why I didn't even merit an acknowledgment that I am still alive, that I once meant something to him. I kept warring with myself. Write him, don't write him, delete him from Facebook, don't delete him. I didn't know (and still don't) what the right thing to do was. So I waited a little more.
I know that Pen Pal and I had our rough patches and I can understand why he would not want to be with me anymore, though I don't understand why he didn't tell me sooner. Why did he keep letting me write him? Why did he ask for packages? Why did he write back? In my attempt to "be okay" it is easy for me to look at these questions and grow increasingly angry with him. It's easy for me to think that he has never meant anything he's ever said to me. Because anger seems to ease the pain. Then I have these moments of clarity where I realize that anger is a band aid and a shoddy one at that. The anger gets me thinking about our past, things that maybe I hadn't forgiven him for even though I said I had. I think the anger pulls these thoughts and feelings to the surface because I feel like he is holding our past against me. He is denying me the benefit of change and so I want to deny him of it as well. I almost feel at times like I am being punished, I don't know how else to describe this tightness in my chest.
I am trying, I am thinking about what actions to take to prove to him and to myself that the past is over and forgotten. I want to prove I can be his friend; I have been prepared for this. So, I wrote him an e-mail, something brief and mostly to just say "hello, remember me? I still exist." I mostly did this because I kept playing the "what-if" game. What if the last letter I wrote made it seem like I didn't want him to contact me? What if I sent the wrong message? What if he is waiting for me to contact him? The only way to not think about what would happen is to do it and remove all doubt. What if he doesn't respond? Well - then you have your answer don't you?
He did respond though. It was also very short, kind of to the point, and painfully nonchalant. He didn't ask any questions, he didn't really leave it open for a response. It was something. I don't know what I expected really, I think a part of me hoped he wouldn't respond and I could just hate him, and then the other part of me hoped he would strike up a conversation and I would know that he meant it when he said I was one of his greatest friends and he wanted to rebuild that.
I think the thing that hurts worse is that he seems so distant from me and harder...like a boy trying too hard to be curt so the girl will get the hint. He is a complete stranger to me now and I don't know if I am keenly aware of the situation and am reading it right or if my perception leaves me feeling like he is deliberately trying to remove me from his life. He got his packages and letters for two years so now he is done with me.
In an effort not to be overly dramatic and wash my hands of this, I wrote him back. I am not going to fight for him, friendship or otherwise (I feel I have a snowball's chance in hell in all areas), but I also won't let it be my fault that we can't be friends.
I have to keep telling myself that what the future holds is better, and it's difficult when I look around me at what possibilities there may be and everything seems dimmed, like a light bulb blew out. It's hard to fight the feeling that no one would want me when I'm staring down the barrel at someone who once claimed to have loved me, once told me that the first thing they would do when they got home was to come find me and marry me. How do you go on and try to do this again? How do you believe the next person who says something like that to you?
As I am being buffeted with these thoughts and fears, I also know deep down that things will be better and maybe the problem right now is that I am trying to rush it, I want things to be better now or better yet, yesterday. When really, just as I can't wish away the past with Pen Pal (because it taught me so much), I shouldn't wish away this experience, because there is much to be learned from these emotions and thoughts. I guess I just wish I could learn from them without feeling them and without being so hard myself. But I have made it this far in life recovering from sundry aches and pains, this isn't the end of happiness or anything, just the end of "us", and something tells me that if I just let myself have some more time and really let myself just experience this pain, I'll come out of this a better person than before.
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