Dear Perpetual Twelve Year Old,
Before we met, I’d really taken a lot of time to get to know myself. To know what I wanted from a partner, and what I was able to give. The night we met you were pretty drunk, and pretty pushy, but thankfully (I guess?) you were also pretty charming. Our relationship had it’s bumps in the beginning, but we worked it out. Who am I kidding, our relationship had some bumps throughout.
When I fell in love with you, I did so very innocently, and completely. When we’d fight, you’d curl up under blankets and I’d scream at you. Even with me screaming, you’d fall asleep and I’d be left with my confusion and rage. I never understood that, and I still don’t to this day. I wanted so badly to be “right” for you. I wanted to help you, to do whatever I could to make your life easier. My love for you was so much stronger than my need to be my own person, after all, wasn’t that part of being in a “serious adult relationship”? I think I might have learned that from my ex, Mr. Extra-Sensitive Roadie. That to be really loved, to show that you were really in love, you should give of yourself until the lines between you and that person are so blurry that you can’t see where you end and the other person begins.
Sometimes things were amazing, and when it was good, it was beyond good. Other times, you could cut the tension with a knife and being at home was uncomfortable. We pressed on with our plans though, and kept in our pattern of the highest highs and the lowest lows. I guess what it boils down to now that it’s all over is that I’m still holding on to some of the stuff I’ve never said, and it still colors how I do things…so it’s time to let it out. I did love you. A piece of me will always love you because you are a really cool person. The problem is that I don’t actually like you very much. I feel absolutely terrible typing that, but it is the truth. I don’t like how you navigate the world, and while I appreciate the differences between us it’s time for me to admit that it is beyond “we’re different”, it really is that we don’t respect those differences. And when we realized that, we tried to keep something but there was nothing…which was our first of many mistakes. Where you are serious, I laugh…and when I am serious, you are laughing, it’s like trying to blend oil and water.
I still resent all of the times I asked you for more, and you told me that you were doing your best. That resentment borders on hatred for the times when you questioned whether or not I loved you unconditionally after those arguments. It has all but killed my self esteem that no matter what I did, you were never attracted to me sexually and claimed that you were “asexual” but that you and your new partner are just fine in that department. I still suffer with the fact that despite me loving you so much that I gave up myself for you (which I will readily admit, you never openly asked me to do), you never saw any of my efforts. Well, you never expressed that you did. I was never “enough” for you. Never girly enough, never emotional enough, never fun enough, never “gay” enough. You were my best friend, and even that wasn’t enough.
The fact that we aren’t together anymore is actually a blessing. Although it kills me what we’ve gone through to get here, I am really happy that we aren’t stuck in that nasty cycle anymore on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Sometimes I miss the comfort of our misery, but I never miss you or us. The fact that you’ve moved on and have the whole “insta-family” thing going on has really eaten at me though. More because the depth of what I went through to be all that she is for you seems…completely in vain. You told me that we could never have more than two kids, three at the very most. Between the two of you, you have five…and don’t think that has escaped me. That fact alone has made me cry more times than I’d like to admit. That really is okay though, because she’ll never know what kind of parent you are in the beginning. How afraid of babies you really are, and how you don’t wake up for anything. I still resent that we brought our son in to the world together, but that I did 99% of the work. I resent that no matter how far we’ve come, I am still your back up plan…although…I think I’d seriously die if I found out that someone else was, so I think I equally resent myself there.
I always though you’d grow up, and that we’d have the life we always said we wanted. I swear, we looked SO good on paper. I’m sad that I gave up so many years of my life, trying for something that deep down we both knew we couldn’t make work. I wish I could impress upon you how much I loved you. You have expressed that you don’t believe that…but it is true. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. You could never see it, but they could. And you took me for absolute granted. I’m over you, and over the drama and the ridiculousness. I’m not over how stupid I feel. I still resent you, and I want to get over that. I want to understand why I’ve ended up either not being able to connect to people I love, or connecting with people who claim to love me but are bat-shit crazy. I’ve never been as lost as I have in the last year. It has been such a journey. Through all of it, I can honestly say that I’m glad I met you. I’m glad I went through the heartaches because there was some amazing happiness in there too. And I can say that there isn’t anything that would ever make me take it back because I have Deylan, and he is worth any and all of it, a million times over. I’m learning who I am again. When I do find someone who appreciates it, and who is willing to put in the work and be an awesome partner, I’ll be whole. I can be the 100% to their 100%.
For everything you’ve given me, the ups, the downs, the in-between, thank you. I want to let it go, all of it. I need to, but for whatever reason I haven’t gotten quite there yet. Maybe it is because I haven’t said all of this yet…and maybe now I can. I truly hope so.
