aftermath

joel.

or, no, that's not your name; joel.

i did really love you.

did you know that? yes, i understand you knew that cognitively, i'm asking if it hit you. the way it hit me. i have been through all the normal stages of grief, and some abnormal, too; i have refused to accept it, i have been so enraged i'd thought i would never come down from it, i have prayed so many times to have you come back to me, i have been disgusted with the thought of you ever coming back to me, i have realized just how much i lost when i lost you. did it ever hit you? when you lost me?

no, i don't think so, because it was your decision, wasn't it? to leave like that?

you asked me how i was, i answered, you...disappeared.

i did really love you, joel. i would've done anything to be able to be with you, in any way. we were just friends. and i was honored to be just your friend. yes, it became horribly complicated, in a way i resent now; i told you, didn't i?, that i can get quite attached to people. in an unhealthy way. i struggle, have struggled, with limerence in the past, but limerence for me isn't an either/or thing, it's both. i did really love you, and i had actual sympathy & empathy for you. i didn't want to, oh, please, no, i didn't want to, but it built up over time. i did fall for you. see, limerence is a trauma response, for me, it comes up when my needs aren't met, but i know i'm not entitled to anyone meeting my needs, not at least without me also doing my best to meet theirs. and i warned you that i struggle with such things, i warned you i'm autistic, too, and don't really have a lot of practice with relationships or people in general; and i made it clear that i would listen to any boundaries you brought up if you ever felt uncomfortable. you never said it inconvenienced you at all, not only that, you told me you appreciated me, you admired me, we had a lot in common, but you said i had bravery you didn't, i could care in ways you couldn't...and then you left. so, in the end, even though i could've been horrible to you, even though i feared i was, in reality, i was the only one i hurt. and i mean, you hurt me, too.

you weren't my soulmate, joel. i don't even know if you were really my friend.

but i did love you.

i remember the sound of your laughter, i remember your intelligence, your voice, your big brown eyes. i remember you. you sat right there, on my couch, do you remember me? you sat right there. i knew you. you were, are, real. at least as real as i am. sometimes i miss you, still, so much.

we were going to live together.

i'm glad we don't.

you, joel, with your "people are replaceable" "people are objects" "people are nothing" shtick. people, yes, including you, and you knew that; you hated yourself just as much as you hated caring for anyone else. you said you were nothing, you think you are nothing. nothing without people to connect with you, meanwhile people are apparently not worth your connecting with them. look, mate, you're nothing? then become something. become aware of the something you already are. you thought you were so ugly, 'whole time you were the most beautiful man i ever laid eyes on. you, joel.

i was terrified, the whole time, that i was using you without meaning to, that i was a bad friend, that i was selfish, that i was...so many other things i couldn't forigve myself for, but you had so many more choices than i did, and the choice you made to leave had me struggling to pick up all the pieces i had before. every single part of that promise you made me & the subsequent vision i had of it all come to fruition; the apartment we were going to live in; our future neighbor that i already knew because they're a good friend of mine; every day we would have there together in that unit & how our lives would get better, together, because we were going to live together. i am physically disabled. the person who abandoned me gets to try again at moving out of your shitty apartment all by himself if you like. you get to try again. because although you may be a broken man like me, it's your head, your heart, your soul that's broken, not your body. you get to try again. i don't. i had to start over, but i haven't started over yet, because my opportunities were lost. 

i lost so much, when i lost you.

but the most awful thing was that i lost a friend. someone who i thought was a friend, my friend, my best friend. i regret how complicated my love for you, and the subsequent limerence from trauma from how exhausting it was to worry about you all the time & receive little care in return, made things. you were my friend. at the end, there, i would've accepted that we couldn't live together, i would've accepted everything. i just wanted a friend, even a bad one would've sufficed if i knew you were trying. but you just...gave up entirely. thank you so much, joel martinez, for showing me who you are. thank you, thank you, thank you. and fuck you back, finally.

"I dislike it too and have for years, but nowadays I'm tired and it's j another problem to try and solve among dozens."

dozens.

ha. i'm not laughing at you, i'm laughing at the way this all played out because it's almost funny; okay, mate. to each his own. i've got my own dozens.

i challenged you and critiqued you - not criticized, except for in one genuinely horrible moment i was willingly on my knees apologizing for for months afterwards, critiqued you - because i loved you. i said i didn't have any expectations of you, but i was a hypocrite, oh, i humble myself, even in front of you, because i was a hypocrite, i lied; i wanted to expect nothing of you at all, and to accept whatever you were right in front of me, but i couldn't help it; i expected you to respect me, at least as much as you said you did, to respect that i loved you even if you didn't love me, to reciprocate more than you did, to reciprocate, to not just give up as soon as i challenged you, to not identify so deeply with what you do wrong that as soon as i get angry with you for the wrong you do, you just...give up entirely. you needn't have given up. it twisted the knife in me that you gave up. you are not doomed to fail. you are not entitled to fail.

i loved you so, so much.

and i no longer do.

a part of me does wish we were still friends. a part of me does wish i could ask you why you left and receive a real answer, real closure. a part of me does still mourn the connection we had, and may always will. but the man i loved is never coming back, because i am different now, and i will never be able to see you the way i saw you then. you are not the person i loved because i am no longer the person who loved you. joel, the person who loved you was someone who had crippling issues with self-esteem, doubt, anger, resentment; the cycle of naive trust, codedepence, and world-ending endings. the person who loved you did not love himself. do i love myself now? fully? no. but more than i did when i knew you? yes. yes. i was a liar with you twice; the second, chronologically first, time i lied to you was when you noticed i didn't share much in the way of venting, in person, not the way you did, and you asked if that was because of you. i said no, i lied and said no, it had nothing to do with you, because i did not want to make you feel like a burden. you had previously told me you feel uncomfortable around other people's emotions. i took it upon myself, then, to attempt to not have any. i am so sorry, to both of us, that i lied then. i should have stood my goddamned ground. i should have looked you in the eyes, and told you that if feelings make you uncomfortable, then you will be uncomfortable, because i will not force myself down for you. i will not choke myself to death for you. ironically, self-acceptance makes you better towards others because it's a lack of acceptance, it's self-loathing & desperation, that make you twist yourself into something you're not, something you can't be, and it always backfires. at least, in my experience....i feel a lot, simple as that, i just feel. deeply. and a lot, and all the times i've run into people who've had me feel burdensome for it and so tried to repress my emotions and hold them in, i ended up either exploding later or just...suffering immensely and hating myself. neither outcome is what i like to call a baja fuckin' blast. i feel a lot. i talk a lot. i think a lot. so do you. we really do have a lot in common. i genuinely have thought, at times, that i was both a burden & a monster, and that i had to repent by giving myself entirely to whoever needed me, otherwise i'd be selfish to an evil extent. extreme? sure, yeah. it's kinda what i was raised to believe about myself. as soon as i realized that i was just your average dude, i calmed way down because i no longer had to repent. i no longer had to give myself away. 'no longer had to choke myself to death.

i still didn't deserve to be abandoned. i could understand you being thrown off or overwhelmed by my mental breakdown after you flaked on me once and then didn't talk to me for a week, but i apologized for that for months afterwards and changed my behavior for the better; it never happened again. i could understand you being confused by my going from saying i'm aromantic (because i thought i was!) to being in love with you (because i was), but the letter i sent you elaborated on how love to me isn't just about romance, and how much i valued you as a friend. there's so much i could, would, understand and forgive. but i do not, will not, understand or forgive the abandonment without closure. ghosting is a coward's move.

"I agree w/ Kierkegaard in that even if it's psychologically impossible for a human to perform a truly selfless act, it's not j a yes or no problem. there is a path towards good, and even if the end is infinitely far away, that doesn't erase the value in moving towards it." 

so you agree, that even when things seem futile, the attempt to change for the better towards others, towards yourself, towards whatever makes us separate the two, the attempt itself, is honorable.

there is a path.

walk it.

i don't care that you're tired. i am, too. we all are. nobody is unique, sure, and look at how much that means we all have in common; we all know fear, pain, fatigue. we all know. some of us walk the path anyway. and there is no point in admiring those people from afar if you can join them. i owe it to my entire reality i find myself living in, that i might join those walking the path. there is so much cruelty in this world, yes. why bring more? you were, are, tired. we could've leaned on each other, the way i was asking for, instead of you pushing me away. too late now. the once overwhelming tenderness i felt for you dwindles, transforms into something else, with each passing day, and i let it go. you made that decision for me when you left. i needn't hold onto my love for you, you're not here. i let you go. not all at once, but with each passing day. and if you ever let it hit you, what we had & what you did...okay, joel. thank you, joel. but that doesn't make it better, joel. i would forgive you, joel, but i can't trust you, joel. you're only an unreliable braindead dick, joel, as long as you let yourself be one. the past doesn't define you, joel, unless you let it define you. i hope you heal, joel. i loved you, joel. yes, it is rather tragic, in almost funny way; we could've been great friends, joel. i would've given everything, at a time, to be your friend, joel. and no, i wasn't always a good friend to you. that 'one genuinely horrible moment' echoes through me still. but the reason i say that i never hurt you is because you never said it; you never admitted that i scared you, affected you, or that you scared me, because both would've required admitting you feel just as deeply as i do. and you couldn't do that. you were, are?, allergic to vulnerability. it makes you feel like you're going to hurl. i would've given everything, at a time, to hold you gently and let you feel safe with me. thank you, again, joel. goodbye, joel.

. . . . . . .

and that's the story. i used to think i could never accept what happened, but suddenly, i can. because i am a writer, and i can frame things in terms of stories quite easily, and i realized; that's the story. my holding on for closure is my holding on for an ending that will never happen, because the ending already happened. there were once two men. they were friends first, and then one fell in love with the other. maybe the love was mutual, maybe it wasn't, but whatever love was there, it wasn't enough to prevent, or forgive, a great loss. one man begged for both to stay, the other man got scared and ran away. and that's the story....the story's over now.