I don't expect you to read this, nor do I really want you to. Except we both know I do. Neither of us would write these things if, on some level, we didn't want any audience for these thoughts. Deep down, I want you to know that I feel this way, but I can't seem to justify it against the possibility all of this isn't worth you knowing. I digress.
I'm not kidding when I say I don't think I'm ever going to date again.
I'm well aware that's impossible, though. Obviously, I'm going to date again. I will probably date many people. But I don't think I should. I say that as if I am looking out for everyone in doing so. The truth is is that I think of this as a punishment. One thing I ran into with J--- a lot was the realization that I think I'm unworthy of love. It's a belief I carried with me to the bitter end. It's one I think I still largely carry now. The fact I'm having conversation about how I've let everyone in my life down really does not help the self-hatred. I know now I have to love myself for the first time. That's the only way out of this. But a part of me doesn't want to. A part of me wants to stay down here, wherever this is, forever. I want to do good work and be good onto others, yes. But that part of me doesn't want to let anyone in further than that. I effectively want to be an island. They say that no man is an island, but I'll be damning myself to be one, scraping the skin of my soul on the path to that. Fuck you, I'm going to be alone. I deserve to be alone. Whatever I am is too inscrutable to be loved without hurting someone else.
That's the thing I feel like nobody in my life is talking about enough. Everyone portrays J--- as this manipulative, pushy, stuck-up asshole that isolated me from my friends and family, took advantage of my low self-worth, and tried to force upon me an image of myself that I was incapable of living up to. There's truth to all of that, but that's not what's important to me. Yes, they did a number on me, but I sure as fucking shit did a number on them. I hurt them bad. The night before my 21st birthday, I drank two big cans of PBR by the Banff river, biked back to my hotel room, and sobbed on the bathroom floor, finally able to be bludgeoned with the remorse I have for them. I hurt them worse than they hurt me. I think that's without question, and nobody seems to think that.
The worst is that they loved me. I know that definitively. E--- might not think that, but I won't put words in his mouth. I think it's absolutely true they loved me. I can be loved, but I don't deserve it. I can be loved but I don't deserve it.
Upon her telling me that she sometimes fantasizes about selling her belongings and moving out into the country forever, I asked J-----'s ex-girlfriend if she wants to be alone or thinks she deserves to be alone.
I can be loved but I don't deserve it.
In Midtown, Manhattan, not far from Radio City Music Hall, as there was a fire inside one of the buildings a block over, my dad told me about how he sometimes fantasizes about being on a sailboat in the thick of the Pacific, 67 days without contact with anyone.
I can be loved but I don't deserve it. There is not a single person I didn't let down since the start of this year. Yes, things can get better. They will whether I think I deserve them to or not. But I don't know how to love myself. My cousin is getting married to a dude in my fucking year. He was in a class with me and B----. J---- is getting married with a kid. Sure, these are early fucking birds, but I can't even swing my extremely overdue first relationship without it being a dumpster fire of unrequited love and general dysfunction. I can be loved but I don't deserve it.
E--- said of J----- that he's never been in love, and you can tell. You could tell in E---'s face that he is.
I can be loved but I don't deserve it.
Sometimes I consider showing you J---'s letters just so you know what this was. You don't really have a good idea as to what it was because I let nobody in. Nor did they, as much as they wanted so fucking desperately to be liked by everyone. I say that not to disparage them. I say that because it makes me feel really sad that nobody liked them. They even liked my mom, even if they once admitted to me they thought she was ugly (yes, that's exactly what it sounds like).
