i don’t want to be charlie brown anymore…

dear e,

i can’t sleep. my heart hurts to no end. i know you didn’t mean to hurt me, but yet again,  i feel like shit over you.

i have endured humiliation and pain this year in regards to sam, as your girlfriend several times and now as of last night, as your friend. the really painful part is that you do this so naturally, unconsciously, this is who you are and this is who you will always be, and no matter how much i invest my heart in you, at the end of the day, i will feel like this insignificant person in your life. that’s on me.

i silently saved my christmas eve and day for you because i thought this year, i was spending it in san francisco for the first time in my life and just stupidly assumed that i would spend it with the friend i most love in the world, you. the very thought that you would spend it with sam didn’t even cross my mind until my therapist had asked if that was what you were doing. i felt this tinge of sharp pain when she said that to me yesterday morning, and that tinge kept throbbing inside me and that’s why i called last night to ask if it could even possibly be true after all we have gone through this year.

this is the part that i feel like i can’t count on you. i spent this whole year first as your girlfriend and then as your friend working around your schedule, making sure i only met you when it was convenient for you, to make your life go as smoothly as possible. sometimes as your girlfriend, i have asked to spend a whole saturday with you, but you put your writing first, which i lived with and accepted because that was very important to you. but the times when you actually took a day off was to take that weekend trip with sam or you did your laundry on a friday because you had plans on the following saturday to see sam and her sister. god forgive you, if you ever did that for me.

i feel like if sam asked you to take her to the moon, you’d fight through heaven and hell to find a way to do so. if i asked, you’d tell me it didn’t work in your budget or how ridiculous that request was in the first place.

i feel myself pulling away from you because at the end of the day, no matter how much i put you on the top of my list of priorities. i’d drop everything to be there for you. i realize in your world, you’d have to consider if you’re done with your writing and sam doesn’t need you to do something and you’re feeling well and have nothing else more important to attend to, before you will be there for me. and that cuts me to the core, makes me feel like shit, makes me feel like whereas naturally, i think about how to make your life sweeter and easier and more wonderful, you naturally think about yourself first, your writing next, your mom and then sam, and only when it’s convenient, perhaps me. i am and always will be only and afterthought, if even that. maybe you don’t think this is true because you spend all the free time you have with me, but if you really think about it, i’m the average boring day and sam is your special occasion, your birthday, christmas, and any day that really truly matters to you.

maybe i deserve this because i screwed up thanksgiving for you, made you feel bad as we were heading home?

i don’t want to do this anymore, e. i don’t want to set myself up for disappointment when it comes to you and sam. it makes me regret ever dating you beyond that first date when you told me about sam and how you came to san francisco for her. i should have known better, that was a huge red flag. i should have stopped after that first date. i had no idea how much pain i had in store for me this last year. i wish i could go in the past and grab myself before i answered your reply to my personal ad. i wish i could go back and hold myself tightly in my arms and tell her, please, don’t answer back, don’t open your heart to this guy, he will hurt you so deeply over and over again in 2010 without even a blink because when it comes to you, ultimately, he will not recognize your worth. and that is because you yourself don’t recognize your own worth. it will kill you inside. he will choose sam each and every time—she owns his heart completely and you will barely scratch the surface.

since i can’t go back in the past, all i can do is hold myself now, and tell myself, “you can stop this pain right now by letting go of him. you can stop setting yourself up for hurt. it’s like e is lucy holding that football in front of you, and you’re charlie brown. you don’t have to be charlie brown anymore. just walk away, stop trying to kick that football, e will never let you…ultimately, he can’t. that ball belongs to sam. it will always belong to sam. i was the fool to think differently, want differently, even hope differently.”

i was originally composing this letter to send to you, e, but i didn’t want to fuck up your most favorite holiday, christmas, and instead, i have put it in my blog. i’m doing this right now because i want this to be my last blog entry about you. i spent this whole entire year devoted to your happiness when i should have remembered mine, i should have taken care of myself, i should have loved myself even half as much as i loved you.

i can honestly say that my love for you has hit its wall. i see you for who you are. i see that you are incapable of loving me, truly loving me even as a friend. you don’t have the capacity to understand or appreciate me, and that’s the pain i am going through. i allowed myself to open my heart and even hope that you could possibly be the man to share my whole world with, and i was wrong time and time again, so utterly mistaken.

2010 i gave you my first new year’s kiss…i won’t make that mistake ever again. my heart has no more to give you.