I've been working on what I would say to you in my head for the entirety of the last three years and ten months, and I even got close to contacting you directly once or twice, but I don't think that's a wall I'll ever overcome anymore. Especially not after you, like, ghosted me for three years. ("I'll let you know" l m a o) But, whatever, right? Nothing matters, right? So before I eventually give up on the big one, I can pen a letter to you and just stick it on my blog so I can pretend that I communicated properly, right?
What's that? I can't?
Too fucking bad. I do what I want now. (Narrator: Jon retains as little control over his life as he did ten years ago. He usually does not do what he wants)
Anyways.
This might end up being more of a message board for me to come back to over time and write down my thoughts than a finite letter, because god knows I think wayy too much about you (saying nothing of dreams. yeeeeesh). And rather than me actually writing to you directly, this will probably be more an exploration of my own hangups and fears in the guise of a letter. All the more reason to stick it on the blog, I guess.
To preface a bit, I finally kicked myself into starting this after getting through my first run of Va11-Hall-A. I was honestly surprised at how personal Jill's relationship and its end felt to me - even after DomeGirl. Unlike Rui or Natsuo, Jill had specific concerns about freedom, and her life expectations, and not being able to fill those expectations, in a way that truly hits home - even if you're drunk off karmotrine. Really good game.
Anyways.
First off (second off? fourth off?): I obviously should apologize for what happened in 2019. If you want an excuse with specificity, I had just gotten back from SLO with my mom after spending a whole weekend cleaning out the garage, and the kicker is that we left a little after five and I hadn't slept. So, as soon as I got back I passed out - then dreamt that you had only wanted to meet up so you could introduce me to your new lover, LeBron fucking James. I was pulled directly out of that dream by your phone call. My anxiety went into overdrive, and I completely shut down. The specific fear of seeing you and being forced to confront the fact that you were gone forever was the fear I was referring to in the last text I sent you about a month after that, and frankly, it was a fear that completely destroyed me and will probably haunt me for years to come. It was not right to blow you off for an entire month regardless of what I feared, and out of everything since we last saw each other, that's definitely my heaviest regret. I... really hoped we would get back together eventually. Obviously I was taking you for granted, but naturally I was too dumb to notice until it was much too late.
*
When I ended things, I was thinking about a lot. Clearly, I was thinking about too much. I didn't quite put a finger on my main fear (not counting the fear of you choosing someone else over me, which obviously is always my #1-100 fears) until Va11-Hall-A. Look, all my life I wanted one thing. Maybe it's because of my parents' relationship, maybe it's because of every movie and pop song having romance in it, maybe it's because I started masturbating before I even turned 4, but I wanted a partner. I didn't learn about Plato until at least 2nd or 3rd grade, but looking back the North Star of my entire life has been a Platonic relationship. (yeah yeah, I'm not Ace, but sex to me has always been a bonus, a need you get filled once you've found The One.) Of course, when you're aware that the only thing you truly want from life is a girlfriend, you tend to come off as desperate, and as twitter has taught us, a desperate person is a red flag for everyone. But by the time I had been rejected, and made fun of, and pitied more times than my underdeveloped brain could count, I had mostly given up. So when I stepped onto campus in Westwood for the first time, I was ready to focus on all the other stuff, and idly hope that a loving girlfriend would fall into my lap. And whaddya know! Turns out desperation really is the only thing holding us back from our dreams.
You may have heard through the grapevine (or through my open window. I think out loud way too much) that I wish I had never met you. And while that's true now, my two years with you were undoubtedly the most fulfilled two years of my life. Of course, that's the problem: fulfillment achieved, I stopped actively working on myself and foisted my entire life's dreams onto you. I could get in bed early to make sure I make it to practice tomorrow... or I could go over to your room and get my heroin fix through extended cuddling. I could go out with my friends... or I could just go out with you. I could go to class and be miserable... or I could just smoke weed, fall asleep, and wait for you to get home. And so I decayed.
I think about the night I asked you out a lot. Not as much as I dream about getting back together - because that happens almost every night still - but a lot. The thing is, while of course I did want to ask you out, it wasn't really my decision through and through. I wanted to wait, develop our friendship, put more work into myself, and then ask you to be with me. But my anxiety screamed. How long before another person ever flirts with you!?! This could be your last chance!! If you wait she'll just start dating someone else, and never think about you again!! (Ah, the irony.) And so later on, contemplating me, contemplating us, I started feeling major FOMO. Not "Nobody invited me to the New Years' party" FOMO, more "Wait there's still so much I wanted to do in life" FOMO. So let's talk about it.
*
Growing up as a hapa shoehorned into an Asian by mostly white classmates, I had this idea in my head that I had something to prove. One thing was to prove the stereotypes wrong, to show that no, not all Asian men are tiny. (oops!) But mainly, I felt I needed to prove that no, I'm not one of those lame Asian guys, who marries another Asian, does maths, and never goes out - I'm a cool Asian guy! I'm so cool that I drive European sports cars! (Hmm.) I'm so cool that I go to parties! With friends! Math? Never even met the guy! I'm so cool, get this, that white girls actually want me! Now, this dovetails into a discussion of identity and the way our society treats identity - individual and collective - but I have a feeling this is gonna be long enough as is, so we'll save that for another time. I know now how stupid and pointless that is, but you have to understand that for all of my adolescent life, my goal was to date a non-Asian. And for all my romantic failures, the stupidly relentless optimist in me thought that eventually I would - even if I just married a Chinese girl in the end. This was something I never even acknowledged consciously until high school, when I had two uninterrupted years to be literally undateable and consider my romantic goals (thanks GSL!).
Now obviously I realized even then that tying my sense of self-worth to maths, cars, and the skin color of my partner is like putting on jeans before a swim meet, but from those two years grew the realization that if given the choice, I would want to experience as many relationships as possible, even just four or five, before settling down - although even into college I hoped to have kids by 25, which would have a been a hell of a telenovela plot. Of course, I turned 25 a few months ago, and still the only real romantic feelings I have ever known were for you (sorry Céline, sorry Angel, but I have a sneaking feeling neither of you care), but the point is that twentysomething Jon became terrified - above most else - of keyholing and closing his life into a little box, leaving out all the other experiences he could have lived. It's just- I have so many things I want to do, infinite things really, and so many people I want to spend time with, infinite people really, and my mom had always taught me to leave as many of those doors open as possible. So the idea of closing all those doors just to go through one single door (even multiple doors nested in one), especially with the growing existential terror that the one door would eventually lock me out for good, created so much extra anxiety in me that my brain ranneth over, and thus the things that happened in 2018, happened.
*
I also had this idea in my head that by thinking about her once, I had failed the relationship completely. Frankly, that was the main driver of my guilt throughout August. Part of it was that I couldn't fathom you having similar thoughts and choosing to remain with me, part of it was my perfectionism. There was certainly a greener-grass voice whispering that I would be happier with her instead, but even back then I knew that was just wishful thinking, and a manifestation of my anxiety running away from everything. My weed dependence didn't help either, but I have trouble parsing the core reasons behind that even now.
*
I want to blame you, all the time. But it doesn't justify the pain, nor does it ease it, especially when I know it was all my own doing. It makes it a tiny bit easier to deal with the guilt sometimes, but regardless of how desperately I tread water I've been continually sinking for the last three years.
To 2022 Jon, and to 2021 Jon and 2020 Jon and 2019 Jon, you are an existence that creates nothing but pain. I wish it weren't that way. I wish I had, like, used my fucking brain back then instead of giving in to all my fears. But every time I think about you -- at its worst, entire weeks, and only recently down to four or five times a week -- I feel mostly regret. Regret towards everything I did. Regret towards who I am. Regret, especially, towards who I am not. And knowing that you never truly loved me certainly softens some of that regret, but it also ignites other regrets. What if I had been more conscientious, and tried harder to work everyday to help you actually fall for me? What if I hadn't been so insecure as to force kind words out of your mouth multiple times a day? What if I had believed those same words?
If ifs were fifths we'd all be drunk - and yet, my brain clearly isn't drunk enough. Obviously most of it comes from a selfish place: I need validation, and the only validation accepted by the sulking child in the back of my cerebellum who represents my id comes from romance. Without another human being to immerse themselves in me, marinate in all my flaws and shortcomings, and tell me that I am still their number one always, I wander the wastes endlessly. And wander I will until I die of heatstroke.
*
The burning question then, is why did I end it? The only thing I've ever needed was there in my arms, so why did I let it go? Again, I was thinking about a lot, but I believe deep down in my subconscious I had realized that our love had become empty and performative. My wounded id insists that it was one-sided, that I only started second-guessing us once I started feeling the emptiness from you. But I know it cut both ways. Plus, how could your feelings stay unchanging as you watched me whittle away my life failing and giving up and running away and failing all over again?
*
I wish it brought me closure to say this, but: I told you so! Remember when you said I was big, and I knew you were either lying or just didn't know what bigger than three inches felt like? Told ya so. Remember when I complained that it didn't feel like you truly loved me? I TOLD YA SO!
I recognize now that you're gone for good, that I'll never get closure, that I'll never get to know you ever again. And hey, whatever. You can eat shit for all I care.
Enjoy your life!
- 2020 Jon
*
... okay, let's maybe try that again. with less bitterness this time.
I might finally be getting over. Every previous time I've let myself think that, I quickly realized that I was still stuck, stagnating - and now feels no different, but some things might be starting to settle into place. Or maybe it's that I just watched Love & Mercy and am letting myself be swayed, as always. Still,
I'm finally able to look back without tint, without the wispiness of regret clouding my view. I see now what we had with more clarity, if not in full focus. It was a charade; two people performing intimacy without ever truly knowing it. And while the hurt child inside me insists you were the one lying to yourself, I'm sure it was both of us that were closed to the other. Maybe that's because you never loved me, maybe it's because my paranoid insecurities were always getting in the way, maybe both of us really were destined for each other and it was just the wrong time. Again: not in full focus, not even close. But it feels like I'm taking steps.
*
Still, I cycle. I cycle back and forth between gratitude, and profound regret. I'll be grateful for what we had, then get sad listening to naisho no hanashi because the song ends with her thanking her love for everything, and I don't want you to thank me, I want you to love me and be with me, and thus a tornado warning is issued for my brain. (I've been in a state of mental tornado emergency for the better part of three years, so, just another Tuesday.) I cycle between remembering you as my soulmate, and trying to convince myself that my unmei no hito was her. That one usually means an EF5. I cycle between still loving you, and bitterly resenting everything you did. At that point, we put away the tornado sirens, and start boarding up for a hurricane.
*
About her, by the way. (Is that still your favorite movie? God I would love to catch up with you if I weren't me.) I think the most objective viewpoint is that she's just something I briefly latched onto when our honeymoon phase ended around March '18, when each of us had started truly considering ending things. Everything had seemed so perfect, and then it wasn't, and you know the five stages. By the time I got past denial (as soon as anger came up I pushed it back down) my escapist mind was ripe for greener grass, and there she was. Even if I knew I was just grasping at straws, running away from the cracks forming in our relationship, my defeatism was, well, undefeatable. Valentine's Day certainly didn't help, although I think the idea that it kicked everything into motion is a bit of a reach. But as much as I felt a kinship with her, before you and I ran into rougher waters I held for her nothing but quiet admiration, and even after I ended things between you and I, my feelings towards her were just my flailing attempts to grab a life preserver and keep from drowning.
Well, on the off chance you've been living in jealous paranoia like I have, I did not grab the life preserver (turns out it didn't like me all that much to begin with), and now I sit on the ocean floor, nice and alone. I like it down here; few things bother me, and while I can sense the ripples on the surface above, I'm perfectly comfortable sitting here with thousands of meters of water insulating me from the world up there. Sometimes I think about ascending back up to the surface. But-
at the end of the day, I'm scared.
Hell, I'm scared at the start of the day, throughout the day, and in my dreams. It sure is easy to point fingers, or stand on a soapbox and rally against giving into fear. Me, I hate feeling terrified always. But I want one thing. I have always only ever wanted one thing. Intimacy, real intimacy, soul-bearing intimacy (yes, bearing). It can open up the universe for me, and it can shatter that universe into infinite pieces. Even performed, even without genuine feelings, intimacy animates me. The flipside is that losing that intimacy (or realizing its falsity) leaves a gaping hole that nothing in this world can fill. And I have seen too many times how fleeting real intimacy is, how misaligned I am from everyone around me. And I see now that the one thing, the only thing I ever needed, was a pipe dream all along.
*
Look... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the times I made you cry. I'm sorry that I could never fully trust you. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough. But that's just it: I'm a sorry person. I never deserved you, but I should have tried harder regardless, tried to find different angles of thought, tried to trust you more. I just damaged myself so thoroughly in the process that I'll likely never be able to stand on my own again. And yet - if my failures and stupid decisions helped you grow as a person, it's all worth it, because somewhere deep down my dumb puppydog heart still cares about you.
*
Anyways, I resent you and miss you at the same time, but as I hurtle towards the center of a supermassive black hole, I just hope you have been able to find yourself in my absence - or at least express your truest self in ways you couldn't with me. Yet, at the same time, the thought of you having found happiness with K. after spending two years lying to convince me that I was your happiness makes my fucking stomach churn, makes my brain churn, makes my self-hatred churn. But you're gone, so
enjoy your life. genuinely, this time.
love,
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