Inside an Enigma (Youth Years)

Jack Fitz

Dear God where do I even start with this one. I met Jack in the 7th grade, first boy I ever had a crush on. We became best friends freshman to sophomore year but after that? Things just plummeted.
I wrote a letter I never intended on sending, but left out the whole first half.

March 1, 2019
Jack W. Fitzpatrick,
I have so much I want to say and ask you.
I have always hoped you had felt the same curiosity about me as I did you.
Looking back, I see the mistakes and actions I am made in our friendship- and I understand why that is someone you would want to avoid. I was very intense and emotional.
As I got older, more junior year, everything changed. Every part of me you thought you knew didn't even exist anymore.
I have questions I no longer expect answers to, but thought about occasionally.
How come when I transferred back from Clovis North to Clovis West you completely stopped talking to me?
How come every time I sat alone, you would see me yet would walk away?
How come everytime you needed company I would come, but you would never do the same for me?
I spent so many years trying to become your friend and make you feel important, because I knew how horrible it felt to go through life not receiving that.
You always complained about how you want good friends, and the one person that truly valued and gave a shit about your opinions, questions, insights, and worries, you dropped.
When I came back junior year, I realized I had played myself. I saw so much good in you, to where I could justify and talk myself out of the bad. You try so hard to gain people's approval and make yourself appear social and cool- but it only makes you seem desperate, and that radiates beyond measure.
You talk about your looks and accomplishments like no tomorrow because you try and repress how much you hate your self image.
You complain about girls and none of them being good enough, but you never consider you are a half part of the reason. It is so unattractive and you find something wrong with everyone.
Despite the fact someone makes you happy, one struggle they have throws you completely off. Nobody is perfect. You aren't. I am not. And certainly nobody else.
Normally around this time, I would send you a Snapchat, ask what's wrong-why you're ignoring me, or pull you aside and see "what's up". It's not that I don't want to talk, but I honestly see no use in even wasting my time.
I know for a fact you see me around, have my number, and aren't afraid to talk to me- but it's because you don't want to.
You know I saw right through you, and you hated that. I spent so much time trying and altering myself to gain your approval, to only realize I was hurting myself.
However, I'm not here to completely roast you. That's not what I'm trying to do. But I want you to really hear what I'm trying to say right now.
Out of all of the things I have ever told you, if this is the last thing you ever heard me say, this is what I would want it to be and hope you listen to.
You are an enthusiastic, collaborative communicator who loves exploring possibilities for people. You often enjoy getting to know other people and understanding what inspires them. You are insightful about solutions to personal problems. Highly empathic, you can find something to identify with in almost every person you meet, and enjoy encouraging other people to develop and grow. You are typically optimistic and like to talk about opportunities for the future, motivating others to join them in their vision.
You are lively and intellectual, one of the most exhilarating personalities to be around. You exude enthusiasm and are fueled by possibilities that inspire the world around you. You are an agent for change, always seeking to improve the world and explore all it has to offer. You are driven to see the potential in everything- to see not what "is" but what "could be". You live in a constant world of ideas, meanings and promise. To you the world is full of unending prospects and adventures- all must be explored and each day must count. You combined a thirst for discovery with a strong set of inner values that guides you in all your explorations. You love to talk about what is going on in your life. You will encourage your friends to grow. You like spontaneous demonstrations of love and respect.
You go all-in with your relationships, and if they fall apart despite your efforts, you can end up plagued with questions about why the relationship failed and what you could have done differently- without a buoy, these thoughts crush your self esteem as they sink into a depression. It's important for people like you, as to anybody remember that relationships are mutual- mutual interest, mutual growth, mutual responsibility, and they can't be solely accountable.
After a trial like this, and maybe it has or hasn't happened yet, you can sometimes become reluctant to open up and commit, and it may take years for a possible partner of yours to navigate your bewildering depth and intensity, falsely believing that your enthusiasm and apparent openness means that you wear everything on your sleeves. The reality is that your spontaneity, the seeming inconsistency and erraticism the untrained eye sees, isn't a product of flightless or lack of depth- but the opposite. It's a drive to express ideas about a mystical, all-encompassing energy, in the confines of a physical world, and underlying it all is the uniting principle of love, expressed in many different ways, but unshakable and infinite at its core.
Although, you need to feel encouragement. You don't like to say it when your feelings are hurt and tend to withdraw to process hurt feelings in private.
You usually go for the mysterious, risky, or "already in a relationship" type of person. You go for the unavailable one that seems only the slightest bit interested in you, but you know in the back of your mind that it's never going to happen. But all more enthralling, because you love the chase anyway and you're dead set on changing their mind. Whether or not you'll still be into them once you get them, which is another mystery altogether lol.
Jack, I want you to be able to accept love, acts of service, etc,. I am like you in a lot of similar ways. I find it uncomfortable having people go out of their way to do things for me. I hate having people do something for me I can do myself. I now find it irrational when people find a need to involve feelings and emotion with everything.
The thing is Jack you become so bored with people you push them away. A lot of times it isn't done with malice or any kind of ill will. You just get lost in the "spiderweb" of possibilities. You know because you're 16, that you are not able to emotionally handle a situation. You internalize a lot of conflicts and "solve" them without any outside input. Because of that, you decide to simply leave when when you see a situation that's toxic for you instead of trying to solve the toxicity.