A letter from Feb 01, 2025

Dear FutureMe, I don't know if you remember this week, but I think you probably do because I know me, and so I know you. But just in case you need a refresher: Earlier this week, a boy sat you down and told you that the things that you thought you were building, the space that you shared and the energy you gave, weren't what he needed anymore. No, it wasn't that he didn't need them, that's uncharitable. If you take him at his word, which I did and I think we will continue to do, he just couldn't have them anymore. He didn't have the emotional capacity to maintain and explore whatever future you were discovering together, and recognised that as something he needed to change, but had to do it alone. So... you let him do it alone. Well, no, I guess at time of writing I haven't really yet, but I hope you are. Letting him. I didn't that night, when I talked and probed and attempted to problem-solve the mind of someone who didn't know how to feel what he was feeling, let alone explain it to someone else. I think I spoke myself in circles for nearly two hours, trying to work out why he didn't speak to me about it before, why he answered my previous enquiries about his wellbeing with 'yeah, not bad', instead of 'not good love, not good, I don't know what we're doing or where we're going and I don't know how to tell you that I can't carry the weight of you caring for me without it looming over me as a reminder of how little I feel about anything'. But I didn't get an answer to that, and I don't think you have the answer either. If you do, well, I take great joy in being proven wrong. But I can feeling myself retreating into cynicism as a defence against being disappointed again because man, I feel so disappointed. To have a wounded heart is not unique, and there is plenty of literature and poetry out there that tells us it is possible to relish and cherish heartbreak because it shows us just how much we care, and that love is pervasive even after the object of that love is gone, but standing in the aftermath of the storm I can't see the clear sky. All I can feel is how my feet are sodden and cold. And instead of turning around and heading home and drying off, all my body wants to do is run towards those clouds again, as if some how I can fashion an umbrella or a raincoat out of that care I have for him, and show him that we can weather it together. Because his was one hell of a storm, and I hate to think of him having to face it alone. I have always run towards problems. I am so motivated by solving them, and in some cases have such a staggering confidence that I will be successful in doing so that I baffle myself. When it comes to people, to love and care and understanding, I am so drawn to unpicking the knots that I can't understand why some people would rather just throw the whole ball of wool away. It is a great privilege to be so comfortable with people so quickly, when you feel a connection, to want to share and unfold and lay bare, and I try and view it as a gift. But it means I love hard and I love quick, and it makes me so, so tired. And there are times like right now where I wish I could feel less. Care less, pack it all in and take my heart off my sleeve and stop. Caring. Because it would mean in times like this, I could pick myself up and walk away. Not run into the storm. But when there is a crumb of hope, I don't know how to. As a singer once said, I didn't have it in myself to go with grace. I wonder if you've learned how to yet, if you managed to choose letting him do it alone, or whether you fought to stay outside in the rain just a little longer. That's where I am right now, and I think that's just where I'm going to be for a while. Sitting on the rain-soaked ground at the crossroads between going with grace, and fighting. From where I am right now, both seem like a foolish waste of time, and both feel like the only way forward. I hope you're not still sitting there but if you are, I hope at least you're feeling more comfortable than I am. I think that's something I am almost too desperate to learn, how to sit in discomfort. I know that I claw my way out of discomfort and uncertainty with a kind of freneticism that could be read as impulsiveness or naivety or instability. But I've also seen people I love waste away after giving their lot to the hands of pseudo-stoicism, the 'well, **** me I guess' of it all. If there's a change I need to make in my life, and I have the ability to make it, why would I not? Why do people not? I know that there are lots of reasons people don't, I know, and I don't begrudge them for living stationary. But I find it so hard to, so when I'm presented with a boy in front of me who, I feel so vehemently, could find a way to keep me in his life if only he talked to me, shared things with me, if we worked together... it's egotistical to believe that any problem could be solved just by having me around to help but ****, I really think this one could. I really do. But I can't, and that hurts so much to say. So I don't really know what to do right now. I'm leaving him be, I suppose, even as ever fibre in my body wrestles against it. I'm going with grace in the only way I know how, which is to say I'm keeping all the fight to myself. Releasing it bit by bit through long walks and hot baths and conversations with people I love. I don't know what things are going to look like when you get this, and that not-knowing is painful. But I'm going to sit in it, at least for now. Because people aren't problems to be solved, and my legs are tired, and an uncomfortable rest is better than no rest at all, I think. I hope you feel rested. I hope the sun is warm on your face. I hope you have the strength to feel hopeful again. I hope you still care. I love you.