![[militant?]quack(&)bleer](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SJmxsu3Ghi0/SzFvVdLqP6I/AAAAAAAAAH4/F-iYIVwxf58/S660/100_4526.JPG)
I am writing you a letter- one that I may never send you. But that's okay... just know that it is from the heart, and probably is more for me than for you. I hope that's alright.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about myself. What is my problem? Why am I so hung up on you? Why am I so hung up on relationships, or intimacy or whatever. I clearly say one thing and do the other. I say that I would be terrified of commitment, but I crave it- not the act of committing, but people being committed to me. Does that make sense? Some sort of one-sided expectation of how love and devotion is supposed to work out.
At the end of the day, I do think that we are pretty incompatible. I don't think that we want intimacy in the same ways. I feel very nervous about things like kissing in public or holding hands because I feel like those things are for show. Some sort of public ritual to for us to say, "hey! look! someone loves me!" that makes me uncomfortable. Holding someone's hand for too long makesm e feel uncomfortable- my affection is a lot more active than that. If I am going to hold a lover's hand, then I want to examine it, feel the sharpness of their fingernails, trace their fingerprints, read their palm lines. There was an activity once I did in an ensemble building theatre workshop. We had to go around the room and memorize people's hands- the only thing we could say was our names. Halfway through the exercise, the instructor informed us that we would have to identify each other through our hands.. but with our eyes closed. We immediately began to scramble around the room, feeling for callouses and wrinkles, noticing now whose hands were the softest or the most beaten. It was a different, more deeper level of understanding each other. I met someone from that workshop months later and I didn't remember his name, but I remembered his hands.
This is the kind of intimacy that I am looking for. I want to be able to find my lover with my eyes closed, and know them. I think that this might be too much to ask from you, because honestly, you are still too young (who am i kidding? we both are) and you are not that good in bed. Correction- you are not that good to me in bed. I am not going to say that I am a better lover than you, but if we were in the dark, I don't think you would be able to find me. I don't think you know my body map because you were never interested in exploring me. You are content with holding hands in public.
It is hard for me to feel like I love someone more. I am trying to get over that and allow myself to be vulnerable. But I think it has to do with needing to possess someone, and needing them to feel like they possess me. That strange sort of co-dependency is something I should work on. That has nothing to do with you. In fact, I have started to wonder if you aren't some vessel for me to dump my feelings of neediness and love onto and that's not fair. It's not fair to me to be in something that feels so emotionally one-sided and it's not fair for you to be my trash can for my emotional immaturity. We are both being wronged here.
I don't want to take away the legitimacy of my feelings for you. Those feelings are still pulsating and full of color and light. They are innocent and strong. In a lot of ways you were my first- after being in so many non-consensual sexual encounters in my lifetime.. ones that I felt I was forced or coerced into, ones that I was under the influence for.. I feel fortunate to have been in a sexual and romantic relationship that felt good and safe and ready for. I am glad to have experienced that at all and am sad that it couldn't have happened sooner (and lasted longer.) I will always be grateful to you for being my chosen first, and I am happy to say that I no longer feel like I should be traumatized.. that I should be waiting for my body to freeze up and lock, or that I should use my trauma as an excuse to not seek intimacy with other, but instead accept it as a part of my identity, something that may or may not show up now and then.
Right. So I guess I spent the summer wanting to know where we stand. But I think I've known for a long time. And I want to let you go, because I have never seen you look as happy and comfortable in your skin as you have this summer. I want that for you and I don't think you would ever get that from me being in your life any further. I also realize that I am very jealous of your happiness- maybe my clinging to you was my attempt at claiming some that for myself.. maybe if I was in your life while you were happy, it meant that I was a part of the reason for that happiness. I don't think that's true, nor has it been for a while. I don't think we'll meet again in the future... or if we do, it will be brief and very anti-climactic. I need to start letting go of my little girl fantasies.. my life is not- and will never be- some cheesy Romantic Comedy. It is time for me to keep moving forward, and keep myself open for blessings that might be coming my way. I missed one possible blessing this summer because of my own insecurities and emotional hang ups. Thank you for holding some of my emotional shit for the past year or so, but now I think I'm ready to take it back.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about myself. What is my problem? Why am I so hung up on you? Why am I so hung up on relationships, or intimacy or whatever. I clearly say one thing and do the other. I say that I would be terrified of commitment, but I crave it- not the act of committing, but people being committed to me. Does that make sense? Some sort of one-sided expectation of how love and devotion is supposed to work out.
At the end of the day, I do think that we are pretty incompatible. I don't think that we want intimacy in the same ways. I feel very nervous about things like kissing in public or holding hands because I feel like those things are for show. Some sort of public ritual to for us to say, "hey! look! someone loves me!" that makes me uncomfortable. Holding someone's hand for too long makesm e feel uncomfortable- my affection is a lot more active than that. If I am going to hold a lover's hand, then I want to examine it, feel the sharpness of their fingernails, trace their fingerprints, read their palm lines. There was an activity once I did in an ensemble building theatre workshop. We had to go around the room and memorize people's hands- the only thing we could say was our names. Halfway through the exercise, the instructor informed us that we would have to identify each other through our hands.. but with our eyes closed. We immediately began to scramble around the room, feeling for callouses and wrinkles, noticing now whose hands were the softest or the most beaten. It was a different, more deeper level of understanding each other. I met someone from that workshop months later and I didn't remember his name, but I remembered his hands.
This is the kind of intimacy that I am looking for. I want to be able to find my lover with my eyes closed, and know them. I think that this might be too much to ask from you, because honestly, you are still too young (who am i kidding? we both are) and you are not that good in bed. Correction- you are not that good to me in bed. I am not going to say that I am a better lover than you, but if we were in the dark, I don't think you would be able to find me. I don't think you know my body map because you were never interested in exploring me. You are content with holding hands in public.
It is hard for me to feel like I love someone more. I am trying to get over that and allow myself to be vulnerable. But I think it has to do with needing to possess someone, and needing them to feel like they possess me. That strange sort of co-dependency is something I should work on. That has nothing to do with you. In fact, I have started to wonder if you aren't some vessel for me to dump my feelings of neediness and love onto and that's not fair. It's not fair to me to be in something that feels so emotionally one-sided and it's not fair for you to be my trash can for my emotional immaturity. We are both being wronged here.
I don't want to take away the legitimacy of my feelings for you. Those feelings are still pulsating and full of color and light. They are innocent and strong. In a lot of ways you were my first- after being in so many non-consensual sexual encounters in my lifetime.. ones that I felt I was forced or coerced into, ones that I was under the influence for.. I feel fortunate to have been in a sexual and romantic relationship that felt good and safe and ready for. I am glad to have experienced that at all and am sad that it couldn't have happened sooner (and lasted longer.) I will always be grateful to you for being my chosen first, and I am happy to say that I no longer feel like I should be traumatized.. that I should be waiting for my body to freeze up and lock, or that I should use my trauma as an excuse to not seek intimacy with other, but instead accept it as a part of my identity, something that may or may not show up now and then.
Right. So I guess I spent the summer wanting to know where we stand. But I think I've known for a long time. And I want to let you go, because I have never seen you look as happy and comfortable in your skin as you have this summer. I want that for you and I don't think you would ever get that from me being in your life any further. I also realize that I am very jealous of your happiness- maybe my clinging to you was my attempt at claiming some that for myself.. maybe if I was in your life while you were happy, it meant that I was a part of the reason for that happiness. I don't think that's true, nor has it been for a while. I don't think we'll meet again in the future... or if we do, it will be brief and very anti-climactic. I need to start letting go of my little girl fantasies.. my life is not- and will never be- some cheesy Romantic Comedy. It is time for me to keep moving forward, and keep myself open for blessings that might be coming my way. I missed one possible blessing this summer because of my own insecurities and emotional hang ups. Thank you for holding some of my emotional shit for the past year or so, but now I think I'm ready to take it back.
