Thoughts on the end

Right now, I'm having some thoughts about how this whole thing is going to end, whenever that will be. The thing is... I don't think either of us could keep up this kind of relationship if we're seeing someone on the side. You because you have jealousy issues, and me because I still have feelings for you. I guess you have feelings for me too on some level but I don't know that it's quite the same. I just don't know that we could do that. Keep spending nights together tangled up watching netflix, or going to the bar and talking to each other about every personal thing our respective friends are going through, or sleeping together, or waking up together, or any of it, while the other one was doing those things with somebody else too. I don't think either of us would really be able to do that.

And I also know that we've never just been friends. There was always that element to it, the constant touch even if it wasn't sexual, the energy between us. We've been friends all this time, yes, but that was never all it was. So when we talked about it ages ago and you said you couldn't really seeing us being friends if one of us started actually seeing someone else, I was a little bit hurt because I do see you as my friend, a really good friend, and I want to think that we could still be part of each others' lives after one of us finds somebody, but I wasn't offended because I get what you're saying. Our relationship has always been cuddling and just being close with each other, closer than someone who was just a friend. That's just how we are with each other. I don't know if we could -not- be that way with each other. I totally understand that and see where you're coming from.

At the same time though... it's been almost a year. About a month and a half shy of a year now, that we've spent almost every day together. The days we weren't together we were texting back and forth nonstop, or calling. Besides those three weeks when we didn't talk a couple months ago, there was probably a grand total of 7 days, if that, that we were totally not in contact over a year. You're my friend. Before that whole incident when all those things were said... I mean, I referred to you as my best friend. Besides Kerstin of course, and there's anna and steve, but I don't see them every day. I would refer to you as my best friend when I was talking about you to people who didn't know you. Oh me and my best friend did this the other day, or I'd tell stories where I did this thing and then my best friend said this thing and it was really funny. That's how I talked about you. And I meant it. So I guess... I understand how it would be hard and weird and maybe even not possible for us to just be friends, and not sleep together and not touch each other and not look at each other the way we look at each other sometimes. But still... you are my friend. I care about you a lot as a person, as a friend. You're not just some dude that I have blinding feelings for that make me want to be near you all the time regardless of whether we have anything to say to each other or whether we can have an actual conversation. It's not like that. It's been like that before, where you just have so many feelings for this person that none of the facts even count, you just have to be near them. It's not like that with you. I can sit there when Kerstin meets a new boy and tell you that psh I didn't really like him and tell you all the reasons why and you sit there and listen to the whole spiel and then tell me well you don't really like the sound of him either, and then we can sit there talking shit. I can bounce ideas and thoughts off of you. When I'm lost or something's bothering me or I don't understand why someone is doing or saying something or anything, I can talk to you about it. Sometimes you offer up advice and sometimes you just listen but you're always there to talk to. You really are my friend. And you know what, I can get over having feelings for you. I know I can because I've already had to do it to protect myself. I know I can do that. But I don't know if I can just get over being your friend. I don't know if I can just get over having you in my life that easy. I really... I guess I kind of lean on you in a lot of ways, ways that maybe neither of us even really realize, but I know I do. You've become such a big part of my life and I value your thoughts and your opinions (most of the time... :)hehe ) and I just... if you meet someone, I'd truly be happy for you. I'm happy if you're happy, because that's what friends do. Seriously, I mean that, I would be happy that you had found something or someone that made you happy. I could handle that. But I just don't want you gone from my life. I really don't. I need you. You're not just one of my best friends, you have a special role in my life. You're kind of the calm, thoughtful one. I like hearing your advice on stuff in my life. I like talking to you, hearing what you're thinking. It kind of brings me down to earth. I really don't want to lose you. And you're right, I don't know how we could be just friends. I don't know. But I know I can't just let you disappear after all of this.

I know I've brought it back to this so many times but, remember when you said to me... I'm not going anywhere unless you kick me out of your life. Maybe that was just a throwaway comment to you, or maybe it was just a heated in the moment thing but, it really meant something to me. It meant a lot to me. It felt safe. I felt like I could trust you. Like you wouldn't just disappear. Like maybe I was one of your best friends too. And... I mean, I'm not saying I'm not ever going to meet somebody, but I'm never going to kick you out of my life. And I still just get this feeling like you're going to go somewhere eventually, whether soon or in a long time, whether I want you to or not. I don't want to lose my friend.

Entry

I don't know what's wrong with me. Sometimes you look at me like there's nobody else in the world, and sometimes you look at me like I'm a stranger. Some days I hardly think of you, and I go about my day and I hang out with my friends and I have a great time and you don't cross my mind. Sometimes you're gone for a while and I don't miss you. Some days, for reasons I don't understand, when you're gone for a while, I can't think about anything else, and my heart hurts and I just miss you terribly.

I wish you could either just like me, or not. I'm tired of this confusion. I wish you would either come in or stop knocking at the door.

No.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I will not love him again. Do not fucking love him again. No no no no. Please stop. Please fucking stop I can't do it again.

Note to self

Just another little daily reminder to myself not to love you. Don't do it. Do not fucking do it.

Fuck.

Why. Why now. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how long I waited for you to look at me like that. I knew you could. I knew it was hidden away. I thought you didn't feel it. Maybe you didn't. And now, after all of this. All the hurtful words, all the times you couldn't care less, all the times you couldn't be bothered. All the times your eyes skirted me and wouldn't just look at me. Here I am. Right fucking here in front of you. Look at me. LOOK at me. Where are you. You're a thousand miles away. And now, after all of that, after saying you didn't care about me anymore, after saying all it was was sex, after saying you weren't even my friend. Now. Why now. Why

We walk back from the bar. You put your arm around me, I lean my head on your shoulder, standing there, your arm tightens, I finish my cigarette. Go back to your room, lay down. You hold me so tight, as tight as you can. You look at me, your eyes sparkle. They sparkle. You look nervous and excited and alive. You kiss me, not for any reason. Not trying to have sex. Just because you want to kiss me. You never do that. You kiss me again. You roll over on top of me and kiss me again and again and again. I open my eyes and there it is. There it is right there. I waited for that for ten months and there it is. You're smiling. Not that 'mouth slightly quirked because youre trying to stop yourself from smiling' smile. Not the 'one of us just said something funny' smile. Not any kind of smile that I've seen. You're just looking at me. And there's this big, beautiful smile on your face, and you're not trying to hide it, and you're not trying to stop yourself from doing it, and your eyes are just shining, and there it is. There's the smile. I meet your eyes and you exhale in a little huff, smile more and look down. Kind of embarrassed but still smiling. You look so happy. To be there with me.

Two o clock in the morning comes. You're still kissing me. Still smiling. You pull back and you say, "let's go on an adventure!" Your eyes sparkle. I say really? You say yes really. I say well, what kind of adventure? You look at me with those brilliant, happy, shining eyes, and that big smile and you say "I'll go anywhere you want to go." You say it softly, with this little smile on your face, that almost makes it seem like there's two meanings to the words. I smile and you kiss me again, and neither of us can stop because we keep telling each other 'you get up first, no you, no you.' You kiss me again and I roll over on top of you and laugh delightedly and kiss you again and again and again, saying 'get up! get up! get up!' in between kisses, and you smile even wider and you laugh and kiss me some more. We decide to go to the hill in sellwood. I say we have to bring champagne because it's tradition, and you say we don't have any champagne but you have beer and we can pretend its champagne. You get it out of the fridge and make a big show of gentlemanly offering me my 'champagne.' We drive down there at two in the morning and sit together, drinking our champagne beer and watching the city. Wondering where different red lights are at, and what are those slow yellow lights over there, and why is the sky so pink. You didn't care where you went at two o clock in the morning, you had said, you would go anywhere with me.

Why are you smiling at me now. I waited so fucking long. I will not love you. I will not love you. I will not love you. I will not.

Childhood

It's so weird. I've been really good at maintaining emotional distance thus far. I've blocked you out in a lot of ways. But for some reason the other night after we had sex, you were laying on your back tangled into me and our foreheads and noses were touching and out of nowhere, I don't even know why, that line from fox and the hound popped into my head. The point when the lady takes the fox back to the woods and leaves him there, and she's driving away crying and she says, in my hearts a memory, and there you'll always be. Just out of nowhere, I'm totally fine, been maintaining distance and not thinking of you emotionally, I've been fine. And boom that lines in my head. And I realized that every moment like that, laying there with our foreheads and our noses touching, could be the last one. I can lose you at anytime now . And I thought... This is how I want to remember you when you're gone. I want to remember laying here in silence, wrapped up in each other, forehead to forehead and nose to nose. I took a mental picture, and I knew that that was going to be the memory in my heart where you will always be. This all happened in about five seconds. And suddenly my throat started to burn and choke up and I almost just started crying right then and there before I could realize what was happening and stop myself. With my face right up against yours. I almost started to cry. My chest feels tight just remembering that. I don't even get where that sudden rush of feeling came from because I haven't been feeling much.

I've been so selfish

I'm just starting to realize it. I have been so fucking selfish. All this time, I thought I was being selfless, loving, true. I've just been so fucking selfish this entire time. And I'm sorry. And I need to tell you that. At some point, I need to get brave enough to tell you that I know, and that I'm sorry.

You told me when you first met that you weren't looking for a relationship. And then later, as things got a little more intense, you got into more detail. You told me that you're not looking for one more time of falling in love, fucking around, and then losing out. You told me that you're at a point in your life where you're kind of playing for keeps. Like you're thinking, the next time you fall in love, it's going to be for good. That's going to be the person, probably the person you marry. The one you want to be with, not just kill time with for a while.

And I guess I heard those words, but I must have thought I knew what you needed better than you did. Not intentionally, not consciously. But I must have thought that. I must have thought... maybe that's not true. Maybe I really am right for you. Maybe you just haven't been treated right by all the people you've been with. The things you've told me, the experiences, the stories... it sounds like you haven't really been treated right by the right person. And I guess I just thought... maybe you're tired of fucking around because fucking around is all it's really been, no matter how much you may have wanted more than that. That's all anyone really gave you back. And I guess I just thought... I could be different. I could be the one who shows you different. I could be the one that shows you that there's a whole nother place, where you're safe, and everything is peaceful, and light, and happy, and beautiful. And even if I couldn't keep you, I just wanted to go there with you. Because I think you're capable of going there, and maybe the people you've really tried to give your heart to, haven't been capable of it, at least at that point in time. I really thought I could be that person. I really believed that so strongly. And because of that.... I guess that in itself is thinking that I knew better than you. Thinking that you just didn't know what you needed because you didn't know what you were missing. But that's not right. That's not fair. How could I know what you want and what you need and what's best for you better than you do... that wasn't fair of me. I should have just listened to you. Because really... if that was my subconscious analysis... it might have even been right. But it doesn't matter. Because your life and your decisions are up to you, and nobody else. And I should have listened, and heard, and respected that.

And then suddenly I loved you. I honestly never knew that would happen. I never expected it. Remember when we first met? I told you I was meeting up with tons of different dudes for beer or coffee or whatever, and you wanted me to add you to that list of guys I was meeting up with. That was true. I was doing that. But I didn't tell you why. The reason was because my heart was broken, and I was just trying to distract myself by keeping as busy with a million random guys as possible, hoping that if I hung out with random people enough, I'd stop thinking about the one guy I really wanted to be hanging out with. That was the only reason. That's why I met up with you. That's why I met up with all of them. You were just supposed to be a temporary distraction. That's all you were gonna be. That's all I thought of you as. I wasn't supposed to care about you. I was just supposed to use you to forget and then I was going to just go away. And that was it. That was all. I never expected, never thought, never in a million years imagined that I would start valuing you for who you are, and not just as a tool to numb the hurt I was feeling. That's all any of them were supposed to be, including you. And something just happened. I started having real feelings for you. I started caring about how your day was going, and how you felt about things, and what made you sad, and what made you happy, and what you lived for. You started to matter. And all of a sudden, it was out of my control. All of a sudden you were this person I could say anything to. Be as goofy as I wanted with, and it didn't matter, because it was okay. Because we were comfortable. You suddenly were this safe place where I wasn't expecting anything at all. I didn't expect that could even happen. I wasn't looking for it. You said you thought I was looking for something, for love, for anything. But really, it was the exact opposite of that. I honestly intentionally thought that I would never have anything meaningful with any of these people. Including you. And it just fucking happened and then I was thrown into total complete and utter chaos because of it. I was shellshocked, I was confused, even a little angry maybe. Because... there I went again. None of the other ones meant anything, none of the other ones mattered. For some reason, you were different.  You fucking mattered.

And I just... I couldn't believe it. I hadn't wanted that. I really hadn't wanted that. I actively did not want that. But it fucking happened and it was basically a fucking miracle. And I just... I guess I felt like it was a miracle and I shouldn't let it go. I shouldn't just fuck it off and pretend I didn't know what I felt and pretend I didn't care and blow you off and disregard those feelings. Because I respect those feelings so much. I just wanted to show them the care I thought they deserved. But really I guess I was only thinking of myself. I was so scared Ben. I was so scared. All of a sudden I had all these feelings snowballing out of my control, and I thought I had just shut down. I thought nothing could touch me. And then you just reached past all of those fucking things and you touched me, wherever I was hiding. And you weren't even trying. You did that without even trying. I was so fucking scared. I was so fucking confused. But more terrifying even than that was the thought that I could lose you. That all of those things that I thought were just going to be dead to me for a while, hit me like that so hard, and that they could just as suddenly be gone. Poof. I was so fucking scared. I never wanted that. I never wanted that fucking terror. But it happened. I didn't know what to do. I tried so hard to tell myself I didn't really feel that way. I tried so hard to stop, to make it go away. But it just didn't work.

But... next time you give your heart away, you're trying to play for keeps. And we both know that's not what I need right now. You can't love me back. Because you know how that's going to end and you don't want to do that again. You just know that's bad for you to do that again. And I get that now. It really is that simple. It's not that I didn't show you I cared enough, or that I was different. It's that it plain and simple is not what you need. And I was selfish for trying to change your mind. So I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. If I really loved you at any time, now, then, whatever, I don't even know how I feel about you right now because I'm lying so hard to myself I don't even know what I'm lying about. However I felt, or .. feel.. or whatever, I support you. I want you to be happy. It's going to have to be without me because that's what you need. I get that now. If I ever fucking said that I loved you, I better have fucking meant it enough to know that the important thing is that you get what you need and what you're happy. So go. Be happy. Go find somebody that is right for you, that's where you're at, that has what you need, that is what you need. I understand now that it's not me. No matter how much you make me feel at peace. It feels like the world is just a non stop scream. It's so loud. It's always screaming and this noise goes on and on and my mind goes on and on and whirls and it's so loud it's deafening all the time. It never fucking stops. And you're just this... silence. Even when you're loud. Even when you're annoying and doing arnold schwartznegger impressions and poking me and fucking with me. You're like this silence in the middle of all this noise. You're this place where I feel peaceful. Where I feel like shit is going to be okay. That is something that you don't find all the time... so when you do, you have to honor it. The best way to honor it is to respect it, and to do the best you can, to build it up. To act in its best interests. Your best interests. Which is not to make you fall in love with me back. It's to help you find what you need. And the best way I can do that is to just tell you... go. Be free. Be happy. Find the person you need. Who is right for you. And accept, finally just accept that that's not me. Go. Find that person. I'll always be just around the corner for you. Always. Because you were silence in a mad world. Because of that, I will always be just around the corner if you need me. But I want you to go now. I want you to find what, and who, you need. If it can't be me, find the one that's the very best, and  be the best you, and be the happiest ever. Fall in love, have an amazing life, take chances, regret nothing, be wild, be free, be contained, be crazy and be reserved and smile and laugh and love. Please, if you can't do that with me, okay. But please do that with somebody. I am so sorry that I've tried to hold you back. It was selfish. I just... It's just so hard to come to terms with that when you just want somebody so badly. It was selfish and I was wrong. I won't try to hold you back anymore. I want you to go and find your happiness. And if you ever need me, you have my number. If you ever need me, I am right here. I'm always in your corner. You said to me once... I'm not going anywhere unless you throw me out of your life. I don't know how much you meant that but, I mean it. I just... I see that it was selfish of me now. I get it now. I just want you to be happy. Please go find your happiness, and don't look back. Love always Ben.