This brings up so much. The partners I have chosen. The patterns. The stories told. All the knowings that I knew, I knew.
Who I am. Who I was. Who I still fight to be.
Your birthday was on Tuesday. While on my way out of town to rest and find peace in the trees I found out you took your life a month ago. I suppose no one thought to share with me earlier because we were together for a short time and I haven’t been in your life for 10 years and the last time I heard from you was about 8 years ago, until recently.
You started to follow me on Instagram and watched my stories. It was absolutely peculiar and I felt inappropriate, but I had no intention to engage and it really wasn't worth an effort to concern myself with. Then in early April, at 6am I awoke with my partner at the time to go volunteer and I opened my phone to read a 15 paragraph letter you wrote. I was taken aback at all that you shared and bothered that you even thought you had a connection with me to even upload all that you did. I knew you were breaking down and perhaps in the middle of or about to have a manic episode but it was not my place. I did contemplate writing back. I wasn't quite sure what I would have said but I never got around to writing it because you had no presence in my life, you had a family, we were in the beginning of a God Damned Pandemic and my partner and I were battling our own troubles and giving it our all to make it work. Even if I had reached out I had nothing to offer. And if I did, I would have just been engulfed in another tidal wave to help heal and hold space for yet another man who lacked the ability to do the same for me. I type this as though I need to defend my decisions but I feel a strange guilt, that I'm sure so many feel that I know is not ours to hold.
In July, I made the decision to yet again walk away from someone I loved for my own well-being and because I deserve so much more. I was in pain and still am. The relationship left me exhausted, confused, ungrounded and I allowed that to happen. Then another ex who's communication I also had ignored over the years reached out once again. I was so pissed at the audacity. I didn't want you men thinking you still had an open door to my life and I. I messaged both of you that I did not care to share or build anything. That this was a boundary and to please respect it. And you, who said you knew I could hold space for so many. You who asked for my forgiveness so many times, who asked me for a conversation, to be a friend. I said that I did not need to forgive you because until now I at times had forgotten your name.
My mother recently asked me why I do not stay friends with my exs. Well, I feel I give it my all and if it doesn't work then I save that space for something more beautiful. I am cordial with some but most I realized didn't even meet my standards for a friendship. I am now examining that fact.
I begrudgingly had to revisit my memories of our time together. A soul mate indeed. A connection that was deep and painful and meant to teach me some of my most pivotal lessons. Our relationship taught me how to find the strength to walk away from someone I love for my own mental health. It taught me that deep intimacy could be poison and that I also would not settle for anything less than that depth in a relationship. It taught me to set those firm boundaries of mine so that my heart remains protected. It showed me how I was allowing someone to treat me and what I would no longer tolerate. You were the 2nd and last partner I ever punched, which I still believe was deserved. Our relationship was the beginning of my understanding that I was given the gift of intuition and that if I don't fucking listen to it I end up engaging in my most masochistic habits; comparing and digging into who someone is to find the truth. I have proven to be a master detective, to my own detriment. It taught me how to move past the confusion and the pulls of a toxic connection; to strongly evaluate the 2 paths given; one is the unknown and the other is the one that has shown itself to cause more tears than joy. You see with you and I, I knew that if I stayed that perhaps one day Id have a child Id have to take care of alone. That foresight also gives me guilt. Our relationship taught me that I cannot save someone even if I too have known the weight of Depression.
A few weeks ago I unblocked you to look at your and your wife's social. To see if, to make sure... you were still here. I had a feeling. I didn't see anything out of the norm so I breathed a sense of peace and carried on.
And here I am learning one last painful lesson. I could have found a way to be more gentle and simply have told you "you are forgiven" but I know that even that would not have saved you.
You are forgiven. You are accepted as you are. I know you fought for light and I am so sorry your journey was one that involved this darkness. I so deeply feel for your family.
Be in sweet peace now, Brother…. to be the Light Warrior you said you knew you were meant to be.