I had a friend once, he was writing down letters to his ex-girlfriend even after 2 years they broke up; explaining how he feels and why it didn't work out but how he would want to make it work - apparently he hadn't had the closure he needed and was not resilient enough to do it himself.
It is a funny side of every happening; cuz each has three sides: 1 in the mind of one of the parties, 2 in the mind of the other one of the parties, 3 what actually just happened. Each action, each touch, each word resonates differently with those different parties; in the end it is just a whole different experience & completely different stories. A fact we are all aware of but always keep forgetting. A fact that either takes us to the sky or just fucks us up.
As I grow older I realize that the more I seize the day and carpe diem without really putting a thought on it, I more I regret it in the next day. It was plays and fun when I was, I don't know, 21 or something, when I knew less about people, psychology, instincts, life, what matters. I cannot live by my instincts anymore, I care about the long term gain better than the short-lasting prize feelings. But when you are drunk and affected it doesn't always be this way. On a morning where I was feeling like a disaster, I started to think: why do we despair the confrontation so badly that we cannot rest without having it? Is it the fear to be misunderstood or not at all, or the hope that maybe it would change things? Do we really want it for ourselves or just to prove the other that we actually worth something?
I was feeling dreadful because I realized that I was not acting the way I was feeling for a remarkable amount of time. As I called my best friend to just shit about everything she awakened me by saying, 'Stop creating a life for yourself where you go around in the same circles. Haven't we talked about this? Wasn't it clear for you, what you want and how you want it? Then why are you acting just the opposite?' What was I trying to gain from going through an experience for the 100th time and expecting a different result out of it? It is a consequence of me acting unthoughtfully for just one night and then obsessing over what happened that one day - things I did not expect at all. Then I started to get paranoid: what the other party thought about me? How was I seemed? What's gonna happen next? Why do I feel like I am back in high school again? Why do I fantasize things out of a little, tiny happening? I went to my therapist, begging for advice on how to see things differently. She relieved me by saying that it is all normal, I feel this way because I am a human-being, especially when something happens when you least expect it there is nothing more normal to get so freaking excited over it. For one day I managed to live up to my feelings, enjoyed it while it lasts - been a very fucking long time since I last felt this way, you know I am telling you I was back in high school again. My therapist warned me that me that feeling these is normal, but me trying to suppress it and feel bad about it is the problematic part. Because I was (still am) so sure that in the end it wouldn't end up well at all, which made me feel stressed and anxious and in the end it caused me to betray myself by acting the opposite of how I was feeling. I could keep living up to my feelings but instead I ignored them and act as if I was just cool about everything - sassy, free-spirited, doesntgiveashit me. It didn't help anything at all, instead everything got worse. As the days went by I felt more shit, more out of center, more mistakes more dreams more living in my head, more guilt more disappointment and more... sorrow over things that did not even actually happen and will never be. Maybe that was the point. Because I acted so out of myself I felt so guilty and angry to myself that, I just ended up turning things around in the wrong way and sabotaged the whole situation to not ever happen again. I was literally sitting in my room crying out of the things I was feeling - 'I know you don't want it, but you are not that 15 years old girl anymore, you are an adult, you can handle it, you got this, everything will be okay' I was talking to myself, as I was doing my makeup for another night out just to not miss out if anything would happen ever again. I didn't even feel like going out that night. But here I was looking out in the crowd just to see if... that one of the parties is there. What a pathetic, humiliating, downgrading act. 'Why are you recreating the life you ran away from?' My bestie asked me. Well, I really didn't know.
One thing happened, and then a lot of things happened in my head, and then I cut it off for good in the end. I have been dying for a confrontation for the last two days. Because I know I was not actually myself the whole time, I know things hasn't discussed is just bothering me, I know my eyes are just round the corner in everywhere I go. I also know they could think I'm a freak, that I'm inconsistent and not obvious at all, but what the hell at this point. I, just, need, that confrontation. I was thinking.
But just today I realized, I don't actually need it at all, I just want it because I wanna see how things would go after having it; but what the hell at this point: I know enough to know that if someone wants something they get it. And I cannot just flow, wait, 'see how it goes', I am a person of action and impatient and anxious and sensitive and feel so strongly and all that - I accept it. That's why even having a confrontation wouldn't help anything, I felt how I felt anyway. What's done is done. No stepping back from it. There's no point.
I just needed to confront myself and accept that I do indeed need sharing, intimacy, drinks sitting at the high chairs of a bar, quality chat, 'what have you been doing until this age?' kind of getting to know someone and someone to get to know me, reading with a chai tea, talking shits about different tastes and jokes about insecurities, jumping into ideas with equal excitements: I just need to accept and be accepted. And put my fucking fear or pride or 'I should act cool' belief aside and just ACCEPT how I really feel. That is the only confrontation I need. Let's hope it will all turn out good in the end, and thank to the other party of this story for that magical night; appreciate that it happened and reminded me that I still do have feelings.
artwork from Tyler Spangler