IT'S NOT YOUR THING? EXCUSE ME?

Dear 2.10,
“It’s not my thing.” That’s what you said regarding communication with me. I asked if you even wanted to be able to and you don’t know. If there’s no desire to learn to communicate then is there really anywhere for us to go? I feel ugly inside. I hate the questions that come up in me out of fear and insecurity and circumstances. I didn’t get here by myself but apparently that’s how I’m supposed to get out. How can that be?

I listen and comfort and support you endlessly but do you even recognize that this process is taking a toll on me too, that I need you to be there for me too, that it’s wearing me down to ugliness and nothingness? I know you’re aware of changes in me, but you only fault me for them instead of recognizing them as solvable symptoms. Defensiveness, ridicule and blowing me off only make it worse. How can you not see that? How can you not want to do everything you can to help someone you love feel better? I hate things I feel inside but I can’t make it go away without the other half of the equation. Isn’t that what people in relationships do? Help each other work through things? Work to make their relationship better? Isn’t that what it’s all about?

So far this has been about me revolving around your life and problems and issues, and I’m expected to remain unaffected and upbeat and strong. How is that possible when you have me and I have no one? If you’re not interested in helping me progress too, why am I here? I can’t be used as a convenience again. Another 5 years of waking up sick will surely kill me this time, as it almost did a couple times before that you don’t even know about, you weren’t there.

Everything’s great for us until I have 'stuff' come up, stuff that takes effort and compassion to solve and doesn’t go away on it’s own. Then I’m the outcast. That doesn’t make for security. You talk about your business, and houses that are all you need, and what you’re going to do in the future. I feel like I’m an accessory here, spinning my wheels as long as it’s convenient for you.

You spew negativity and bad energy with no regard for where it lands and the degenerative impact it has; on me yes, but even more so on you. You talk karma but you don’t walk it. How do we make our world a better place without being able to talk about this? How do we do anything besides coexist on a superficial level without working together? I don’t get it. Without communicating I don’t have the foggiest what you want or expect aside from what I observe and experience, all of which looks good and propped up for you and puts me in the back seat.
How can a one-way street be appealing?

Why is it ok with you for me to feel like this? And why is it ok for you to punish me for wanting otherwise? Doesn’t that sound twisted to you? How can the remedy seem that difficult? And if I just stay around it continues. I have made more ultimatums and exits than I ever cared to or respected. But here I am again, feeling like a pointless stupid idiot with genuine feelings and deep, deep disrespect for myself.

FROM ME TO YOU

From me to you in the ‘Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending…’ card – 7/13/07
Dear 2.10,
No more yelling. I CAN NOT TAKE IT. We can’t take it. I am here 24/7 for you and I have NO ONE to talk to. NO ONE - because I’m not allowed to talk to you. I need for you to initiate 5 min. a week to check on how I’m doing inside through all of this. And if 5 min. is too much to ask, you need to tell me to my face. I am the strongest person you will ever in this lifetime meet, but I am human and I am destructible. Acid baths and insignificance will destroy my health, my psyche, and self esteem, and I will be of no use to either one of us. All of the ‘I’m sorry’s’ in the world don’t make wounds evaporate. Actions are the only real statement we have. I think I’ve made it pretty clear where I stand. I love you. I know what you’re going through better than anyone, and I know you’re trying, but if my insides aren’t valued, I am nothing. I love you more than anything. I hope you have a better day than morning. I will miss you terribly tonight.

I DON'T EXIST

Dear 2.10,
I know you’re not interested in anything I have to say but we’re adults and we should communicate like it. I told my self I’d never again be anywhere I did not exist but here I am. Not only is what’s inside me not welcome, it’s not even acknowledged. I have never and would never laugh at you, ridicule you, or blow you off. I reserve those things for people I hold in zero regard. But after 5 mos of working on this, in 5 short seconds I was set back 3 yrs just for getting up the courage to try and exchange the tiniest bit of something inside me.

People who care about each other go out of their way to protect each others well being. Yet you haven’t had 5 min to make your house a safe place where I’m not haunted every time I turn around, whether it’s to get a pencil off your desk, or do laundry, or put something in your glove box, or take a shower. But there’s always more than 5 min for watching tv, or getting high, or cleaning the house, or doing laundry, or complaining; a bold statement that nothing about me is important beyond what I can do for you.

You have to get back to the bar because your ex-bubble head is coming over for lunch while I’m out running down a phone book 35 miles away in order to set up a Dr.’s appt for you?? Are you f'ng kidding me? And you blow ME off? Explain. And you know, if I had an ex-boyfriend, and they came into your bar and performed as she did and had me on the phone, I’d have made certain they knew what a colossal piece of shit they were and would never speak to them again. But no, you shrugged that off as my problem. I am in a constant state of trying to help you feel better inside and find it somewhat incredulous that you don’t have the slightest inclination to do the littlest bit of that for me. I, me, inside, I do not exist. What an awful way for anyone to feel. I hope you never experience it.

You promised 5 mos ago when you laid a 4 hr conversation on me that we would communicate as adults even though we knew it would be hard. We MUST do that. I can’t not disintegrate in a situation where what’s inside me is of no value. Who can? But that’s what’s demonstrated to me. Words mean nothing when actions don’t agree. I am rapidly deteriorating. I feel myself withdraw and it’s the last thing I want to do but insignificance does that to a person. No one should feel that way. Insignificance and being treated like a second class citizen who should be thrilled with the crumbs they’re tossed puts people in institutions, and you know it.

I’m SORRY that you had a shitty example of a relationship growing up but plenty of people did and plenty choose not to duplicate it. It’s a choice. No it’s not easy. Yes reprogramming ourselves takes work. If it’s important we do the work. If it’s not we don’t. “I can’t” is an excuse that means it’s not important. “I can’t” are the two lamest words ever invented. The worst part is when we use them we reinforce the lie. Garbage in garbage out.

I don’t champion myself often but I honestly think, and please let me know where you don’t agree with me here, I honestly think I have been monumentally accepting and compassionate, I dig deep to understand, I do everything I can to withstand a constant acid bath of nastiness and negativity, I bend over backwards to choose my words delicately and tip toe around your defensiveness, I listen endlessly to dramatized irrational railings; I think I am patient, and I think I am ridiculously and unhealthily low maintenance. What do I ask for? A few minutes help to clear a little hurdle? And that gets blown all to hell. So what do I really ask for? It’s not in me but maybe I should. Guys seem to like demanding controlling bitches or superficial bubbleheads so that they never have to operate below the surface. Well that’s not me, and that’s not all guys, and that’s not something beyond our own control.

I said 5 yrs ago that when the time came and you chose recovery I would be here and I am. My word is solid, I don’t make empty promises. I need to salvage what little self esteem I have right now and those are my building blocks. I am the strongest person you will ever meet in this lifetime but I am human which means I’m still destructible. If you want to destroy me then you’re on the right track. If you don’t, we best work together to change it. Little efforts aren’t that hard. Conscious until they become habit yes, but not hard. I think it’s worth it.

I know you grew up preferring the easy way to pretty much anything else, but the things that fall in our laps and are dictated to us by our parents aren't very rewarding. You’re privileged. I’m middle class. You haven’t had to sacrifice and save your pennies in order to attain things like your business or your new wheels or your mortgage. I have since I was 12. It’s awesome. The freedom and autonomy is amazing. I wish there was a way to explain or illustrate how phenomenal it is. I wish you could taste it. If only you could feel what it does inside, how it makes you feel about your self. It’s a great addiction. Easier? No. Satisfying? YES. It’s convoluted but I guess by doing the tough stuff we actually make life easier for ourselves. And once you live it, you can never go back.

UTTERED EARNESTLY

“I love you baby – so much. I’m sorry. Stick with me. I’ll fix this. I promise. I promise.”

- your words when we woke up Friday morning, 6/7/07

YOUR BRAINLESS WHITE TRASH

Dear 2.10,
So once again I sit in tears and nausea trying to come to grips with the reality of you. Trying to come to grips with the fact that you’ll take off a summer of weekends for your two bit adolescent white trash but on your only day off when you’ll be ten minutes away aren’t even interested in catching lunch with me. Especially after last night. After your white trash showed up at my bar and talked to you on the phone when I was two feet away. It’s almost a really bad joke that someone so stupid, so completely vapid and classless has any impact on my life and heart. I’m talking about the brainless wonder with an eating disorder and a big nose. I didn’t do anything to anyone. Why am I the one sitting in these feelings? I don’t want even a walk on role in this high school drama. Yeh I know you’re not “seeing” her, just another iron in the fire, right. I am the one who does everything under the sun for you yet Clueless got all the concessions. So I’m supposed to always be on top of the world to pull you up but where are you when I need? Oh yeh – when the going gets tough, 2.10 goes.

This is an ongoing one way street regardless of the four hour conversation you laid on me awhile back or the act you’ve performed lately, all at the disposal of your whims and schedule. Yeh, that’s me, once again the lowliest dumb ass piece of dog shit. And not a friend is going to be there for me this time; they all want to see you at the bottom of the lake. I had the blessings of no one this time around; ergo I’ll have the support of no one post re-destruction. You are the reigning champ. There was someone willing to drive down from Chicago this weekend just to have lunch with me but you, right here, can’t spare an hour on your day off. Once again, you are the champ and I am the dog shit. Oh – and I was stupid enough to turn them down.

TOXIC SABOTAGE

Dear 2.10,
How do you do this? Pull the plugs and cross the wires on every good thing I have going? You're a tactical marvel when it comes to timing. All better for awhile? Quick hit and run tide your ego over for bit? How long you suppose you’re good for? ‘Cuz see I could use a heads up. You are death to me. I know when everything in me broke. I remember it. Snapped beyond repair; my head, my heart, and my health. I remember, clearly, it going over the edge under the weight of your use. You are sick to do that over and over and over again. You know what you do and you do it anyway and you’d do it again tomorrow. Your lack of character is off the charts. You are a colossally twisted bottom feeding sub-human being. My disbelief disbelieves the level of my disbelief. All the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men are useless now. All I hope is that when what’s eating me up wins you’re presented copies of this graced with indelible ink. A little non-fiction to fill your emptiness. Light up and read away.

CONGRATS CHAMP

Dear 2.10,
My pity for you trumps anger (which is not to suggest that dependencies and addictions are ever a blank check for malice and adolescence). Do you plan this out? Or is it just spontaneously dysfunctional genius? It just seems so methodical. It eats at me everyday - what is that, to wipe your conscience clean so you can do it some more as detatched as adding money to a pre-paid calling card? Your morbid unprincipled ego needs a leg up out of a suicidal abyss so you make contact with me to confirm what you already know - to have me humbly and honestly admit that I love and miss you every single day? You of course claim the same. And then, two short weeks and three conversations later, so that there's no mistake as to my mechanistic though valueless existence in your scheme, you administer what might as well be my own Louisville Slugger to its owners head. My admission was genuine and made under the mistaken guise which I aired to you, that I didn't figure I had anything to lose. But somehow, I don't know how you do it, but you are able to shatter again what's already shattered. A boot to the embedded shards to ensure there's no chance of working themselves free. A rebounding BoBo doll laid out once again. Well congratulations champ - put your gloves over your head and dance around a bit. Your father would be proud.

YOU'RE A PREDATOR

Dear 2.10,
Your actions are the antithesis of your bullshit. What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say (don’t seethe at me, Emerson wrote that). Why, in any sort of adult exchange anyone needs to recite the remedialities of reciprocity in the context of relationships, I’ve yet to comprehend. People don’t seek out for target people they ‘care’ about. People don’t render people they ‘care’ about expendable. People don’t intermittently resuscitate their decrepit ego by re-destroying these cared about people. You are a poison worse than cancer. Cancer isn’t personal. Its targets, though sometimes predisposed, are random compared to your highly deliberate bulls-eye.

This is nothing short of predatory. Methodical malice is predatory. If it’s voiceless victims you want then just kill them straight away instead of dismembering them, and then dismembering the dismembered. What qualifies a deserving target anyway? Sincerity? A crack in the door? Honest feelings humbled in confidence, the buffet your ego craves, swoops down on, sucks dry and vanishes like some guiltless hit-and-run? WHAT DO YOU GET FROM THAT?

You make choices again and again that maintain your misery. What is there to assume except that you favor the state you curse? This is no accidental disregard. This is consciously orchestrated. Not choosing is a choice. Woe is you? You’ve gotten exactly what you’ve engineered! That’s more than a lot of people can say. Most people are still working towards something, you on the other hand have achieved and excelled! You have created a realm devoid of responsibility and accountability and integrity; god knows they’re taxing, f’ng self-governance and all. Of course you’ve cashed in self-worth and purpose, and any sign of value in the bathroom mirror, but clearly you’ve remained committed to what you favor and have done whatever it takes to perpetuate this existence – that takes determination. It’s damn hard work being more and more miserable over more and more time. A lot of people would’ve given up and caved to meaningfulness long ago. So again – shut the fuck up, you’re a fucking success! Lock and load and off you go.

BOWS, IF ONLY THERE WERE MORE BOWS

Dear 2.10,
I stop. I don't move. Like removing batteries from clocks. Surprise peaceful moments of objectivity. Bows. They sneak up. Not fancy ones, but the cheap multi-color kind out of a plastic bag. Resentless, unemotional, matter-of-fact moments. Things are so obvious when impersonal! Parallel individuals - are losers - and we recognize this. You are quite simply - a loser. Your choices and behaviors define you as a loser regardless of shared proof otherwise. Proof, meaning fact at that time. That moment. Unfortunately all of life is an equation with an equal sign really; it's the sum total at the end of the day that reconciles absolute quality.

Random sneaky moments, bows; recognition possible only after adjusting to the dark. I'd grant complete absolution if you could arrange my life in a bow. The irrational product of my heartache demands you prescribe the secret of your elimination from my head and my heart, and I would gladly forgive backwards forever. It's you that's in there it stands to reason that you would know how to get you out.