On Losing Myself 12-10-11
"Just don’t lose yourself, Amanda," he said. "You have to remember that I’m here for the long haul."
And I felt ashamed.
I broke sometime between twilight and dusk last night, on the curvaceous highways toward Milwaukee, somewhere around Holy Hill. I didn’t cry but I wanted to, I didn’t scream but I bet it would have felt better. I put on my adult voice that pounded with the cadence of misery and pain and explained why, exactly, I’ve been so wound up, so angry, so depressed.
It doesn’t make sense to me: If Brandon wanted our friendship to die, he should have left it buried in July, not resurrected it in September. Why drag it out? To screw with my feelings? I’ve never fought harder to keep someone in my life. But as Dustin gently reminded me, "Fighting for it is a good thing. But how long do you fight before you start beating yourself up?" Touche, love. But this is the first time Brandon has completely ignored my texts. What did I do to bring this about? Nothing at all, besides try to be a good friend.
Maybe he’s found being friends with me when he loves me is too difficult. Maybe he stopped loving me. Maybe he is just busy and has his priorities all mixed up. Maybe I’m an idiot for thinking I should be a priority. But I do know that I didn’t put all this time, effort, patience, and love into the friendship just so it could end up like this, namely wasted time and energy. Dustin shook his head and covered his hand with mine and replied, "But you cannot control that." Oh, but I want to. "Well, you can’t. No matter how much you want to."
And then he told me I was losing myself. And I was ashamed.
I am always chasing the things that try to get away from me and neglect the most precious things. What am I doing?
I cannot exorcise Brandon from my thoughts, but I can control how I react to it. I can try to distract myself, I can embrace happiness instead. Until it becomes second nature, as Dustin says.
We had a long talk a few nights ago. I told him that we don’t talk about things that matter enough. He’s got this emotional wall up around me. He doesn’t talk about the people who have left him. And people leaving doesn’t seem to faze him much. I asked him how he does it and he replied, "When something like that happens to you, you learn that you can’t let your emotions get the best of you." I wish I knew how to do it, but that’s a shitty excuse, since it mostly takes equal doses of willpower and practice.
I want to cry, because I am so ashamed of myself. I have let all these external forces get the best of me, even though I made so much progress in the last few months. In July I was the master at taming my moods. It didn’t bother me much during this past week, but I was exercising. Maybe that’s my great way of releasing tension, aggression, and my inadequacy feelings from trying to be perfect or close to it all the time.
I will deal with this, because the only way out is through. And I have so many other happy, beautiful things to focus on. Like my wonderful boyfriend, or those friends of mine that love me and want to see me. I am silly.
Love,
Amanda