A Letter To Someone Who Is Leaving

I feel bad about the other day.

There are a lot of reasons why, but the biggest one is because I couldn’t stand the way it felt when I realized that you care more about me than I do about myself. And because I couldn’t stand the way that felt, I did everything I could to push you away.

When things are at their worst, I want to believe that no one else cares about me because that’s the easiest thing to believe. It’s a terrible place to find myself, but it’s still better than realizing that you can summon the will to care about me when I don’t care about myself.

To reiterate what we talked about the other day: yes, I’m scared. Of pretty much everything. And yes, that includes you leaving and me being here without you. Since I’ve known you, I’ve felt like your presence has meant that everything was going to be okay. I know feeling this way is irrational and unrealistic and maybe it’s way too much comfort to derive from another human being.

But that’s the way I’ve felt.

I’ve learned a lot from you, but the most important thing I’ve learned is that a place like this exists and that I could be a small part of it. A place where we can drop the façade we’re all forced to carry around so everyone else feels comfortable.

And I think that’s what I’ve been so upset about during the past few weeks; I realize how important this is and how fleeting it is but I still can’t bring myself to open up. It feels like everything I’ve gained is slipping away and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I imagine that, in a certain way, this is what dying feels like.

I know you’re leaving. I’m painfully aware of it. And I’ve seen enough to know that I shouldn’t have expected you to care the way you cared. That I shouldn’t have expected you to give a shit the way you gave a shit. I know you went above and beyond what you were required to do, and you were there even when it wasn’t convenient for you to be there. Even when you were sacrificing little parts of your soul to be there when it would have been so much easier for you to be somewhere else.

So I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for giving a shit. Thank you for caring. Thank you for being patient with me.

After all this, I feel like you really understand me, which is incredible because I’m not sure if I understand myself.

There’s so much racing through my mind right now and it’s overwhelming. But more than anything I’m just I’m really, really going to miss you.

The truth is, I miss you already. You’re not even gone and I miss you. And, I think, this is how we know if we really care about someone else: we start missing them before they’re even gone.