An Open Letter

How do you tell someone they are wrong? How do you cut through their delusion, to show them that what they are thinking is incorrect? That statements they’ve made are simply patently untrue?

You can’t. Not really. Not when they really think what they are saying is true.

So it has been with a friend of mine – no longer a friend of mine.

History has repeated over and over again with this one and I never seem to learn. I’ve tried to understand and come to terms with and, most importantly, accept all the parts of him that make him who he is. This is my failing – I cannot accept his problems because he ultimately turns them into my problems. I found discussions from as far back as seven years ago which are an exact carbon copy of this very situation and I’m sure the break that ensued even before then was a result of the same thing. Like I said, history repeats.

From all the years of (off and on) friendship, from all the conversations we’ve had, I do understand that this comes from a good place. It does. Which is why it’s hard for me to remain mad. I get that part. He is ultimately a really good person.

But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Not even my closest girlfriend here would dare say the things that he has to and about me – and it’s not for fear of my reaction but their respect that those issues are absolutely none of their business unless I choose to let it be their business. They know that to be friends with me is to accept the whole of me, no questions asked, no assumptions made and as I have said to several people, I love just having them there. No one needs to do a thing. Just be there. Be a presence in my life. Friendships are not something you should feel the need to set boundaries on and yet that’s what I found myself having to do so he would just back off and stop making himself so involved.

He thinks that I am a time bomb of emotion. Tell me, dear reader, if you’ve known me throughout the years have you ever known me to not be volatile emotionally? It was the whole reason I started blogging nearly 20 (holy shit!) years ago. Go through the stuff that I have. See if you end up the same coming out as you did going in.

But I wear it. I deal with it. I get help when I need it – I detest having “help” thrust upon me.

Boundaries.

Strangely enough, I haven’t had this problem with anyone else. A fact that amuses me a bit because he thinks this has happened before and it has – but only with him. I think he’s forgotten that, much like I had forgotten it too. I have a handful of friends that I have had the most awful blow-ups with but then we’ve moved on, forgiven each other or at least agreed to forever disagree on whatever it was that caused the problem in the first place. In the excitement of all the great things that happened last year, my friend and I definitely got lulled into a sense of delightful ignorance of our past. I guess with some people, you just can’t change rhythms.

I appreciate everything that he’s done for me and everything that he wanted to do for me. I am sorry that I cannot be what he needed in the same way that I am sorry that he could not be what I needed.

I can honestly say that I hope he finds peace in his topsy-turvy world, much in the same way that I am trying to in mine.

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