Listen to me, me
It is 11 AM on a Tuesday. I’m halfway into a productive day and so looking forward to lunch. The people I surround with are a bit forgiving this time of day and I’m still hooked on my morning playlist. I’m hearing.. Sufjan Stevens?
So. Hi me, this is your other self writing in the moment when your beautiful mind has full control over your whole being; this is the highest point of the day and the better day of the week, with just about the right shade of grey brewing outside to make you calm. Though when you feel a storm coming strong enough to drift you away, I hope that you can find this writing as the only beam you will ever need to get back on land.
Now listen here you little shit.
First and foremost, you’re fine. People are not conspiring against you and everyone is not out to get you. I’m sure you are way ahead of your deadlines and working on the right things to get you to that somewhere. I admit you are far from doing your best, but you are still getting some sleep and doing better as you move along. If the past few sentences did not help, read further by please keep in mind one thing: I love you. I’m sorry it took me too long.
Love yourself, I’ve been told it feels good
Never give more energy to anyone than you give yourself. I’ve seen you made notes about the people you want to be around with: the kind of music they enjoy, the kind of jokes they might laugh to, their usual order in that Chinese place, and how far they would like you to fuck off when they were angry. You spent so much of your time and energy on them that at the end of the day, you feel exhausted to even look in the mirror and compliment yourself on how you keep your hair as it was in the morning.
See, your heart is big enough for everyone but you only have so much energy to spare, you couldn’t even run two laps without wishing you were never born. So if you want to make someone feel good, then by all means do it. But don’t you ever, let that be an excuse for sabotaging or delaying your own well-being. If there comes a point where you feel dragged down as you lift people up, then you need to think long and hard about where you’re standing. I have had far too many shares of draining my own energy for other people and never once its eventuality comes as a good thing. I never had the courage to learn my lesson but I’m putting my money on you to change that. I know you can, and I know you will.
You are allowed to ask for too much
Truth is, this is the hardest thing I will ever convince myself. I would still walk away from a lot of people if I think I’m asking too much. But the reality is that everyone around you is made out of misplaced carbon and emotional baggage. It does not justify yours but it does make it simpler. I understand that when it comes to what you ask from people you tend to undermine yourself, thinking that you are a lot less than what they see of you. But if you truly think about it, the only one who really know you, is you. The only one who know the collective effect of all your pasts and traits is yourself. And if you base other people’s view of you on the whole picture rather than the pieces that they actually genuinely know, then you are doing everyone a disservice. With all that out of the way, I encourage you to go ahead and ask! Ask people to pay more attention, to be honest without being brutal, to tell you how their day went in full exposure. You are not entitled to anything but the only way to know when you cross the line is by asking a little too much.
Though I admit I get why it scares you. You are afraid of them yelling “who do you think you are?!” followed by you lashing out to them and inevitably turning the relationship nuclear. But, frankly, if it’s going to happen, then it just will. People will leave nevertheless, it’s just a matter of who takes the first step. You’re going to climb on to higher ground by proudly telling yourself that they don’t realise what they’re missing. But you know what, they sort of do, and sometimes it isn’t a good enough reason to make anyone stay.
Try to be more civilised in loving
I apologise that you are so exposed to the world it spoils you of the concept of love. Romeo and Juliet isn’t really a love story, what happens in The Notebook would never happen past 2017, Ross and Rachel’s relationship are rotten to the core. Want me to go on about Forrest and Jenny? These are all what it should be, fiction. Written by the kind of people with imagination and writing abilities far more extensive than their collective history of heartbreaks. I have been the victim of hope and a slave to my vulnerability. But these were born out of a gravely mistaken thought that love is an emotion that constitutes the epitome of passion. Well, it isn’t. I don’t know what it is to be honest. I’m guessing it has nothing to do with being passionate and everything to do with being unapologetic. For someone who grew up in a household that taught you to only be fluent in apologies, you need to be much more resilient in choosing who you give out your sorries to.
Your unwavering series of failed relationships, unrequited feelings, and even platonic relationships that flunked should be treated as blessings. You know deep in you that for everything that didn’t went well, you grow a little bit wiser and know a little bit better about what you want. Though you may ask what to do with those people, and how to be content with knowing what could be? I’d say keep doing what you’re doing, but tone it down a notch. Keep talking to them, keep paying attention to them, and keep reminding them that you’re there. It’s funny how much of your problems can be solved simply by being more articulate and using fewer metaphors. You constantly wonder why people don’t understand what you were saying but truth is, you weren’t giving them much clarity to begin with. Don’t let other people’s absence of love towards you forces you to be blunt. That part of you that knows they are gone is friend with the part of you that wishes they never left. Both of those parts in you still love them, but those parts need to learn to do it at a distance. Learn how to love people at arm’s length.
Apologise to the goddamn mirror now would you
I know you blame your parents, or your religion, or your schools, or your country, or your genes, or your failed dates. I know that in your worst days you want to blame all of them for making you the way you are. I also know that after blaming them all day you beat yourself up for not owing to your own mistakes and decisions, then you went ahead and blame yourself. Man, aren’t you a messy one. After you exhaust yourself with throwing out blames to everyone and everything, you might feel like the decent thing to do is to forgive them. But it’s not. You couldn’t wholly forgive others without first saying sorry to yourself. Listen to that song by Gordon Lightfoot, or look at a collection of overcast photos at Unsplash, or that tub of Ben & Jerry’s that was so abhorrently expensive you put a post it note over it that says “911 ONLY”. Forgive yourself by tapping into your own world. Its a beautiful one I might add, I’ve seen it myself.
See, you know exactly what you need, your arsenal of feel-goods are in place, and the building blocks of your happiness know how to take a shake. You just need a wee nudge. Which is why we found ourselves in this situation where I’m giving advice to myself like a crazy person because someone has such a big ego he wouldn’t listen to anyone else.
You survived worse, whatever this is it aint shit
Remember that evening in October when you were so deep in the pit you cartoonishly plan out your own exit? Yeah, I remember that too. You told yourself that overused bit about how the planets will still orbit and sun will still shines but you never thought about me. I wanted to have a say in it too. Thinking about it now, I didn’t think you were capable of it but I’m also glad that you were such a hotheaded person to reason to that we ended up having a plan with zero percent chance of actually happening. You were so worried about having loose ends that you wouldn’t dare leaving while still hooked to your rental contract, or that your Instagram feed isn’t divisible by six, or that you haven’t caught up to your Icelandic while shamelessly putting it as a language skill in your LinkedIn. You tried to look for ways that elicit the least pain but then Google gives a warning and you made an excuse to yourself — something about making a crime novel. I’m just going to find that funny.
But if anything, I’m glad you’re still here and if there can only be one plan that you fail to pull off, I’m grateful it’s that one.
We are all born a fool man repeatedly asking ourselves foolish questions. With every one left unanswered a man grows taller and somewhat wiser. You don’t have to punish yourself for being human as much as a fish should not punish itself for its inability to swing around trees. We all have our own domain that offers struggle we were made to tackle. Whatever bad things you are feeling or however painful, are made to pass. Storms don’t come so that whatever stands in its way could get used to it. You don’t get used to being destroyed, you stand tall and firm. Or you run like hell.
Know that at the end of the longest day, at the bottom of the darkest pit, or in the middle of the roughest storm, you will always have me. I got you, my friend. I promise we will get a whole lot stronger.
D.
