Penning Notes

When I was a kid my mom use to make me write notes when i was sad. Obviously i was a pretty sensitive kid. I mean i was outgoing and a troublemaker. I was smart and inquisitive but I was always a little sad, always an over thinker and a bit of a loner.

My mood has always been mercurial and to understand them better my mom would make me write about what was making me blue at the exact moment I started feeling it. Literally she would see me in a corner sulking, ask what was wrong, and then give me paper to draw or write my feelings out. My brother was the drawer in the family, so naturally I compensated with words.

And I guess that's why journaling and writing has always been a thing I've done. For as long as I can remember, anything I've ever written has been related to 'the feels', a place where my emotional and mental state reside. I have never been one to express myself well in speech. I tend to get choked up and tongue tied at the sound of my own voice. I feel anxious and am prepared for criticism. But words are easy. They come straight from 'the feels' a place, unlike my brain, that i rarely second guess.

So when The Dumb Boy asked me to write him a letter last night describing why I am still mad at him, it sort of made sense. Last night we worked together but it was awkward as fuck. When I got in he wanted a hug. I looked at him like he was crazy and asked him why. He said because it's "your Beckett thing. You give hugs and stuff. Its your norm". I looked him straight in the eye and told him I didn't want to hug him. Hugs aren't what we do anymore and then I pitifully told him we could air hug it out. He looked genuinely upset but I was unmoved.

The rest of the night we were annoyingly pleasant and cordial. I listened to him tell dumb stories. He laughed at my lame attempts at conversation. I asked him if he could drive me home and he said yea and then said "or we could..." but i cut him short and said 'we could drive me home. That's it".

The bulk of our relationship is spent in his car. I can't tell you how many times I've talked it out with him there. But last night I wasn't really in the mood to talk. But i told him that our friend from work asked if we were okay and it thought it was weird because no one outside of Kat knows what happened. He asked what i told our co-worker/friend so i relayed what i said: I told him that i felt my relationship with Sean was like an unfair boxing match. Sean's in one corner with steel gloves and I have nothing. And i have gone through many rounds getting pummeled by this kid. I have been sucker punched over and over again but eventually you don't feel like getting hit anymore. Eventually you realize you can't win the fight, so you give up.

Sean said: so this means you feel like your in an abusive relationship with me
Me: I feel like a person so use to being battered emotionally, i flinch when you are near.

When he pulled in front of my drive way there was that stupid moment of silence where we didn't know what to say to one another. Eventually he said I could call him if i wanted to talk further but i said i didn't want to call  him. There was nothing more to say out loud. So then he suggested I email him instead 'because you're the writer and everything' and despite how mad i was at him....motherfucker was right. So i spent three hours penning him an email. I put everything down on 'paper', here are some of the excerpts:

• the last few weeks have been shit and it all stems that weekend. Which sucks because I had a fucking dope time Sunday/Monday. When you asked me to hang out and go to the bar, I was all in. I didn’t really want to go to work anyway, I wanted to see John and his gf, I actually wanted to watch wresting but mainly I wanted to hang out with you. And it was great. There was wrestling and sort of drunk you and swimming and Roy (his cat). There was Rumble in the Bronx and oatmeal and Oldboy. There were all those elements of hanging out with you that i like
• So naturally when the other stuff happened  I was little confused. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t spend as much time around a person without developing some feelings. But my feelings for you have always been on a ebb and flow basis depending on the day. There are moments when I like you more than i should.  You were like the jordan catalona to my angela chase (my so called life reference. Check it out). And despite everyone warning me of your immaturity and selfishness and shady character (their words not mine), I saw something else. You were a little jaded and rough around the edges but I liked you cause you the opposite of me.
• but you tend to throw the ‘my gf is it for me’ thing in my face at the weirdest times. The weirdest! as if you are reminding yourself to remind me that you don’t like me. Which would be okay, if i at any point in our friendship I’d made a move on. But I’ve always respected your boundaries. I’ve surprisingly always respected your relationship with your gf. And I don’t want a half assed relationship with anyone and would never put myself in a position to be with someone who didn’t want me and me alone. AND I’ve never really felt respected by you. I’ve often times felt available and within reach like a lapdog you can count on to always be around. But nothing more.
• So needless to say the last few weeks and the mess that has followed has to do with the other stuff that happened that weekend. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. Seanie, if I can be honest right now I would not ask to take a shower with someone I don’t like or at least have not thought about seeing naked. Past, Present or Future. I would never take a bath with a friend or even a roommate because of the intimacy it entails Hell I don’t even drink from the same cup as family members. Those are very intimate acts that you don’t get involved in with someone that’s just a random friend. And I think you don’t understand that intimacy does not have to be sexual but it’s not one you share with just anyone.
• And while all that shit that happened was also really dope that weekend, I kind of felt awkward afterwards. I felt invalidated when you were like ‘well it’s just body parts, penis, boobs, it’s not like I wanna have sex with you”, I was a little disgusted. Cause in my mind I’m like here I am with the boy I trust the most in our most exposed state and he’s being mad dismissive of it. And it felt intimate. Not sexual. But intimate. But that is still something that cannot be discarded. Cause I would never have done any of those things with….anyone. I would not have put myself in that position with someone I didn’t wholly trust and believe they had my interest as well in the back of their mind.
• So when I came to you on Tuesday to talk about it, it wasn’t because I wanted you to say that you liked me. That you had an interest. Girl you be fiiine. But because I felt like the safety of our kind of flirty and argumentative and fun tension filled relationship had been blurred. And I didn’t want to straddle that line, especially after the previous gates where NOTHING happened and I was still getting the ‘my gf is it for me spiel’.  And if you just would have said “you know what you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t have done all the stuff. It was kind of wrong. I fucked up. You’re my best friend and I hate that I made you feel that way”. I would have been a little hurt and miffed and ignored you for a few days but still okay with it. Because In all honesty it’s how I felt. But instead you said that I didn’t have to worry about you cheating on your gf with me because ‘I’m not attracted to you. I’m sorry. What else do you want me to say. She’s all the way up here and everyone else is…” you get the point. What you said was harsh. It was rude. And it was insensitive and immature. Especially because I didn’t and haven’t initiate anything outside of being your friend for the last four years.
• that's something you say to someone who has thrown themselves at you despite repeated rejection. It’s something you say to someone who has been reading the signals wrong. It something to say to a clingy asshole. Not someone who has let you sleep in her room without any kinky shit going down. Not to someone who let you use her phone to call your gf.  Not to the girl who has despite past or current feelings for you has been really respectful of your relationship with your gf. And mainly not to someone who didn’t ask for any of that shit to occur but who just participated because in her mind she was hanging out with a boy she thought was great and who she thought thought the same thing of her.  
• And for the life of me, I can’t imagine you being okay with your gf taking a shower or bath with a male friend. If she were attracted to him or not. I can’t imagine you thinking it was normal and just an everyday thing.
  I’m serious.
  For a moment, PLEASE, put her in this situation and maybe then the fuckedupness of it all will make more sense. I’m not saying it to be a douche or because I know she’s a sensitive topic and you get mad defensive but you don’t see anyone outside of her. That was the only honest thing I got from you in the car that Tuesday. You take her in to account more than anyone else, because of this  for a moment just imagine your gf hanging out with her close male friend and asking him to do all the things we did that weekend in the bathroom, how would you react?
  Just imagine it for a moment? How would it look to you from an outside perspective?Whatever you are feeling now is how I felt. That’s how I feel. It's fucking terrible isn't it?
• And I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. There's a part of me that is always going to want to be your friend. I want you to have a banging good time before you join the Navy. But right now it feels like we’re strangers. And That’s what I mean when I said we aren’t friends because we’ll never be like we were before. We could be nothing after this. . I don’t want it to be, but… we could. I’m hoping will be better then before. A little more honest and less blurred lines but better. But only you can fix this. I’ll do my part.  I’ll remain present and here. I won’t disappear. But I’m bruised and battered man. I’m worn down. I’m a little broken. You keep throwing punches and pushing me further away and I’m a flinch away from giving up on this.

Yea, the letter ended up being a lot longer but that's the gist of it. I've done all i can. I've been a decent human being to this boy and he didn't deserve it. I've also spent the last three weeks hoping he'd attempt to make things better and I've gotten nothing more than him rubbing his head on my shoulder and a 'i'm sorry that you're sad' apology. This feels like the end with Sean. And while stressful and sad and tearful it feels right.