The things we think and do not say

Earlier this week, I came across a letter I wrote to my one of my former partners but never shared with her. I had forgotten about it, it lost in the endless notes on my iPhone. When I re-read it, I realized it was one of the most beautiful, honest things I’d ever written. Insightful, revealing of myself, sharing of myself in a way I never had (and still haven’t). I didn’t end up sending it, because when I wrote it last summer, I thought it would have been received as defensive and justifying. But I read it this week, I realized it may have been received differently.

Or maybe not.

This all left me sitting with this idea about those things we never say. The thoughts and truths that come to our minds and get stuck there. The apologies we didn’t make. The truths we did not share. The questions we never asked. The realizations with we withheld. The things we wish we had said in a moment, but now it is too late. The words we’ve rephrased in own minds over and over, but now there is no one there to listen.

Those words that can carry so much weight as we hold them in our thoughts.

I had imagined writing this with sections about each of the sort of topics we don’t speak about with examples from my life and the reasons why we hold back and debate on whether it is good or bad. But, I’ve decided to go a different way. I’m in the process of letting go of the past, of learning how to be in the present, not trying to predict the future. I am aware of all that I cannot control and accepting that it is only my choices, my outlook, my thoughts and actions I can control.

Instead of putting meaning behind the things I think/have thought/wish I had said, I will just state them. The context of who they are for doesn’t matter. Different people. Different times. A different me. I realize that in sharing these I seek catharsis for myself. I have taken many steps in letting go of some people, thoughts, and beliefs from my life and this feels like another. An acknowledgment and a goodbye all at once.

• I regret the times I was dishonest. That was a broken version of me. I am learning to forgive her, But I wish I could have been different then. I appreciate that I am terrible liar, so you caught me in them and the lies could be exposed, so I could come to terms with that part of myself. I am glad to be healing, but regret the hurt I caused.
• I know you lied to me. From the beginning. More than once. Lies that were big and small. I forgive you.
• I sincerely hope your new path is the one you’ve been seeking all these years.
• I regret my people pleasing behavior. Some of it was an attempt to be in control and I see now much of it was harmful.
• Why do you have so much malice toward your exes? Why don’t you want them to be happy?
• I’m sad we lost each other along the way, but there has been so much gained from the time we spent together.
• I will never allow someone to treat me like that again. Ever.
• It really does bring me much happiness and warmth to know you’ve found someone to share your love and build the life you’ve always wanted.
• I am not responsible for the choices you made and regret. I am not responsible for your behavior. I hope one day you can take responsibility for yourself.
• The best lessons you taught me where the ones you didn’t intend to. Thank you for teaching me how truly strong I am.
• I regret the times I didn’t really listen to you, the times I didn’t really acknowledge your feelings or experiences. I was too stuck in myself to see you. I’m sorry.
• Why wouldn’t you let me go when you had already moved on?
• You used me as an emotional dumping ground.
• I wish I had not tolerated your anger and hateful words. If I could do it over again, so much would be different. I forgive myself for this and I think one day I’ll be able to forgive you.
• I know me leaving triggered your abandonment wound. I am sorry.
• Family can hurt you if you don’t exercise healthy boundaries. Until you do, there will always be toxicity in those relationships.
• Sometimes people post to social media not to make another person/people jealous or show how great their life is, but just because they are trying to feel OK and social validation helps. So many of us are struggling more than we can admit and we just need a little push, even if it is superficial. The things I put out into this world are to help me, not to harm another.
• I regret my defensiveness and reactivity. I apologize for that behavior and how it impacted you.
• No matter what argument you present, you were controlling and that behavior profoundingly impacted me.
• My emotional resiliency is not an endless well. It broke. I broke. There was too much trauma, stress, and pain heaped on me. I do not regret who I was in 2020, but I do regret how I communicated through my pain. I am sorry for not being able to be more present and open.
• I wish you could have truly seen me, the full some of my parts and loved me as I was. Not the version of me that lived up on your pedestal or the version that was despised. Just me.
• I will always wonder why you got so hung up on the money. Why it mattered to you in some way it never mattered to me.
• I sometimes wish I hadn’t had so many feelings, but more I wish you could have just sat with my feelings and I wish you could have been better at sitting with your own.
• Thank you for helping to show me all the things I want in a partner.
• Thank you for the space you could hold for me. Thank you for the love, understanding and care you gave.
• Lashing out is verbal abuse.
• It is wrong to push people to look at their past traumas they are not ready to open up themselves. It is not anyone’s place to “show” another what they aren’t ready to see or to dig up their past without permission. You can break a person doing this. I wasn’t ready. I spent the better part of a year wanting to die.
• Telling someone “I would never have allowed that to happen to me” in regards to abusive is victim shaming and one of the cruelest things you can say to a survivor. We weren’t in a fight. You said it cooly and directly, like you meant it. That day was the first time I realized you probably weren’t the person for me. Because the person for me, someone who could truly love me (and at the time, I was the person you supposedly loved the most) would never invalidate the very real abusive experiences I have had. The experiences you knew I was in the midst of trying to process. I wish I had known how to respond in the moment. I felt so small and awful. I wished to no longer exist. It is the one thing I will never forgive you for.
• It is wrong to trigger another person on purpose.
• I had a right to privacy of my thoughts, my therapy, my experiences. I was not required to tell you everything. Sometimes I just wasn’t ready to share. It does not make me inauthentic or a liar. I get to share with others what I want, and when I’m ready to.
• Feelings are not facts.
• I know your behaviors are reflections of how you feel about yourself. I hope you can learn to forgive yourself and love yourself. We all deserve that peace in life.
• You project. A LOT.
• My reality is valid, even if you do not share it. I forgive you for the times you invalidated my reality. I know you did that for your own safety.
• I cannot control your narratives about me. They will be what you need them to be.
• I forgive you for treating me the way you feel about yourself.
• I am coming to peace with what is and what was. There was so much pure love and joy between us. Some of the lightest times of my life that will always hold so much beauty in my heart were with you. I still think of you often. I still have affection for you. I miss you sometimes. I didn’t really want to say goodbye to you, to leave. But I had to for my own well-being. It took all my emotional strength to make the choice to fully stop speaking to you, but I did it. In the space since then, I realized saying goodbye was, and still is, the right thing. I opened the door for a moment recently, wondering if maybe now we could be friends. But no. You aren’t someone I need to have in my life. You kept telling me to stop looking back, to let it go. You were right. The letting go is exactly what I needed. Goodbye & be well.

After I wrote the above, I read each out loud, then closed my eyes, and watched the words unfurl, then float away from me and dissipating into thin air. There is so much to letting go of what was and coming to accept what is. I’m learning the importance of saying things as they come up, but also seeing the beauty in finding space to release thoughts later. I do not need anyone particular to hear them; I am unlikely to find closure with another person. The closure is within me. The closure is in forgiving myself for the things I did or didn’t say, the behaviors I did or didn’t do, the hurts I caused or ignored, the parts of myself I sacrificed, the times I didn’t stand up for me, and the ways in which I hurt myself.

My mission for 2021 is to let go and to prioritize myself and my healing. I feel stillness coming more easily to me. Guilt and shame appear, but are made peace with more quickly. I keep doing the ego work, keep examining my fears, dig deeper into myself to heal my wounds. To be so focused on myself so much still brings discomfort. But as I see my self love growing, I feel strangely happy and optimistic.

Below is a picture of my cat, Walter. I love it because to me, his expression embodies the feeling of horror we all experience about our own existences at times. All we can do is try to find peace in our present moments, love ourselves better, and roll with with this weird experience that is life.

Next up: The future.