As I mentioned yesterday, B, my ex-fiancee, wrote to me on Friday night. She found this blog. She’s upset with the amount of detail in it, and that it has real names and faces – mainly hers and mine. She’s emailed again and wants to know why I can’t just use initials, and why I need to use pictures and texts. I’m hesitant to write her back – that hasn’t worked that well for me in the past. There are days, I ask myself how we got to this point – why couldn’t we break the cycle? I’ve contemplated this question of detail a few times before – I don’t have a clear or a singular answer. It ties in with audience, voice, ownership of the story, authenticity, risk, and my own need to not feel crazy. I hope to think about and try to answer this question on this page… for now, this is the post.
I’ve contemplated taking the entire site down – I don’t know. I may do that before I ever adequately answer this post…. As best as I can tell, I have two or three readers – B and her boyfriend, and maybe someone in Philly. B and her boyfriend are both unhappy. My hope was to be insightful, to write a path to healing and self discovery – for me, maybe for B, maybe for friends or anyone who found their way here (I never marketed it or promoted it, never shared any links – I trusted that the curious would find it – knowing full well, nobody was curious about me or what I had to say). My goal was to write well, and write often – not to make people unhappy.
Anyone who knew the old me, the person I was just a year ago, would know that I tried to make everyone happy – especially B. I’ve since lost so much of myself. I was an amazing man. When B left and said the things she said, when Jen stopped being my friend, turned on me, piled on, and ghosted me I stopped thinking of myself as good person. I stopped thinking of myself as someone who makes other people happy. I had the two people closest to me tell me I’ve done nothing but make them unhappy. Maybe that’s the answer to why pictures and details – to prove to myself and anyone else, that I wasn’t this controlling and manipulative monster – this person who B feared and loathed. That she and I were genuinely happy, not just content or getting by like most couples, but really happy and in love. We were ready to take on the world, ready to live long, happy, and healthy lives together. I swear, I was the sweetest, kindest, happiest guy around – my heart was so full of love and compassion – most days I was floating. If I held on too tightly, it was only because I wanted to know and understand on an even deeper level, and I didn’t know how else to be.
Thanksgiving is coming up. It’s the first one I’ll be spending alone – it’ll probably be good for me. I was going to spend part of the day writing about it, the complex feelings it’s sure to raise – the happiness and sadness of all that’s happened since last year…. got engaged, moved in together, broke up, broke down, lost my sense of home, lost my future, lost myself, moved away. The other day Mom sent a picture – it was of my B and I at Thanksgiving. Our smiles were genuine… I don’t think you can fake that. Nobody ever made me feel so at home.