How easy was it, to exchange brasilians...

I wonder about that a lot

A problematic fucked up no one, for a lovable privileged apologetic

Little doll

You tag each other so much. You fit so well  

I dream about that a lot

Your world looks brand new, no hopes can reach it

Watching you choose who gets to be human 

Reason rest in your silence, oh godness

I think about that a lot

Till I fall into brutal messy unapologetic loud resilience

Once I questioned myself 

Now I stop.

Nothing would ever describe what this feeling/board/website is better than Fran Lebowitz on Toni Morrison

February 8th 2022 - the last one

In the end, the only narrative I have is the one in my head.

This relationship/situation ended as it existed for 3 years, in excruciating silence. Without understandment or reciprocated communication. You’d tell me what you wanted at the time of your convenience and either I would take it or not. But of course, I took it. Every single time. 

This time, I actually didn’t. You started excluding me, I just finished the process. Still, I find the words to say you have always been too damn important to me, regardless of everything. Despite any pride or hurt. But still, silence. 

Beyond silence, the only reply in this last “conversation” I got was exclusion. And that says everything I should care to know about how you chose to use me. Still, it’s only my own narrative - and now will forever be. The exclusion sets the full stop. And you might have done it for a multitude of reasons - or none. You might have been angry, screamed, cried out loud or in silence, neglectly laughed, hated me, loved me, but I’ll still never know the truth behind the Good Friend™. That’s your brand right? I should better trademark for you. I’ll never know what’s a second chance from you. Maybe you’re incapable of breaking your own silence. Maybe silence is your language because you like it. Maybe I thought I was worthy more but you didn’t. So it makes sense and that’s all I really need. Because even when you tried talking, you weren’t really saying anything besides delimitating what your good friendship™ did right or wrong to me. Even when you talked, you got a step back right after, to make clear nothing was on record, nothing meant anything to compromise you. And that was the most cruel someone has ever been to me. The deceiveness from at one moment holding me in bed into another moment saying that first one made you sick. As if that statement by itself shouldn’t affect me. I didn’t know I should be delimitating what was your personal use and what was you just being nice while we spooned each other to sleep. What kind of relationship is that, Good Friend™?

In the end, you couldn’t spare me a word. I begged for 3 years, you did to me what you wanted, used me when you were lonely, added me to your world when convenient, took me out when you felt like it, and still you couldn’t be human enough to even tell me no. *Doing my best with the rest* you say to the world, and now “the rest” gets a totally different meaning.

In the end, I just laugh. From your cold heartness, your acts on love and friendship, that end up as being all about yourself. I laugh of my old self waiting for silence to become enough. Laugh from the pettiness of the random exclusion. And this is the predominant narrative I chose, as you left me none of your truth.

Good luck with loving people at your convenience. 

And if somewhere in the fabric of space-time that loving, caring, amazing human actually existed and actually cared about the flawed person I am, then this digital board will be our only and final connection. I will come back to remember and even love that person throught the loudness of a fake online persona. Regardless of the person you became, I will always have who we were, even if those people only existed in silence.

T.

June 6th 2021

Dear S,

Hi. I miss you so much. This one has been a long weekend. Last Wednesday night I was sure as hell I wasn’t gonna make it to Sunday. I’ve been on a death&crying spiral for a week now and nothing has changed so far. But on Wednesday I saw it just like last time on that birthday. And the only thing I wanted to do was to call you. To ask you to spend the following 4 days my roommate was gonna be away here with me. Every time I got really close from making the call, I found something to distract me from it and so it has been for these last 4 days. 

I read something about “safe space” while facing depression that gave me some clarity on why I wouldn’t just make the call. What once you’ve been, you’re not anymore. And you’ve been the only one I’ve ever got so, right now, life has never been lonelier. I am used to not having people I feel supported by in my life, but I used to have hope I would one day find that. Now it’s like even that hope you took away from me. I guess it’s better to say I lost that hope with you, as a way of taking responsibility for my neediness and lack of social skills. At the same time, I don’t even know what is what in what anymore. You see, when that episode happened in 2019, I saw myself in a very complicated place where I couldn’t trust my head. Because when all you want is to die, and that is not, theoretically, the way things should be, how do you trust every other thought you have? I think I started trusting you more than myself as a safe place. And now that you’re gone there’s no one to listen to, or to see me, or to pretend to at least.

At this point of this text I’m already doubting every single thought I’m thinking. I had to do a “depression assessment” this week and every question had to be answered based on “the last two weeks”. But the more questions were made, the more I realized I could apply every answer to my whole life. It’s like I’ve been depressed since I can remember, since I’m a child, but since that beginning I’ve dreamed of the moment I was gonna run away and meet the person who would change everything. It was probably an excessive amount of expectations to put into one idealization of human being, but so it is to be a child. And you did in fact change everything, but you’re also so much, but so much more, and better, and brighter, and smaller, than any part of my childhood dream that it’s been quite hard to actually believe you exist, these past few years. I just thought I finally had some safe space, you know? Quite opposite though, it feels like every step of my life has been leading me to suicide in my 20s. There’s no more dream to wonder and no more hope for anything future, only the certainty that I'll always achieve the same result with every single human being, from the worst of them to the best of them, like you. Cause yes, I still see you as the best.

So for these past 4 days, every time I could barely hold it for any longer and was almost calling you, I:

Unintentionally fell asleep

Intentionally fell asleep

Cried until sleep

Made breakfast

Made popcorn

Washed dishes

Pooped

Made rice

Ate a stupid and unhealthy amount of rice

Watched The Great British Baking Show

Went for a smoke

Ate a lava cake

Brushed my teeth

Texted my counselor

Screamed at your ghost

Talked to your ghost

Cried with your ghost

Laid in bed with your ghost

Brushed my hair

Cried from memories

Cried from loneliness

Remembered you saying you used me 

Remembered you saying you intentionally ghosted me

Remembered you saying you looked for feelings for me and didn’t find any

Remembered you saying you got exhausted too

Remembered you saying it was all cause I am too angry and bitter

I’m sorry for expecting to feel looked after by you. That was probably some work and responsibility you’ve never wanted to and I just layed down on you because I felt safe and understood and loved for the first time ever. Truth to be told, I am really tired of not being looked after by anyone. Really tired of being treated as a self-sufficient being that can spend everyday after school home alone by age of 8. Really tired of seeing everyone I get close to use me for their own personal interests. If it’s either for rape, or sex, or maternal love, or romance while their girlfriend is not here, between all of that and the life by myself I manage to live, I prefer death. Not anyone’s fault, I just got really bad life-luck. Or as someone who was born out of two very stupid teenagers, I’m just a product of unbalancement, filling a space that should have never existed in the first place, trapped in an unstable and fragile alternate reality, bringing balance to the world by ceasing existence. Again, not your fault. I should just test my theory.

With all the love you taught me,

Tainááááááááááááá

May 31st, 2021

Dear S,

I’ve been thinking of how I act more based on what people want instead of how I want, and how that’s one of the things that leaves me in most distress. I spend 99% of my time distressed. Like how over the day I go on being over stimulated until the end of the day I have nothing else to give anyone, no energy left for anything. And on some - most - occasions I keep over thinking, over feeling, so many things at once that I reach a point where absolutely anything appearing to be out of order in my mind makes me insanely irritated. Like I can’t get out of my own head, even if I see everything that’s happening in the world outside but still can’t really understand what’s going on. Still can’t really relate to what goes on around me.

Last night I did every single autism online test and all of them showed an overly positive-for-autism result. Maybe I just got so good at masking. I’m so high functioning at everything, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, compulsory heterosexuality, that it wouldn't really surprise me to be decently functioning (for others) under a new label as well. I asked my counselor for a way to do a valid psychological autistic test and they recommended me a queer non-binary psychologist who charges $200 a session lol. I’m not even sure why I’m looking for one more fucking label. Look at me, got to half a page before my first fucking what a progress kk. I’ve always heard, from my mom, and from a very early age, that I am definitely in the “spectrum”, even knowing that ‘everyone is in the spectrum’, she always meant really inside there. But even though saying that, I don’t think no one, including her, has never helped me figure this out. What the spectrum means to my reality, how it shapes my relationships. And true to be told I am a really fucking bad social person. Every social interaction I’ve had in life has been based on masking things about myself I know people feel uncomfortable with, or that they’ll make funny comments about that will make me feel uncomfortable with.

The two only people I can think of, who I have been able to really expose myself to, have been you and Adilson. In his case, this “exposion” per se has happened not even a year ago, all online, which still makes me unsure about what will happen when he gets to have the full live experience. And in your case, well.. You needed an undiscussionable break from me, no explanations or guarantees. It proves I am actually too much for the regular sane person when looked from really close for a longer period of time.

It makes me think I can never have people close to me for a longer period of time, putting me in a very new place of loneliness because this time is not theoretically but empirically unchangeable. Every place of loneliness before this has been shaped by this hope of finally meeting someone with whom I could be easily myself without being afraid. You’ve really been this first person for me, but you’re not the first one to get away. Because of the bond I thought we had though, I would have never imagined even you would keep that same pattern. Before, I think I could actually say it was on them, and how shitty some of them were, but you’re the last person on earth to be considered shitty.

Still, you had to get away from me like everyone else has, judged my persona from my open wounds, looked at me getting hurt from sensing feelings coming from you and sayed nothing. I’ve been thinking of how I would actually act with you if I peeled every layer of masking I have on from 20 years of feeling weird in the crowd. I came to the conclusion I would midsomer-scream-cry at your face while also ask to be hugged, not sure in which order. I have never fully enjoyed the process of hugging until you hugged me with strength while I sobbed on your arms laying down in my bed. It had nothing to do with the bed, or the sobbing; actually the sobbing had everything to do with the hug and its strength, no one has ever held me that hard before. While you kept hugging and saying you weren’t going anywhere, I’ve never felt as secure, safe, loved, and so much more, everything mixed and served at once. And that has never come from any hug, just yours.

But I don’t think the S. I feel like midsomer-scream-cry at is the same I wish to hug me. This one feels more like a ghost from January lost in the space-time of the reality I keep trying to bring back in my imagination in order to not feel this new loneliness as much as I’ve been feeling it these past four months. Cause this new one is so much out of hope and vision for the future I’ve been really struggling to find a point to keep going. So I lay down in bed at night and hold my arms against my chest really hard with all the pillows surrounding my body until I can almost feel it, 0,1% of that January feeling I can’t even name it or properly describe. Still, there’s no hope this will change for better, and it might be the depression, but it might also be a better understanding of how different I am, autistic or not, and how this difference can’t find comprehension coming from anyone, not even the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. And if it can’t even be comprehended, way more distant it is to be loved. And I guess I am ok ?! with not being loved by every part of me, even the overly irritated, angry and antisocial ones. But being ok doesn’t change, or masks, the absolute desert that living feels like. I just know the pain to expect from the daily sunburns.

T.

May 18th, 2021

Dear S,

Almost two years from the first letter now. It feels like two parallel realities. In this one, you already know everything, at least all that has made its way into words coming out of me. I told you I love you a couple of months ago, at Kitsilano, in the most pathetic way possible. Of course, I was sobbing, barely making any sense, worried if I wasn’t actually just having a heart attack. You haven’t been that nice to me the weeks before that day and I was trying to contain the anxiety attack I was holding on to for those last 2 months.

In the end, it was worse than every possible way my anxious brain has tried to predict for the past years. You told me you actually thought, for a brief moment in time, that you could maybe have feelings for me. But then you realized you didn’t, and that you just felt that way because you were using me for your emotional baggage, and then proceeded to get distant again, to the point of barely exchanging two words. That broke my heart in a way I never thought you would. From the day I met you, to the day I realized how much I loved you, to the seconds before you said that, I’ve always expected to have some sort of broken heart coming from this situation, always something that would be provoked by my actions or lack of better ones. But you couldn’t break my heart, I thought, cause you’re simply too good. You’re so different from me, and so much better, you’re so empathetic you could never act with neglect or contempt. I think of this today and I see how much of a goddess I made you in my life. This always perfect, always right, always better, higher being. That was definitely mistake number one, but I also think that’s just how I love, so..

You’ve always praised so much how human you are, I never truly listened. I am so sorry. I projected outside of you everything I’m most terrified of, creating with you this security I’ve never felt with anyone. From this place, I said every thought I had, allowed myself to feel everything I did towards anything outside of you, except all I felt for you. Cause if I allowed those feelings to actually exist, in daylight, I could put at risk the only relationship I’ve ever felt comfortable at, the only person who has ever made me feel at home. That’s why being away from you for long periods would drive me insane. Every time you got distant felt like being evicted, not from any of the 20+ houses I’ve lived, but from the home I never had. I would cry every other day, could barely sleep if not drunk, would pretend you were by my side while talking by myself. You see, these past couple months feel like I’ve been evicted for the last time. Now, home was demolished, destroyed, in front of me. Everytime you talk to me is like being placed in front of the debris, touching a stone to only remember once it was part of a wall, that created a space I felt safe, comfortable, and loved.

I don’t know what to make of this. I know there’s no fixing it, only rebuilding, but I’m so hurt, like the place was destroyed with me still inside. And then you talk and somehow you manage to put salt and all spices in my wounds, old and news, and they burn again like your holding my flesh and cutting yourself. Last time you said that when you thought you could be having those feelings, you decided to pay attention to them next time you saw me. And I remember that time, cause I was so hurt already, I couldn’t bear having you touching me. So you said you paid attention and felt so stupid. Stupid for almost ruining everything, and by that you of course you meant everything you have with A, for that. Me. Hearing this was like having the already broken pieces of my heart crushed to dust. The debris of my demolished home falling all over me again. Cause you clearly don't count any ruins of our relationship. Or the ruins of myself. I think that’s it. I’m the one destroyed, by my own imagination, who allowed me to believe this fairytale I’ve created about us this past year. I’ve never expected to be more important than A. But I did expect to be more important than what you showed I am to you. Maybe that’s how I love, and that’s on me. Maybe because I’ve never loved anyone before this much, so I don’t know how to behave. What I do know is that you talked again today. Nothing much, asked if I was alive or if I’ve been stung by bees yet. The truth is that I have been stung by a bee, which now I carry in my arm like I would carry a final stone from my broken home in my pocket for the rest of my life. But that is probably not lasting too much as I’ve thought of killing myself every single day since March and I can’t see a day I’ll be breathing without this thought. Not related, but it’s kinda like I also can’t see the day you won’t be the first thought of my morning and last of my night, or the day I won’t love you anymore. It does feel like my heart can either only process love or suicide. Again, nothing related to you. I guess that’s just how I love and how I might die.

T.

May 1st 2020 - 21:01

February 7th, 2020 - 01:33

Dear Who?,

Do you wanna know the truth about why I don’t like to be hugged? It’s because my skin is so hungry for a touch I know that... that fraction of a second - when the hug dissolves back into two bodies again - that will be more painful than not knowing someone else's skin at all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope; mostly about the lack of it. One of the best feelings I’ve ever had, that if they sold pills from it I would be an irreversible addict, was to have hope on people. Trust them with all your heart and hope for the best for both of you. I felt the lack of that 4 or 5 times in my life while I might have felt the actual thing just a couple of times. But those times were so addictive I started to create this expectation of hope for the future. I developed this idea that, no matter how or where, I would have someone to trust and hope for in the future. Somehow I can’t see that anymore.

Instead, I see a life of hunger.

January 30th, 2020 - 00:51

Dear S,

A couple of days back we’ve talked. It was wonderful. And I need to get over you.

I’ll be writing the same thing over and over again until my heart understands the math my brain did many weeks ago. Will that ever happen?

But sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t just take my chances and let everything out. Even if rationally I know your answer will be no, at least it will be a concrete and definitive no. Does that make any difference? I don’t think our friendship could ever stay the same, but is it still the same? I don’t open my heart to you anymore. Every time you talk about the future a mix of happiness and frustration takes me. Feels like a cold breeze and makes me tremble while I try to not show any reaction.

Getting over you will never mean stopping loving you. This feeling will live inside my body until it starts failing and finally dies. But it means putting it to sleep indefinitely, stopping prioritizing us, and letting this world I created in my head go, where you love me back exactly the way I want, the way I am, the way everybody wants to be loved.

Always with love.

January 19th, 2020 - 22:25

Dear S,

I’m sorry for my last letter. I feel like I was intentionally mean somehow, because of all this frustration I feel when I’m with you. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect you or want anything less than the best for you. It’s just really hard to conciliate everything I feel for you. I tried not to think of you too much for the past few weeks and it has been quite nice actually. Ik. has helped a lot even without knowing about anything. And I’ve been thinking about telling him, just because I think it’s the next step. I need to talk about this to anyone besides a fucking self made google drive persona. I need to get better. Not even because I want to find someone really available and be loved. But because when I see my future, in a house with big windows and a kitchen big enough for a table with 4 chairs (and a couch cause I love kitchens with couches), I need to know I’ll have peace with myself. Realistic speaking it is most likely that I’ll be alone, as I am right now, as I grew up as a kid. And I’m getting into good terms with that. Whatever my social status is, I need to know I’ll have peace in my mind, but also in my heart. I don’t even know what that means. But if there’s one thing you thought me is that I’ll get nowhere if I don’t talk about it.

Always with love.

January 14th, 2020 - 00:32

Dear S,

This is the rehearsal of something I now see inevitable in the future. I can’t have a relationship with you, not even a friendship if it’s not based on honesty and I’m not being 100% honest at the moment. I’ll have to address it.

Yesterday we watched a movie in queer cinema class when someone triggered the other and instead of talking about it she said “you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to”. Which is pretty much you, on both sides. Saying that, but also living on that. I think that requires a level of respect that I’ve never had on friendships before. But I also think it’s the easiest way to keep the shield on.

But the thing is, I work, or have worked so far, pretty much in the opposite way. I think it is very important for everyone to talk about and address the things we don’t want to - even though if I have a hard time doing it, doesn’t change the fact that I believe in it, therefore I try. Because even if it’s painful, stressful, or not; not talking about it just leaves you in the same place you’ve started. I guess you can agree on that as I’ve seen you using this same philosophy sometimes.

My point is: I can be very much of a pushover. Sometimes even a peer pressuring asshole, I know. The latter is something I’ve been working on but the former I find it as my personal way of showing excitement for things. It’s like some things get me so excited I need to drag people into them. While other times I’m just doing what I think is best for that person by trying to push them into something. With my friends I kinda always know when it’s going too far or not - except when I’m drunk but that’s another story. But in our case, I don’t think I ever know. I know I usually act like a pushover anyways with you, but from my perspective it has been usually on small things, never major. It’s always about meeting somewhere, doing something, and while thinking of that I met Ik. again. I was having one of the most depressing days I had in December and it had just stopped raining after a whole week. I put the first outfit it crossed my mind and started to randomly walk until I found myself at the Quay’s Starbucks. And then he found me. There I noticed something I just realized way later: how that was the first friendly interaction I had with someone else besides you in 8 months.

I guess if you knew Ik. you would have understood my point so far, but maybe not knowing how he acts gets hard to follow. Basically, he’s 5x more of a pushover than I am. But now he was different. Still very much of a pushover but with boundaries and respect. Hard to explain in a letter. But my actual point is how I realized that our friendship is barely functional if I don’t push it. I feel like sometimes if I don’t beg for your presence you don’t even bother. And I’m done begging.

I know I was almost impossible to deal with during those last months - but no, you don’t need to agree on that. And I really appreciate the fact that you took me anyways. And although I wish you never get to the point I was, I hope I can be there for you the same way you were there for me if you ever need it. But I also think I would never know. 

I decided to stop pushing then. Cause if one of your mottos is “you don’t have to if you don’t want to” how should I keep forcing things that you might just do it because of me? I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to, and one might say that’s how much I love you. At the same time, I have always loved everyone else more than myself and that never brought me anywhere remotely healthy. I think it’s time to try something different.

The thing is if I stop pushing our relationship will resume into mondays at bosa regarding previous appointments we have that is nothing related to each other. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lack of effort I don’t consider enough for someone so important in my life. At the same time, coming from you, I don’t know what’s boundaries and what’s depression. Which if you don’t want to talk about it (and you don’t have to if you don’t want to) might be okay for you but I’m gonna continue not knowing which one it is or how to deal with it. What should I do then?

But all of that was just the easy stuff. Part I.

With that in mind, I have to get back to that very pleasant moment where you had to address my “character flaw” on how I don’t ask questions. By the way, since I’ve notice this pattern of yours I’ve been really impressed on how you apparently don’t know how to use a constructive criticism outside Abi’s class maybe. Cause only talking about my flaws and - sometimes - making an amend at the end on “how I’m getting there” it’s far away from being constructive and way closer from your personal need of feeling better than others. Which almost sounds like a joke if you consider how much of a human characteristic that is. But doesn’t make it any better.

Also during the break, for the first time ever I got truly angry at you. It was almost like Amy Adams in Enchanted when she experiences rage or something like it for the first time and when she realizes she gets excited about it. Yeah, ridiculous, I know. I didn’t think before it was possible for me to be angry at you. You’re gonna laugh about it but I told you my favorite BA chef was Chris. The only thing you wanted to comment was how judgmental we both are. Nothing else. And it was kinda funny cause as soon as you said you related to Clair, I could only think of everything nice I like in both of you. How didactic you are, how you talk to yourself and get desperate in the process and it’s cute. How you have a type of cleverness that although I can’t explain it I know it makes everything you do some sort of great.

But it’s what I do, and not only but especially with you. I can only think on how amazing I think you are for several different reasons. Which is my own pattern when dealing with people - it’s like the only trace of positivity I have in my brain, to look into the nice things about people. I’ve done that even with Spence; I started the BEA project thinking how much I hated him and I finished still hating him but truly amazed on how confident and passionate he is about everything he does. So imagine me, realizing how not only my best friend but also the only friend I had in 8 months never has anything to say about my persona that is not a character flaw. And maybe I’m being too hard, cause I know my memory can be very selective on excluding everything that is nice and I guess that’s how I’ve grown to be such a pessimist, but that’s also changing.

So feel free to remind me if that moment where you said something nice about me, just for the sake of it, happened. Cause the only thing I can remember is how “I don’t know what I would have done without you here” which is something both of us say to each other but it actually doesn’t fit in this situation. Do you remember a few months ago when we were in Gastown and I asked why you were my friend? The question came from a really depressive moment but I also think it came from this pending question: if you can only focus on my flaws, why are you my friend? When we say that thing about not knowing what to do without each other we are acknowledging something the other has that we need it. Which is the logical definition of friendship; we are social beings, therefore we need each other, which is pretty much what I responded to when you asked me the same question that day. But I guess I’ve been pretty vocal before, saying what I admire in you, which is one of many reasons why I love about you. And that’s why I befriend you. On the other side, I came to the conclusion that the only thing you might get from me is your own reassurance of feeling better than people. Which, don’t kill me, but it’s the biggest characteristic of the Napoleon Complex. And I know I make it pretty easy for you to feel better than me. I’ve been writing these letters for months now. Most of them addressed to you. And most of them reproducing the speech of how awesome you are, how shitty I am. How amazing your qualities are, how awful my flaws are. How an incredible person you are, how a horrible person I am. All of them reproducing in a much bigger and depressive scale the conversations we have almost every day. And I get my part, I get not only my flaws but also how pathetic I can be when putting myself down. But if those are conversations, it’s because there are two people engaging in the dialogue. And I think that’s the worst part. It’s when I realized you get some sort of “good thing”, it might be reassurance, validation, self respect, I don’t even wanna try to guess, but I really think that there might be something in you that feels good when you confirm all my flaws by vocaling expressing them all the fucking time.

The ‘Chris Morroco’ thing, it might make you laugh but it hurt as much as Matthew telling me I wasn’t enough. There’s not enough characteristics in me and someone as clever, and organized, and methodical, and weird in a nice way, and positive about people, as Chris Morroco for you to think about besides judgmental. Even if you hate the guy, there’s never anything nice you can say. Not one extra comment about my lack of questions that isn’t “but you’re improving I think” which doesn’t mean shit. Which is also funny because you are the main reason why I’ve tried to change. I know I don’t ask questions, it’s something incredibly hard for me for some reason. Like one of the other nights when I was bartending for this guy and when you’re bartending you should keep a conversation going but I just can’t think of anything besides wanting for him to keep talking without me having to do anything. And although I’m actually interested in what he’s saying I just think I’m gonna say something stupid if I talk, which I usually already do, making questions or not. Which doesn’t matter right now, besides my point being: you don’t get to tell me which are my character flaws if you don’t actually want to talk about them and/or tell me anything nice together. Constructive criticism, you know? Yeah.

January 15th, 18:47

It has been a couple days now. I was writing this in the middle of the night while having another one of my insomnia moments. They’re starting to become regular now, at least once or twice a week. As well as the dreams. I’ve been dreaming a lot about you. I care about you so much. I might be angry, or frustrated, or sad with something you might have said or did, but it never changes how much I care and love you. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve felt so far in my life. My thoughts haven’t changed, but I know I can be a bit too hard (or petty, we know) and for that I apologize. But in the end, the only thing I want is to get closer, and feel loved by who I am and not who I might become by “getting better”. And maybe hear a nice thing about myself once in a while.

T.

December 24th, 2019 - 23:59

Dear S,

I just read, in Why I Didn’t Report,  all my reasons for not reporting the first time I had sex as rape. I also read a dozen of the worst stories. Girls who have been raped multiple times, by different people, before their 30s. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. If I am good or bad, it doesn’t matter, I’m not special. I became one of the numbers of people who are forever broken by the bad things that happen to them. Good things only happen randomly and I wasn’t born with that luck. That special thing that makes other things, magical ones, happen in our lives. Like love. I see the magic in others, I watch it closely, I’m always a witness. Never part of the action. Never a protagonist.

I don’t know how to live life like that. While spending all the past years thinking I had the special thing on me, waiting for it to make its magic, I don’t know how to live without expecting magic. I don’t think is enough.

And then there’s you and it’s so confusing and hurtful. I love you more than I’ve ever thought it was possible to love people but I can’t disassociate how ignored I feel anymore. Sometimes I think it’s just how people treat people, how you treat people. And then you say something that is just unbearably cold. It’s like you see me as the smallest person on earth. And when you see me like that, I see myself too. So small, basically nothing. You keep saying you love me, but I don’t think that’s how we love people. Maybe you don’t know how to love people anymore, except A. And if that’s the case, surely applies to me. It just gets clear how I am a product of convenience at this moment of your life. Meanwhile I can’t stop seeing you as everything that has ever matter in my life.

At the end, I feel like there’s only one message. And I can’t believe I’m gonna quote Love Actually but, enough. Enough now.

T.

December 24th, 2019 - 00:53

Dear S,

Today you really hurt me. 

I guess it was the first time I got angry at you. Because I can’t see a reason for you to be mean like that with me. But you have this entitlement in acting like you’re the best human being to walk on earth that when aligned with your criticism creates a really bad type of friend someone could have.

But then I got angry at myself for putting you in this pedestal of the best human on earth. You are the best person I’ve ever had as a friend, but then if you are also this kind of friend, I guess that shows more about my friendships than you.

We were talking about bon appetit chefs and you mentioned how you relate to Claire. I said “of course” as I can see many of her qualities in you. You’re both very determined, with your own methodologies, making lame but cute jokes and with a very specific personal style. And then you went on analyzing how I relate to Chris, by being judgmental. And that was it; you literally had nothing to add besides how judgmental I can be, like him. As usual, it feels like the only thing you have to say about me is something bad.

Am I going insane or it is what it is? I’m trying to have a recollection of the last time you said something positive about me. Maybe the day we went to Metrotown and I was wearing a nice outfit, you made a joke about me dressing up because you had your camera. I don’t even know if it was a proper compliment, but it’s the only time I can remember. Besides that, it has been all about how much of an asshole or a judgmental person or a bias person I am - if I express any opinions without a disclaimer at the front. Do you know how insane this looks for me? But mostly, how hurtful it is? When you come from an incredibly judgmental family and all you try is to not repeat the same mistakes you’ve grown up seeing. I have never in my life considered that the way I live my life is the right one, imagine thinking that everyone should do the same. So even though I know I’m not perfect and yes, I can be judgmental, it has never been by considering that what I do is the only possible right thing. Which, honestly, feels more like you.

I grew up listening to my mom saying I should learn how to say ‘no’. So I would train in front of the mirror saying the word in different intonations. I still catch myself doing that every now and then, it’s almost like catching yourself singing your favorite song out of nowhere. So yes, I will first of all say no to something that I’m not used to. It’s my own way of protection and I’m fine with that because I know I need my own time to process things and to make my mind. It’s just how I work - so far. But I’ve never went further on saying my way is the right one and that should be it, even though you seem to only get that from me. It’s not only frustrating, but hurtful that this is how I am seen by someone I love so much.

And then there is the asshole thing. Calling me an asshole so many times I thought it was a joke but I’m pretty sure is not anymore. And I keep going. I feel like shit, call myself an asshole, already assuming you know me better than I know myself and whatever you say is the law. First, what the actual fuck with me. Second, what the actual fuck with you. Who does that to someone you consider such a friend?

That’s why I asked why you were my friend. Because it got to a point I didn’t know why you would hang out with such a piece of shit like me. 

And then there’s the poem. I don’t know if that was supposed to mean something. I was very touched when I got it and I actually got days to ready it just because there was so much going on. But as soon as I did… the only things I got from it was that my normal ways are extraordinary, which it might have been the only real compliment you ever gave me, and that when you think about Fortaleza, you think of me. Everything in between just looks like word play. Which makes me sad for the lack of connection but also doubt myself in all I think I know, including this. 

I’m just so disappointed. I still can’t believe you could just say to me that when you see someone as nice, talented, successful, organized, with always something nice to say to someone and clever as Chris Morocco, the only association you can do is the judgmental one. It’s like there’s nothing else in me worth knowing. And it’s you who are saying that.

One of the things that most makes me happy is making you happy. By bringing you food or making you laugh, it just makes my day somehow. But then I probably shouldn’t be putting myself down in the process, right? This might be the lesson I didn’t learn yet. How to not let people step on you in their own paths of self love. If you just do whatever you want with it, becomes just another way of being egocentrical as fuck.

T.

December 22nd, 2019 - 19:45

Dear S.,

I am a few minutes away from my first tinder date.

Today I was picturing telling you about that. And I immediately thought about your face of disapproval. The look you’d give me when you think I just did or said something really stupid. I don’t know why exactly I pictured that but it got me thinking about this other feeling you give me. That I’m not good enough.

I guess that comes from the fact that you choose A. everyday even though having the possibility of starting over in front of you, which I understand. I don’t think I would ever fill the high standards that 5 years with her must have given you. But every time you ‘joke’ about how dumb I am, or you lecture me about something that, honestly, didn’t require any speech, diminishes me in a way that I always end up thinking how much of a garbage I am compared to you.

I guess I have to blame myself for putting you in this pedestal too. Which is not my love, only my admiration. But as hurtful as it is to not be loved by you, it is to be criticized by someone you love so much.

I’m not sure what your reaction would be when I say I’ve been dating random people, or if you’ll have any reaction whatsoever. But I know that if I’m gonna live with an uncorresponded love like this, I might need to do something to get over it.

T.

December 20th, 2019 - 02:02

Dear S.,

I think there is a certain freedom in living through your worst fears. There’s nothing else to be scared of.

I used to be so scared of getting involved with men and having sex with them. Then I got sexually assaulted by my best friend after an emergency -labiaplasty- , which basically answers the question “what could possibly go wrong?”. Sexual assault still feels like such a heavy word choice for what happened. But what else could be called a man moving your stiff, paralized body around, to force a penis into it? I just can’t find a better definition. You know that instagram “Why I Didn’t Report”? One of their posts says “Because I didn’t know I was a victim until I started working at a crisis center in college 9 years later”. I hated reading this. I can’t not cry reading this. Because I guess I would have to say “Because I didn’t know I was a victim until I had a mandatory consent workshop in college 5 years later”. I hate writing the word victim, I don’t feel like one. Is that victim talk too?

I used to be scared of not having a relationship. Of not being loved or not being enough to people. And look at me. There’s always someone better out there that people can and will go for. I am never the choice. I don’t know exactly what happens but apparently I am great; there’s just that other person who is greater. It’s like forever being Rafael’s sister in Jane the Virgin. I’ve never finished, but I’ll never forget that last picture of everyone together, paired up, and his sister at the right end, being a third wheel in a gay couple. Which is basically what 2020 has to offer me. A. will get here and I will just have to find a way of acting normal around you two. You will be in heaven and I’ll be happy for you, watching everything like a freaky voyer. It’s gonna be ‘great’.

I feel the last time I was someone’s choice was in 9th grade and I fucked that up by being scared. That’s some really well developed destiny’s plot twist. He’s happy now. He has relationships. I’m still here, where we were left at, 11 years ago. Never healed, only even more fucked up.

I used to be scared of not achieving my goals. And again, look at me. Apparently, the only thing I can do is to be a waitress. I don’t like working on sets. I don’t like the hierarchy, I think is bulshit to have a college student and former lawyer as a volunteer PA to clean dirty from plastic rugs. Call me whatever the fuck you want, but I payed almost $100K dollars to network with spoiled childreen and be a volunteer cleaning lady on sets (again, for free!) and that makes me wanna drop a nuclear bomb in the whole capitalistic system.

Nobody trusts me to get along in a project. Either people don’t give a shit to what I have to say or they don’t even consider working with me because, what, I’m not a friend!? (or friendly?). And I think not even you would get on board too, which ultimately is your inner self not having faith in me. But honestly why would you right? I know we are at very different levels, you have been doing this artsy thing for a while now, while my first attempt ever was 15 months ago. You have A. as your pair to create and while I don’t think you’re looking for anyone else, I can’t stop to lean on you. You were the first, and only, person I’ve ever found who I really felt connected to. But also it just feels like you are already taken in all the aspects you could possibly be, and there’s no more opening for anyone or anything else in your life. At the end, everything in you seems to resume into creating life, art and a future only with A.

I mean, this being a healthy choice or not, I can’t say anything about it because I know I would do exactly the same, if I had a chance, with you. And that has always been my ultimate fear. To spend my life without having someone to do that with. To share life. Which is already happening. I’m already living with no one around, not even you. I think that was the worst part of this mental breakdown during these last months, realizing the platonic relationship I was building with you because rationaly I know nothing else could be possible. I am temporarily filling an emotional role for you while for me you are everything. And it’s not because I was heartbroken by someone else before, or because I’m projecting things on you, or because I want a relationship like yours. It has nothing to do with anything besides me wanting to share my life with you, every minute of every day, for as long as my body allows me. It’s about me wanting to make my life purpose your happiness because that will also be my happiness. It’s about wanting to surprise you and treat you as the most important person in this world, like the only-daughter treatment you never had but always deserved. It’s about me wanting to not have sex for the first time in my life, but to make love with you every single day because somehow you grew to be the sexiest human being alive in my planet. It’s about wanting to marry you even though I’ve never wanted to marry anyone before, because you create this desire for a lifetime commitment in my heart. It’s about cooking for you and with you, amazing bon appetit feasts for our families where my mom would talk in spanish thinking she’s nailing it while your mom wouldn’t understand shit. It’s about having children with you, if you want to, because even though the world can’t take any more people in it, it also can't not know how you would grow to be the best mom to walk this planet and I would want to watch that sitcom every day, for the rest of my life. It’s about fighting with you and making up with poetry. It’s about being by your side at all moments because I want to help, to watch, to learn. It’s about loving someone in ways I never thought it was possible while I’m still amazed to have this somewhere inside of me every time I think about you. And because of all of that, this has been the worst possible second place I have ever been in my life. Somehow I feel that as long as I live, your heart will be the only first place it will ever matter to me. Making me forever a loser.

I have nothing to fear anymore. I went through sexual and psychological violence, a genital plastic surgery, the complete emotional father rejection besides the overall social and romantic rejection by strangers through every attempt of a relationship, the multiple failor in different careers, from technical to artistic, besides the continuity of that failor and, worse than the loss of something I once had, the complete impossibility and instant dismissal of romantic love from the one person that, in some surreal magical way, will always matters the most in my world. 

But inside my head there’s a whole universe that lives from dreams. It’s the only comforting place I’ve ever had, where the impossible happens every night and somehow you choose me. And maybe, in my personalized fairytale, if you take the depressive crap out of it, this could be the vows I’d write to you.

T.

December 14th, 2019 - 04:14

Dear Stephanie,

It has been a day since you left and I already can't stop thinking about you. How you are, what you’re doing, the things I would like to share with you, which is nothing much besides my feelings. The year is almost done and the feeling of time passing through my life just makes me more sure that I need to move on. In a way, it’s very typical for me to want the impossible. But I also know that there’s nothing typical or simple in how you make me feel. It has been the most awakening feeling, transpassing gender or friendship, to love someone as I’ve been loving you. To want someone as I want you.

I’m sorry for the broken record. I know this is basically all I have been talking about here. But I spend my days with this feeling, having no place and no one to let it out. Today M. called me from my friend’s Christmas party in Brazil. And even though I miss to be there, I’m never quite sure if I miss them or we are just constantly in completely different vibes. I don’t feel like there’s space for me if I’m not playing the sex and alchool vibe. I. can only talk about having sex and being sexually liberated, which is what I’ve ever wanted but can’t relate at all. M, besides talking about being married, can only repeat that “things will work out for me” which is even more depressing as I know she has no idea what she’s talking about. And the rest of them barely talk with me if I don’t come forward and show myself as this completely open and cheerful person, which it couldn’t be more far away from reality.

I spend half of my time actually lost in it, having no idea what to do with ‘living’ and therefore not wanting to. While the other half I am loving you in my own head, not knowing what to do about it, having no place or no one to talk about it and feeling like shit for fantasizing about my very well engaged best friend. You have your amazing relationship that fulfills you and makes you happy and I know I have no place in your life in that way. But still, I live in a place where something can happen at the same time I can’t bare imagining things falling apart for you and A. It’s like I’m betraying you and our friendship. I have no place to talk about it with friends and definitely can’t show that to you, so I am sorry for repeating the whining here. I write when I feel I’m going to explode from frustration, sadness, saudade... Or just love.

T.

December 8th, 2019 - 18:02

Dear S.,

I had a lot of thoughts today. That felt really dumb to write.

I thought about apologizing to you today. For these letters. For writing down all my thoughts and feelings to an idealistic version of you instead of actually talking with the real person. But I am always feeling like I’m taking too much of your time by being an ego-centrical asshole if I talk about me. Because the last months felt like it was all about me. How I was feeling, what I was doing and you trying to help me leave the black hole. But the black hole is never gonna end. I was at Tatiana’s party, being social as I’ve never been with Brazilians here, and it was fine, it was good. Until I leave and the weirdness takes my mind and I don’t know what to do and I feel a pain that I don’t know if it’s real and I start questioning what is real or not and I cry for 10 min on the street. I don’t have a place to go or a person to talk to. Every place I look around, everything is made for 2. Or for groups of human beings, they call families. Supermarket sales, restaurant tables, bus seats, Cinematheque, Vancity and every other artsy cinema tickets.

I almost took the 232 to go to res. I texted you to meet me at the Quay. But I can’t depend on the feeling of having you in my life if you’re one of them. One of those people who are part of a couple, part of a group. You talking about your family depresses me. Talking about A., Andrés, the dogs, and it’s the most unfair feeling I can have about you. They are this huge part of your life that I want to know about, want to picture, want to see your face when you show me a video, but it just hurts too much. I never know what to say, what’s the appropriate reaction to have, because the only thing I can think of is how unrelatable all of that is to me. The only thing I can think of is K’s family because they are the closest I’ve ever been to feel like I’m in one of those groups. I guess that’s why I’ve been talking about K. so much this past year. 

Here, there’s nothing in return. So there’s no pain. These pages will never respond back with an anecdote, a gif, a video of a very cute kid sleeping with a very cute dog, or just ignore me. It’s the closest I’ll ever be from truly sharing my life. I guess that’s why I’m into making art. A movie, a picture, a letter, a poem. It’s like sharing yourself with the world, even if there’s no one else at the other side of the table.

You never came. I think you replied something related to “I can’t” and then offered to come on Tuesday, the day we’re going to the movies. Which is understandable, predictable and fine. It’s the best you can do for you and I appreciate. But it’s definitely not what I need. I love you more than I’ve ever loved another human being. I try my best and I’ll keep trying, as long as you need me in your life, to be the best person you need. But nothing will ever change the fact that, with or without A., you will never be there when I most need. You’ll never be the other person walking by my side in a winter night. We’ll never be in a group, together.

But I know you still need me around in this final stage of our lives in Vancouver, at Cap, and I’ll be around. I just need to learn how to be there for you being here on my own.

T.