10 minute thought as i’m in a funk

i can’t tell if it’s because it’s raining today or i am zooted on NyQuil from my cough that doesn’t seem to be getting better or i am sad. i mean, i AM sad. I don’t know why it got worse yesterday. this weird sadness. i spent part of this morning reading about whether narcissists think they’re good people and then i spiralled. all of it was true, all of it i can accept. like how they will blame you or some other external factor for everything that has happened. how they see themselves as good people. i kept thinking back to how i told him what he did to me was so similar to what he couldn’t forgive Jeffray for: a selfish act that people would disapprove of but it’s not a crime, but when you know that someone is going to be upset by those actions and you still go ahead and do it, then you are just cruel. and i thought we were friends.

even now, i think about whether or not he is sad. whether or not he feels injured. how he really feels about me not in terms of love but whether he hates me. and i don’t care if he does, but i want to know if he is suffering. i want to know that because i haven’t healed. i’m getting better but i haven’t made peace with the breakup. so many things i do are in light of what happened. i feel like i’m living this life of trying to overcome this rather than someone who has moved on and is living her life. i am acting the facsimile of it.

maybe i’m depressed i don’t know. i don’t know if i want to go home for christmas. i am scared for december and january in terms of looking for jobs. i really want to find one soon. i don’t have health insurance at the end of December. i think with some resentment about how he doesn’t have to worry about work authorization, about finding a job within a certain window. how he could never really accept or understand his privilege when it comes to having a family who cares for him even if he hates certain members of his family and how they are in a position to help him even if he didn’t have a job. and he resents that. he hates himself for it. and i realize now that nothing will train that out of him. i also know that he doesn’t have the will to change. i am not concerned that he would change for the next person. i mean, the beginning will always be nice. the seduction of it all. the “love-bombing”. i was going through old text messages and maybe that also did me in. before we were together. just… how nice he was. always trying to make plans. always trying to help.

and then this other side of him. the side that can’t take accountability when it mattered. the side that can’t step up when someone asks him to pull his weight. nah. he’s in it for a good time, not a long time, and he’ll even blame his depression and his “nature” for not wanting to commit. no, i am not concerned this person will change.

is this really the end? this is how it ends huh? I’ll never see him again or hear from him again. like some men before him, it will be tough. but time makes it easier. but this time, i walked away. i want vengeance that will never satisfy me. what? his deep unhappiness that he suffers all the time? that should make me feel better but it doesn’t. i think what i want is for him to try to reach out. so i can feel like i was the one that got away. that he regretted losing me as a friend even if he’s incapable of regretting what he did. that it ate away at him, that he felt the consequences of everything that he had undone even if it’s months after i felt them. i don’t know what it is about today but i just feel so fucking sad. i feel alone and the worst part is that it’s not him that i want, because i know that would be a let down, but to feel like i bore the brunt of the consequences of his cruelty. that i had to suffer. and what if he’s not suffering, you know? what if he’s chasing after happiness and highs that aren’t fulfilling but at least he doesn’t ever have to come to terms with that emptiness. i don’t know… like i have had to sit here and cry and mourn and wonder why my life is like this. why i lost a friend, why i wasted months wishing a boy would like me and thinking maybe he changed his mind, but never deluded that he did. only to find out that not only did he not want a relationship (which sucks but not the end of the word) but really couldn’t care less about me. really could watch me upset and then tell me that the other girl was coming to visit for labor day weekend and would it be okay if he picked her up from the airport, dropped her off at his apartment, came to our double date dinner, and then left afterwards? the audacity to rewrite history. the audacity to rewrite a joint history and claim the revisions as mutual.

sure, it’s easy to tell me that “wow. can’t you see? this person sucks! why would you want to be with them? why would you miss them? when you can list all these horrible things that they’ve done to you. all the cruel ways they’ve acted. all the manipulative things they’ve done?” but mixed in all of this are feelings, are song, are what i remember. mixed in all of this were glimpses of happiness, of having a friend to spend time with, of feeling optimistic about fate in my life. of the first time of feeling like the ground wasn’t going to collapse under me. of the few times that i thought maybe the universe was giving me a big break! that i really had been too pessimistic. that i really had been holding back and not trusting when i should have been living. of feeling for the first time that i wouldn’t want to be anyone but me right now. that i adored a boy and he liked spending time with me. he spent his time with me all summer and we were each other’s partners in crime. i felt like i had someone when i’ve never felt that in my entire life.

and so yes, there are so many shitty things but i also feel like i was robbed. and feeling robbed is not the same thing as betrayal. feeling robbed is of abrupt, permanent loss. feeling robbed of better times. i feel robbed of better times. i miss him because i invested in the promised land westward, i’d already started down the journey, and then i found out i was hoodwinked. but those months! of that adventure! even if it were all a ruse the feelings were genuine! I was happy don’t you get it?! I felt fulfilled. I felt like things were going to work out, fret not young girl who is weary of everything. I felt that i had been wrong. i wanted to believe in better things, in bigger things. i wanted to believe in love! i was so, so, SO excited for the fall semester.

and we are 3 months into it now, with a month to go. and the forest burned in august, i scorched earth at the end of august. no one really wanted to water or nurture or repair what was left. in october we let it die. and then october came and went. november came and went, and here we are on the last day of november. what a loss. what a tragedy. what a fucking tragedy. neither of us won. we both lost. i have always said that. but it offers me no comfort. i didn’t want to lose. i didn’t wnat him to lose. in that prisoner’s dilemma on the first day of august, i would have played for both of us to win. we were partners in crime. i believed that. i trusted him. but then he flipped over his card and he turned against me. and i was duped. i was fucking duped. i was so betrayed. and you can’t undo what you’ve done. so i flipped mine over and said we are both losing this huh?

and now we both went to the purgatory of heartbreak or something. we both have been leading lives pretending we’re going to get over this or that we’ve gotten over it. he chose her and i go back to……. black.

snapshot of someday in florida

you are walking some sidewalk and the humidity covers you like a warm blanket just like you described to me. after everything has happened, i wonder now if you stole that line from someone else. everything is warm and sticky and humid but not sticky sweet. there is no saccharine here, no, not somewhere so close to disneyworld and yet so far from a god you don’t bow to. everywhere are things that remind you of me. license plates of snowbirds, lemons, joan didion books strewn on the ground. mac and cheese the wrong way. coffee crisps at publix. green shorts and black crop tops. deep laughter. hockey. farmers tans on the wrong type of girls. i know you’ll never find someone like me only because all my friends have innocuously said for years that there is no one quite like me, they can’t put their finger on it. there is no one who is the opposite of me. i am singular. i am less of a wildcard than i like to tout. but i am many things and harmless is not one of those words.

there is no one quite like you but for the wrong reasons. maybe i am in the northeast smoking a cigarette on a sidewalk and i think of you and how we used to smoke on your fire escape. there is no one like you because you try to be everything to yourself and everyone else, got lost in the chaos of it all and came out empty handed. i am older, just like you are older, but i got the life i wanted that i worked hard for. and you got the life you insist you want only because you can’t admit defeat. i took the L, baby. I took it and i cried and sobbed and came out of the other side with 2 million words handwritten and typed for you. but i made it to the other side. i got botox and i call manhattan home still. i walked bravely into joan didion’s new york and didn’t know what i was in for, but i ended up staying. just like she did. eight years. it flies by so fast.

florida, swampland, you think you’re ensconced but you’re just sinking. you avoid the city because of all the bad memories, but for you, all the bad memories are just of what we could have been before you ruined it. of course, you don’t see it like that. you say new york is full of elitists, there was no one worth being friends with in this city. and that is not untrue. i mean, i won’t argue with you about that. you wonder for years what i am up to. and i do too, frankly. but the difference is that i grew up and you stayed the same even though we both got older.

twenty minute thought on the last day of thanksgiving weekend

it’s raining, drizzling. it’s not pouring though. i am ensconced in room 323 at the library, the study nook with a window view. i booked this with great foresight, thinking i might want to come to campus and get a change of scenery. i just turned off the lights because i just want to feel like i’m in new york amid the rain and type. i’m bathed in quiet. this is soothing. this is how i soothe myself.

today i went to the glossier store and then treated myself to a free coffee at hungry ghost, well earned after getting 10 stamps. i restocked on the You perfume, boy brow, and i’m giving the stretch concealer, liquid eyeliner, and balmy lipstick a try. i bought more than i planned but it’s still a good deal. 30% off. i need to return my pencil eyeliner from sephora though. note to self i suppose. also need to follow up with lululemon about my bra fiasco.

did you know that i used to have this dream that it was raining in new york and i was in some rosy warm cafe with incandescent lighting? it wasn’t an expensive place. like a barnes and noble in tribeca except it was super busy with lots of couches. i must have had a dream a long time ago about that. i’ve always thought it takes place in new york. i’ve wanted that to come true for a long time. just that feeling of warmth. maybe i watched serendipity a long time ago and that’s what’s evoking the memory. i’m not sure. but as i’m typing right now, i feel soothed. the walls are white, it’s a bit grey, but i love the glow from the giant floor to ceiling windows.

i got popeyes today but i didn’t have an appetite. i ate like 10 fries and like 90% of my spicy chicken sandwich and then shoved it in the fridge. i have been sad today. i think it’s because of hormones because my period is close. for the past few months, i haven’t had the dry depression that always arrives a week before my period where i can’t feel anything. like i feel dead inside. i feel nothing. i think that’s probably how i’m feeling… or close to that. but i miss him. and that makes it harder.

speaking of treating myself, i suppose my glossier purchases were a treat for myself. i also would like to book another facial or something. and i have a gift card to get a massage and i just need to find the right time to do that. i also wanted to treat myself to a shinola journal so i can journal. my other journal has 2 or 3 pages left. soothing myself is through writing. i think i’ve kept my expenses low. i didn’t buy any new clothes for recent parties. i haven’t bought any super fancy meals. i don’t spend a ton at bars. i’ve been trying to be good. i’ve felt very anxious about finding a job, especially securing one within the window of my work authorization eligibility. i don’t really want to go back to my internship’s employer, i also feel like that is not the right story for me. like i’m destined for something else. sometimes you have a hunch. that’s mine. and my gut is always right about stuff like that, just like how i knew there was some prophecy where i needed to walk away.

i have not been doing that great. i thought i was when i wrote my previous post but then i spiraled yesterday. i think it was the nerves of doing this assignment or having people visit me or how discouraging the job search has been…. i don’t know. but then i searched up his linkedin and whose posts he’s been interacting with. i saw that he is now mutual connections with the girl before me. i knew they were still friends. i do wonder if they are sleeping together. it’s not that i would be upset in the way that i would have been upset like 2 months ago. but the hold this entire debacle has on me is an iron grip. i’m not sure why it bothers me so much but it does. betrayal. i guess… i also feel like things didn’t pan out the way i wanted this semester and i feel so much resentment. i guess just having these grand ambitions for how fun this semester could have been and instead, it was way worse that it could be. i guess i’ve made new friends and strengthened my other friendships and that’s been really positive, but i am an “all or nothing” individual and I focused so much on this relationship. this was my person. this was my friend. this was my partner in crime.

but even as i say that, i realize that he never felt the same way about me. that was why i was always kept like a secret. and i should remember that. i need to remember that. i think that’s also why i feel so disappointed and angry and sad and resentful and spiteful and unable to let go. because i like control. and i thought for a long time that i had been convinced that we were in this together, but i was duped. and he didn’t want that. and if anything, it hurts less that he doesn’t care about me like i cared about him in that way. like 2 months ago, i would have cried over the fact that he didn’t see us together in the same way i did. i now see that he did see us together in a way that benefited him: having a friend he could talk shit to, having someone to do thesis with, someone to go to dim sum with, someone to explore the city with when he needed someone. but not someone that he wanted a bunch of people to think they were together, someone who would hold him accountable, make him meet “expectations” that he didn’t want to meet. and it breaks my heart much less because now i see that it’s not because i wasn’t worth it objectively, but that he is a terrible friend and such a let down as a person. that he wouldn’t do that for anyone. that there is something wrong with HIM.

but the unfortunate reality is that this self-centered cruelty had consequences. i got caught in the crossfire. i will never get back august or september or october where i could have been applying for scholarships, taken harder classes, maybe hustled to find a different research assistantship. instead, i spent months healing. and i guess it’s also good. i asked for that, hadn’t i? i make no mistake about that. i wanted to grow emotionally and personally and i got that. i asked for it. i articulated that i wanted to live in joan didion’s new york with the good and the bad. i knew i couldn’t just have it one way. and i got that. and i’ve recognized it. and i’ve been greatful for it. i don’t regret it. it’s been the most challenging thing i’ve ever done. sometimes when i see interview questions like that, i think of what i’m going through. this rough, tumultuous inner growth. it literally tears me at my seams. my face still has so many breakouts and redness from the summer, from all the cortisol flowing through my body from the shock of things. i still can’t eat like i used to. don’t have the same appetite. my mind works differently. this person has not left my mind. parts of them have. i see things clearer. things are more lucid.

i don’t feel compelled to reach out to him but i still feel this deep yearning to hear from him. i’m not sure why. maybe it’s control, it’s power. i think it’s control. it’s because i deployed all the traps and he never bit, but i keep waiting for him to. i don’t know, i’m just kidding. there are no traps. i think because i haven’t spoken to him, i wonder if he would break and try to connect. always planning the first 5 steps but never the 6th. classic me. because so what if he reaches out? we can’t remain friends. i literally went on a walk to the library and through campus i was talking to myself out loud about why we can’t be friends. because i gave him literally 50023482 chances to be a better friend and he could never do it! there was as palpable unwillingness to do anything to improve our relationship when things got awkward, when we weren’t texting the same. like there was no effort to change any of that. as if the labor day fiasco wasn’t enough of a sign that he didn’t care to repair anything. his defense is likely that things already soured between the two of us and he would take zero, ZERO I’m telling you!!!, accountability in that. as if he didn’t contribute to it at all. as if he didn’t instigate it at all. so i don’t fucking care if he mopes, if he cries, if i feel victorious because he tells me again he’s sorry, because there is no next step. and there’s no next step not because i’m trying to smirk and act vindictive or victorious, but because i know there is no next step. i don’t need to read/reread another reddit, quora, or natasha adamo post to know that going back into a relationship with a narcissist will not end better than last time. it would just be like last time where i try hard to make things work between us while he acts like he’s bored and uncomfortable and doesn’t want to be here.

yo. i think i’m still mad because i can’t believe i had to deal with this shit and i’m mad at myself for putting up with it and thinking i could soothe it. that i could resolve it. for playing into these fucked up mind games. like i am not his mother and he would tell me that with annoyance when i would tell him to wear sunscreen, etc. but he would always have this expectation that i needed to fix the situation, or i felt like i had to, because i know he wasn’t going to do anything about it! so actually i change my mind. i hope he doesn’t show up at the holiday party. i hope he stays out of my life. i am so fucking fed up with all of it. because it not only tired me out but it literally destroyed me. like mentally it destroyed my ego, my sense of self-worth, my trust in others and in myself, in feeling like i was the loser in the entire situation, and always feeling like that. always feeling like i was never quite enough, never had this person’s approval, never worth fighting for. and when i told him that it was the end, it actually infuriates me that he would cry that i wasn’t willing to tolerate living in a world that he had fucking annihilated and destroyed. and i’m sure he’s going around my back now telling everyone in his circle of 5 friends about how i made him so fucking sad and how he hates me and how i wanted a relationship but he couldn’t give it to me. you know what? fuck this person. And they can live in their delusion for the rest of their life thinking about how i didn’t want to repair our friendship or try to be friends.

i really fucking hope he has tried to reach out to me in moment of desperation, especially to ask about homework or something. and to find out that not only did i block him but there is literally no one else he could ask for help because he chose to not make friends with anyone else in the program, and no one else likes him. and it’s no longer “heartbreaking” to think that i was a good friend who only wanted to help him and now he has no one, but instead, it’s “karma” and the “harsh reality” of the toxic world that he has crafted. and i hope he finds himself in moments where he realizes that there were things he could have gotten to do this year like go for dim sum, attended friendsgiving with mutual friends, or gone camping but he has to go to sleep and convince himself that he didn’t want those things anyway. and you know what, delusions are delusions after all! and he can walk around new york thinking he’s better off with his small circle of friends who don’t know what happened between the two of us (because if they did, they wouldn’t be friends with him), but deep in his heart, he misses me in his bones. he misses what i provided him. he misses what i symbolized even if it were just dim sum dates and getting to hang out with me. i don’t miss him as a person, you know. that’s kind of how i knew that i for sure had some type of anti-social personality disorder too. because i don’t think i miss people in who they are (what does that even mean?? like i root for my friends’ success… but i’m not sure if i miss people just because), but i know what it’s like to miss someone for what they provided. whether that be spending time with them because it made me feel happy, or having a friend who likes the same dinner foods as you. i don’t know.

anyway. this has been so cathartic to write.

have i had a good thanksgiving? in ways it’s been good. i think i’ve felt this person leave my body more. i feel like i’m finally feeling like myself again. i’ve wondered how much i can trust my intuition more in a facetious way. like do i think he’s contacted me? like is my intuition that good to be able to tell. my body tells me nothing but i am amused nonetheless. let’s be clear, i am not hopeful on the prospect of that. i have no hopes of him coming around on that. i am not waiting for him to reach out. i think i’ve realized that at that point, then what? we would talk but about what? what hasn’t been said? oh, that he misses me? i had already told him when we broke up that i would miss him. i’ve said it once. i did! and i do! momentarily i do. but there’s not enough there to merit a full-fledged conversation. that he wishes we could be friends? he’s already said that multiple times. and i said i would reach out if i change my mind. and that’s why i’m not reaching out.

memories are the feelings that stay with you after everything is done. and what has been distilled is betrayal. it’s realizing that this person never had my back when i thought they did. that they didn’t have my best interests in mind, that they didn’t care about me. so how could i forgive someone for not caring about me? and giving them over a month to right that wrong and for them to not be able to do it? i went on the train yesterday to interrogate why i felt betrayed. if betrayal is what makes me unable to let go of this situation in the manner that i still think about him every day. it’s betrayal that he didn’t care about me. it’s not betrayal that he wasn’t loyal to me or that he didn’t love me. it’s betrayal that he didn’t care about hurting my feelings, of respecting me as a friend or if anything, someone who was a close friend. and fuck that.

i do have a hunch that this entire situation has hurt him. it’s hurt him because he lost a friend that he didn’t discard himself. that he has three women who hate him walking around this city. he lost all his friends in the divorce and he acts like it doesn’t bother him. but i hope it eats away at him every day. every day as the clock ticks and i don’t reach out to him, i hope it gnaws at him.

i have been having an okay thanksgiving weekend. i kind of wish i had just spent it alone. i realize i don’t like people visiting me in new york. i hate playing host. i don’t like spending money that i can’t afford to spend to try new restaurants or do touristy stuff. i just want to be at home and work on my projects and homework. because now it’s the eleventh hour and i’m scrambling to work on them.

i didn’t do any black friday shopping. there was no excitement to it. i am still emotionally drained from everything. i haven’t read any books. i am not in a fog as much. i still have a lot of trouble sleeping at night though. i wake up every morning with indigestion even though i don’t snack. it’s like my body is not relaxed, it can’t process anything i eat. he was kind of in my dreams last night. it’s been a while since he’s been in my dreams though he occupies so much space while i’m awake.

well i’m gonna call it an entry. peace.

10 minute thought on the tues before thanksgiving

i’m trying to do homework right, trying to be productive to make up for all the time i focused on interviews last week. i was able to finish converting my resume in canva and it looks pretty. i’m working on running some models for my thesis. i’m excited to make progress on it. today, i also want to make progress on my time series readings and go to recitation and french club. it’s an action packed day.

went to therapy and we talked about how i need to stand up for myself. stop letting things slide and choosing to abandon a situation. that’s usually what i do. like what i did with angela. just couldn’t deal with the negativity anymore. people have abandoned me and i don’t feel bad about it. i deserved it. i was terrible.

anyway.

i wanted to write because today i went to therapy and then i contacted A and L and told them what i wasn’t comfortable doing. paying a lot of money for dinner based on a minimum spend, etc. i want this to be a good weekend. i need to stop wondering what he will be up to. as i was walking back from dropping off my laundry in the wash, i thought about how i don’t feel him as much anymore. i thought about maybe he is mad at me. maybe he feels guilty underneath it all. but i don’t feel anxious. i don’t feel anxious he is not spending time with me, that i don’t have to do a frantic song and dance to distract him and remind him why he should give me respect, affection, etc. it’s taken 7 weeks. i don’t really count the time when i still spoke to him because somehow my anxiety got even worse though i had relegated control. i wonder who he watches soccer games with. who he watches world cup games with. it’s not me. it’ll never be me again.

i need control. i need some control over my life. whether that’s by handling my readings, etc. i applied for a shit ton of jobs yesterday after i got the rejection email. always after turmoil and a setback, that’s when i kick it into high gear. it is the most impressive thing.

i ran yesterday and it was really nice. nice to get back in the groove of things. it was a good run. i didn’t finish my oat latte yesterday so i drank the rest today. my appetite isn’t back. i didn’t sleep well last night. this morning i almost dazed into another dream. i kept thinking about him yesterday. i don’t even know what i’m thinking about anymore. i’m not replaying scenes. just analyzing him. finding more proof he’s a narcissist but it’s so futile because all the evidence is there, what do i want? closure. is that it? i want to tie it all up in a little box and put a bow on it and present it to myself as proof that i didn’t get myself into this situation when i did. i could have spoken up about what i want. i could have done what his ex-girlfriend had done. that’s why i find her so funny. how she set him straight and he didn’t like it. and yes, there was a power dynamic imbalance, but still, knowing him, i know that he likely seduced her, flirted with her, then she asked to get serious and he felt obligated since she was his boss. and then she set her boundaries and he hated it.

but she didn’t leave his life. he said they were friends. that’s the difference. maybe that’s what i’ve been thinking about. the future. how the loss will calcify for him and hopefully soften for me. how the loss hurts so much for me, how it’s hurt slightly less now. how december will come, january will come. and there is no expiration date for grieving. but i’ll forget. i’ll forget how bad it was until i read all the entries here. i had a best friend and then i found out i didn’t. i had a best friend and he said he wanted to stay friends but not have any obligations or responsibilities in being a good friend. and i said peace.

i didn’t get the next round interview for the one process i’m in. that hurt. but i am proud of how much i prepared for it despite the distractions. i do not blame him for that. he is not the reason that i didn’t do well at that interview. i can take accountability for things.

i was thinking about how he bought fabric to sow pillows and i realize now this is how he channeled his anxiety. i only realized this because when i got the bad news, i thought “what am i going to do about it?”. getting rejections are hard on the ego. i vowed to keep doing my readings. to apply for jobs. to focus on getting my work done. i am good at focusing and i need to get back into it. a return to who i was. i guess i miss certain parts of myself. i’m certainly wiser now. there has been a lot of character growth. joan didion, you sneaky little rascal.

some parts of me are in a funk. emotionally devastated. i thought about telling my therapist that i know i keep talking about the same thing in therapy every week but i don’t necessarily mind it. i don’t feel like i’m not healing. i just know it’s slow and i find it cathartic to discuss because it takes up so much of my thoughts. it’s part of who i am right now. i also don’t really know if i want to date. i think dating hasn’t afforded me the introspection that i badly need… i need time for that. to replay absolutely everything. to find peace that way. it’s maybe not the best way i don’t know.

i looked at D’s instagram after a long time of never looking at it. i don’t make a concerted effort not to look but at the same time, i feel like looking is bad for me. i feel a lot of resentment for him. and i think that is an ok feeling to harbor. not resentment that he is happy. i am actually really happy he is happy and has found someone who seems so sweet and aligned with his values. we wouldn’t have worked. i am not an outdoors person. i think i didn’t realize how much he was. i guess i feel resentment in that his life seems so perfect and has always been so. going to private school, coming from a family where his dad is a prominent CEO, traveling the world literally. getting a top job at a coveted firm. doing his MBA at a top school. like…. everything seems perfect. Perfect D. That’s what I always called him to myself. perfect, perfect, perfect. and I think it is legitimate to hold resentment. i feel at times like everything is falling apart. i say that to myself silently. like the job search feels very discouraging right now. and as much as i have friends to talk to, i miss him. i miss talking to him. i want to cry to him and complain about Dan but I can’t. i’ve been robbed of that. i can’t go back to that.

I’ll never be as wealthy as D. Never as successful. Life is such smooth sailing. It’s not even because it’s a highlight reel. i knew him before he had instagram. i knew him when he worked in my office. i knew him. i knew bits and pieces about him. i always knew he was more privileged. and that is frustrating. my man has the job, the girl, the life. he’s smiling big in all his photos with his sisters. i am always worried for my family, always feel like i bear some responsibility in their finances. that i always have to watch out for them. i’m looking for a job right now but it won’t be with the top firm that i was interviewing with up until now. i don’t have a lot of disposable income. i am dealing with so much mental health stuff. lots of emotional stuff. processing betrayal. processing a break up. processing never speaking to my best friend in new york but always paranoid that i’ll run into him and he’ll do something to get a rise out of me.

it hasn’t been the best few months. i was thinking about how this summer, it really felt like a whirlwind. like literally a whirlwind. like it was non stop fun. even my internship felt like a joke. i had so much to look forward to on weekends and evenings…. and during the day! i was in euphoria and i crashed as quickly and intensely as a i rose. and i don’t regret the summer but i realized that maybe i’ve never gotten a true taste of happiness here. that even when i felt like i was happy, it was always conditional. it was always based on whether the fake backdrop and lights and music would hold up for another day and there was a day when all of it collapsed. and i went reeling. i didn’t understand how it had all happened. how it was all a ruse. and all this happiness that i felt wasn’t mine to keep, it wasn’t mine to savor. and D gets that or at least that’s how it looks. D gets to bask in the california sunshine. D gets to go surfing on weekends. D gets to live his life with his perfect girlfriend. D gets a life that I couldn’t possibly compete with. and it’s not competition. but it’s not even comparable.

and maybe it’s not fair but that is not the word that comes to mind. it’s not about it being fair. it’s that i feel helpless. i feel aimless slightly. i feel like “now what?”. i feel like “i want to rebuild” but who will help me? who will let me? who will relieve all this anxiety i feel? who will assuage my fears? me. it’s just me. i am responsible for my own emotions though i look expectantly at the places I apply for internships and hope they can relieve me of some of my panic. it’s just me and myself, kid. i’ve been kind to myself but i don’t know how long i can manage that. i thought i had one good thing going. like one good thing! and then that was snatched away from me.

i can only laugh. what a comedy.

my first open letter

i don’t wish you hangovers like the one i experienced yesterday. i’ve never wished you things. i had wished things worked out. i think wishes are powerful. i think hope is powerful. grace is underrated.

do you miss me? i almost texted you on saturday. had thought about riding up to your place at 3 AM unprompted and rung your apartment bell. i wonder who would have come get me, maybe one of your roommates. maybe you would have. i’m not sure. maybe you would have because you are closest to the buzzer. i hadn’t missed you in that moment. i think i just wanted to pretend not that everything was fine (it wasn’t) but that i hadn’t lost something that i had to shed though i’d outgrown it a long time ago. i think i just wanted to touch you. kiss you. sleep with you. old habits die hard. i’m still unlearning. i’ve been taking my sweet time.

i haven’t missed you in the way that i thought i would. i’ve thought about your everyday. the worst is when i think about what you are up to. i like living in my imagination with that one. i can pretend you’re behaving like how i want you to be, which is sitting at home in misery playing video games. wringing your hands. finding the portrait i drew of you in august and remembering that moment. you know, even when i drew that, i knew i was going to leave you. that’s why i wrote my name. that’s why i dated the drawing. so you’d remember. i wanted you to realize someday that i did that so casually in the same way that you’d toss me some affection when you felt like it. i was indulging you. i was already scheming. i was weeks deep in scheming. i already knew how my labor day weekend would play out.

i suppose this is a letter of confessions though i’ll never divulge. i almost admitted my biggest secret but i held back. instead i lied to you and presented it as an olive branch. the story i told you was half true. you bought it. that story doesn’t make me look bad. i told you that story to counter a different narrative you had of me. even my stories are strategic. what you want are stories that you can use against me and i’m sure you’ve got some. i know what we’ve discussed that you could tell some other girl that “can you believe she said that?”. but they wouldn’t even believe you because they were so outrageous of statements.

i wonder in my dreams that maybe you’ve already tried reaching out to me but i wouldn’t know since i’ve blocked you. you could email me. how come you haven’t emailed me yet? how will you deliver a message to me without using a third party who knows what has happened or who will know what has happened? i wonder if you’ll show up to the holiday party. i wonder if you’d show up to the holiday party with a guest just to get a reaction out of me. i’ve thought about how petty you could go once you crawl out of your depression. i’ve wondered if you’ll crawl out of your depression before the end of the school year. maybe not. i’m not sure.

i’ve stopped caring. i’ve needed to. i tried so hard to be a good friend because i am a good friend! I was so patient with you. everything i told you to do was to help you. getting therapy, emailing again to get into a coveted class, getting your work done on time. i cared. i never ever judged. but you never appreciated any of it. i was never good enough for you to be respected as a person. i think i’ve realized this truth now but it doesn’t hurt in the same way that it did. i mean it still hurts. but now i don’t blame myself for that. the blame is assigned where it belongs: you.

you could never be happy for other people. always so jealous of them and you’d hide that behind some derision. how you told me how you disapproved of each and one of my friends. how you made fun of my dancing. how you didn’t outright criticize my poems when i shared them with you, but instead, you made an offhand remark about how my poems never followed any formal structure. and they didn’t, and i didn’t care. because they were my poems and i shared them with you as a source of intellectual intimacy. i wrote for fun, not for other people. how every piece of kindness i gave you was always accepted as expected and no appreciation was ever given. you just took and took and took, and i gave and gave and gave, wondering if i just hadn’t given you enough. as if giving you 100 chances after you were so cruel to me was just one short of what i needed to matter. and it was never enough, was it? that was the truth. i used to think it was my insecurity that made me focus so much on how i wanted to be good enough, but you did treat me like that! but you would turn around and outright deny that you did it. but you did! no was ever good enough. everybody had some critical flaw that you would divulge to me behind their back. i’ve always wondered what were mine. it doesn’t keep me up at night but i do wonder out of curiosity.

i really was never perfect enough. but your criteria would never make sense. always changing. perfection was the only way you’d grant respect, it seemed. and no one ever got any of it. least of all, yourself. and that was fine. but then we were all unwitting participants in the crossfire.

we all lost, didn’t we? i lost a friend, or at least what i’d been tricked into thinking was a friend. you lost me and that was the greatest loss of all. i think i slowly see that now. you lost me forever. forever. it’s indefinite. you lost me and that’s worse that losing it all in vegas. my friendship pays fucking dividends. i’ll always advocate for my friends. i’ll always support them. i will always look out for their interests. i did that for you and you never did that for me. and i never complained. i never even saw it as an issue.

i adored you. i really liked you! that’s what i told everyone. that i really liked you. i could be myself around you. what a big price to pay for such a small reward if it was one.

i really do hope you go through life regretting losing me, even if it’s just what i provided you. i don’t wish people the worst. i don’t think that’s a death sentence. i think it would show you just how great you had it.

the things i miss

I was thinking about what I miss the most. today, i’m extremely hungover. i kept thinking about him throughout the day as i do. with much less emotion though, i remarked on that. couldn’t tell if it’s from my hangover. i was thinking about the first night i ever slept over. i must have started thinking about it when i was on the 3 AM train back to my place. you know, briefly, i thought about showing up at his apartment. i was too drunk to have put that in motion. would have to unblock etc. probably wouldn’t have worked. it’s funny thinking about it. like showing up and buzzing his apartment at 4 AM when he has work at 8 AM. i really wasn’t actually thinking it but it is amusing. the ways i missed him. the way i missed him was in the physical intimacy. i always felt comfortable with him even at the end.

disarming. i told him that. that when i met him, i thought he was disarming.

maybe because i was so drunk, i kept thinking about the last time i was perhaps so drunk and took the train to see him. it was from the alumni event with the cocktails. i must have had like 4 or 5 old fashioneds. i was always going to go see him after but i remember taking a photo for him on my way. how i told him i wanted him inside me, how my texts were coherent but littered with extra punctuation that made no sense. and how when i went up the elevator to his place he had been waiting for me. the only time he ever did that. he had waited for me and i had melted into his arms and he had tried to give me water and i had insisted that i wasn’t drunk. that i wanted him to caress me and kiss me. how it was a free for all. i wanted it all. i wanted to live. i wanted to be held. i wanted to hold him. i wanted him against me. i wanted everything. that was at the beginning of may. the cusp of something. cusp of summer.

i think about that night a lot. i used to think about that night a lot before everything had crumbled. i thought about that night because that was when i realized i liked him. i hadn’t cared before. hadn’t really cared at all. it wasn’t serious. i mean, it still wasn’t serious but that was the night that i realized he was a person, he had a history, he had some story, he had secrets. i wanted to know more about his family. i remember him saying that he thought his mom was depressed, that she drank a lot, and i wanted to know why. i wanted to know the details though i didn’t dare ask. i told him about my own family. what it was like growing up.

and the next day we were both in bliss when we parted. i had a job interview at 10 AM the next day. i only know this because i wrote it in my texts. i had been hungover. i remember now. it was a throwaway interview. i had already secured a job. i hadn’t really wanted that one but i thought i’d do the call anyway. i had kept thinking about the night. my throat had hurt the next day. i had texted the group chat about it. i never felt like he was mine. it felt like fun. i was excited for the summer. i thought it would be an enriching summer and it was.

i miss that. i miss how i felt. i miss who i thought he could be. i miss learning about someone and wanting to know everything about them. that was intellectual intimacy, i suppose. i thought it was mixed with emotional intimacy but i’d soon learn that it was all a disappearing act. i miss him. but i don’t miss the anxiety of being chosen. i never thought i had him. i was always trying to prove myself and at the time it never seemed enough, never seemed to matter. this was right before i got covid. i wanted to do all these things with him. watch sports, etc.

i’ve thought about how we spent time together. a lot of talking. i liked that. the easiest person to talk to. i could talk about anything. i felt so safe. i still felt safe at the end to speak my mind. even when i knew it didn’t actually register, even when i knew that it wouldn’t be taken to heart, even though it was like talking to a wall. i think the only times i didn’t feel safe was when i felt unwanted, and in those moments, i did feel like i couldn’t bring things up. but they were always in the context of being around other people. it’s like we were a secret. and maybe that’s what it was. he was one way with me and then for the rest of the world, i was nothing. and now he has to navigate a life where he has to act like we were nothing, which is fine. but now he is hurt and we no longer talk. and so the illusion isn’t there anymore. all our friends know. they all know what prompted the divorce. they all sided with me. i don’t feel alone anymore. that meant something in the end. to have the support of friends. they’ve advocated and supported me and cared for me and validated me in a way that he never could, and i almost didn’t see the value in that or the discrepancy. all i wanted was to be worthy and he was the one who granted that, who relieved me of my anxiety however temporarily. god of small things, but by no means benevolent. i miss the highs. i miss the highs so much. i made the best of traversing the lows. at points i felt so low. i don’t miss that. i miss him still. is that weird?

i miss what we used to do together. i miss maybe what i thought was a reflection of my self-worth. that someone wanted to spend time with me all the time. someone wanted to hang out with me of all people. someone liked me. i wanted him to like me as much as i liked him. what an impossible task. and even now i guess i don’t know where we stand on that. i wonder if he ever liked me that way. i liked him in a way that wasn’t necessarily romantic. i wouldn’t describe it like that. i fought for him, i played the role of protector. i wanted the best for him. i constantly wanted the best for him. i was constantly rooting for him. he never appreciated it. like he never ever appreciated it.

elegy for summer me

i’m thinking about how i’m weeks behind on my readings. he didn’t show up for class yesterday. i wonder how he’s doing. summer me, beautiful, happy summer me. this is an elegy for you. how the world really was your oyster. how everything felt like it was on the cusp of something brilliant. how you woke up happy, and slept at night in peace at least for all of july and a good part of june. june baby. moon baby. he once sent you a photo of him outside shirtless looking at the blood moon or something. you have that picture somewhere. elegy for another day.

summer you lived in the moment. summer you had skin in the game, skin in the game for the future, in another person’s well-being, in your own. fulfillment. you felt fulfilled. and i’m not sure if you ever mistook that for salvation for it wasn’t salvation. salvation is now. salvation is crying at the keyboard after therapy and wondering how things have turned out the way that they have and knowing that you had no part in its undoing except in folding, in turning in your cards, in announcing your loss, in embracing it. we all lost in the end. summer me put all the chips on the table. summer me believed in better outcomes than pessimism. summer me felt in love or something like that, maybe more at the cusp of love. summer me had a person she could depend on. summer me had a partner in crime. summer me was so excited for fall me, right before august. summer me wanted to go camping and have sex in tents in upstate new york. summer me thought she would be whispering secrets to her lover in the classroom. summer me thought she would go to libraries and study with her person. summer me bought chocolates for her lover, his favorite. summer me would have bought boxes and boxes for him as an indulgence, as a sacrifice to the gods even if that were crass. summer me knew no sadness. summer me felt empty at some point at 72nd street station in may but summer me thought it was all in the past after. all the train rides up to 145th. summer me went uptown a lot. summer me lay drenched in humidity, laughed at baseball games, rode bikes but never too far. summer me was so busy. summer me spent her first full summer in new york largely in euphoria, in a tornado of lust and romance. summer me knew summer would end but she didn’t think it would end like this.

summer me, you are capable of so many things. summer me, don’t you cry. summer me, don’t you lament. this is not for you to lament. i will eulogize you in happiness even if i must force it. summer me, i am so sorry what happened in august. summer me, you are not naive, you are not weak. summer me, you are capable of so much. summer me, you deserve so much more than you got. summer me, don’t let one man take away all your shine. don’t waste all your tears on one man who betrayed you. summer me, it’s not naive to trust. summer me, i know it must be so hard to trust again. to baptize yourself in betrayal and fear drowning at every second. oh, summer child, you weren’t naive. summer child, you trusted and someone took advantage of that. summer child, there are better augusts in store. there are better septembers, and octobers, and novembers. summer me, the only ruse you ever pulled was hoping that someone would love you back and that wasn’t a terrible or cruel ruse, not as cruel as the one he pulled on you.

summer me, forgive yourself. don’t be hard on yourself. but at some point you need to walk out of the sadness and back onto the beach. at some point, you must know that there is a life to live, to move forward, to forget, to find salvation, to write a new chapter that is full of hope that you deserve, of happiness, of joy, of health and success, of resilience. of strength. strong summer you. love yourself hard, baby. i’ve said that before. love, love, love yourself the hardest even though there is no muscle memory there. choose yourself, prioritize yourself. think of yourself, nurture yourself, soothe yourself. all your talents are still yours, no one can take them away. if you’re so good at soothing him, you can soothe yourself to healing, to recovery. sunshine still seeps through the clouds on these autumn days.

glowing. that’s what ilana said you looked. glowing.

the big lesson i’ve learned but haven’t accepted

this person will never care about you. you feel betrayed. all you want is to be respected by this person, because it means that you matter in some way to them. they are incapable of doing that! like their brain works differently. you can never WAIT for them to learn about it. you can never TEACH them to do this. it’s a broken toy. you CANNOT FIX IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

all you can do is abandon it. sorry! you don’t want to hear it. but you can only walk away from it.

you need to accept it. you need to let it go. you need to accept that this person will not care and the only thing you can do about it is to accept this cold, hard, brutal fact. and live your life even though this is there, but don’t live your life holding onto that fact. there is WAY more to life than this fact. you are not defined by what this person thinks of you. you are not defined by how this person treats you. you already know how this person’s mind works and they misrepresent others (like will) to you.

you have to remember the bigger picture: you are here for school but you did that to ultimately land a job. you must focus on the job hunt and interview process. think about the bigger picture. don’t lose sight of it.