The city is my church

Letters to an unrequited love

[letterstogoose]

2022-08-24

Goose-

I’m writing this because I know you’ll read it, someday. Like it or not, I know you- you don’t go through what we did without coming out the other end understanding each other. I value that. I think you do, too, still; even after all that’s happened.

I’m still angry with you. Each and every single day. Angry, and confused, and hurt. You unilaterally ended our relationship, choosing to side with unfounded beliefs constructed from nothing but fear rather than your longtime partner. Worse, you couldn’t even muster the courage to tell me why. I had to find out well after you cut off contact, from a third party. Before all this I would’ve bet my life you’d see how insane that is, but that’s the thing about fear; it obfuscates, and it twists, and in the end it breaks. Your fear broke us. But recognising how senseless it all was takes some of the punch out of it, in & of itself. Your actions were hurtful, but how can I be angered by a baseless notion?

To that end, I know it might seem like you’re trying to protect yourself, but the only thing you’ve managed to ward off is looking inward. You know me, too. Somewhere within you you know I’d never do anything so needlessly cruel. I don’t know how you managed to justify the line of thought, but whatever the logic or lack thereof, I need you to understand that, despite best intentions, your trauma cannot end with you. Denying yourself the chance gives it yet more purchase in you, and your actions as a result have passed it on to me. And much as it saddens me to mention, even if my wellbeing doesn’t motivate you anymore, rest assured; until you really, truly address it, I guarantee you’ll continue to pass it on to everyone around you. I certainly don’t deserve that, but neither does anyone else. Hell, neither do you.

It can be difficult to admit you’re wrong. I can only imagine it being even harder to heal, past that point. I hope for your sake that somewhere down the line you realise that you were. I’d hope that even if you never told me, painful as it would be. But for better or for worse, I keep my promises, no matter how far you’ve strayed from the one we made to each other. I’m never far.

Happy birthday, picnic, and good luck.

[letterstogoose]

2017-05-01

Goose-

This is dead. That much is for sure. Definitively, irrevocably, finally dead.

Reflecting as an artist, just to start with the least important thing, I’m not decided on where I stand. I’m happy how it turned out, but almost certain I’d never want you to read any of it, at the same time. I’m grateful that the time I put into the project allowed me to process so much, but resent that it took so much out of/from me. I’m confused in so many ways, not the least of them being that I may never know your feelings on the subject- and you’re half of this conversation.

Reflecting as the man inexplicably still in love with you, I’m incredibly relieved you came back, babe. Our relationship will only ever be incomprehensible, bewildering to excess, but none of that matters so long as you’re here with me. I was shaken in so many ways throughout the course of this, but thankfully, some things are beyond even my capacity for needless worry. I can only hope that this has helped to distill from raw, instinctual musings the happy, productive parts of my feelings for you.

Reflecting more literally, as my own worst judge & greatest ally, get a grip & maybe things will turn out okay.

I leave town in two days, likely to be showing back up in Burlington in four. Back to where it all began; where I first fell, not even knowing the shape of your face; where I then met you and it all solidified. I can’t change a thing about how anything turned out, & can’t possibly know what’s waiting for me, but I do know you’ll be there. And that’s comforting, but it also scares the living shit out of me. Because even if I won’t tell you how I really feel - and I won’t; can’t, not yet - I’m terrified more than anything that you’ll be able to figure it out before I can manage to find the right words with which to tell you.

So for now - as fucking always - uncertainty. But no more of the pain that spurred all this in the first place. & I suppose that’s the important thing to remember.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-30

Goose-

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

It happened last night. Like I’ve said before- I don’t lie to myself. So when it set in... It’s just the same as how certain I am about you. I broke. Locked myself in my room, then thought better of it and stepped outside.

Last night wasn’t chilly- not enough to deter me from the open air. The city was quiet; largely; at three in the morning most of the parties had already ended. I sat in one of the shittily-upholstered chairs that came with the house and wept. It just felt right to be there, then. As if anything else would have cheated me of the experience.

The tears slowed & I started babbling to myself. None of this has ever made sense at all. Not on paper, not in my head, not in the real world, and certainly not verbally. I felt the anxiety attack take hold, but kept on talking as the tears started again- that felt right too. How could this end any other way?

The vast majority of what I’m dead certain about, swept away in an instant. The defining characteristics that have come to overwhelm all others in the past year, suddenly vanished. I was empty. A blank canvas. I’ve never been good at painting.

Stragglers in costume stumbled by, heading home through the cones of light. I remember I couldn’t stop staring at a pale gold SUV. Fixation- ironic enough that all at once I was laughing, too.

I don’t want to be free of you. It seems like everything I’ve ever done in life has been leading me toward something, following some plan far too great to conceptualise. Funny, a stray thought reminded me- earlier in the night, in an oddly deep break from the especially awkward type of conversation that only happens between two people who have never met but are attending the same mixer, someone had asked me if I believe in fate. I guess there’s no way my answer could be no, then. & that something I’ve been being led toward, that’s undoubtedly you.

Life is fickle, & fate even moreso. Paths cross and intermingle, and separate. Something clicked, faintly, as the night wore on- if I truly put stock in fate bringing us together, I wouldn’t be beating my head against the brick wall that is wondering why we’re not. If I believe so wholeheartedly that it’s meant to be- I would have already let go.

I have to let go of you, Goose. I stayed up all night fighting a battle I knew I’d eventually lose; trying to puzzle out a way to hold on. The whole time I knew it was only playing the devil’s advocate. Kicking and screaming the whole way.

I love you. That will never change. That’s my consolation prize- knowing that, deep down, I’ve been altered so fundamentally that there’s absolutely no going back. It’s paltry, but as realisations go, it was salve on the deepest of burns. Inadequate, but not nothing.

For so long I’ve been blaming myself- speaking of inadequate. For so long I’ve been operating under the assumption that if I just tried a little harder; pushed through just a bit more; held on just a little tighter... You told me I was enough, way back when. And I thought I understood what you meant- that I was enough for you. All I’ve ever wanted to be- sufficient. Adequate. Enough for the person I love most deeply. I just misheard the suffix... I am enough for me.

I am destroying myself from the inside out. Like a piece of paper folded in half, over and over; the pressure mounting with each successive step, straining harder and harder to get back to where it began. It’s a wonder I haven’t killed myself already, frankly, and I do mean that literally.

& so it finally snapped. I’m free. I don’t know how to live as myself anymore, but I’m still here, so I’ll just have to figure it out along the way.

Somewhere down the line, our paths will cross again. I don’t know how I know that for sure; I can’t even begin to explain it. But I do. If You Wait. It might be years & years, but it will happen. That’s my faith. I believe in love; I believe in fate; I believe that our love for each other simply cannot disappear that easily.

I miss you, Goose. See you soon.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-29

Goose-

Taking stock- & life really isn't all that bad. I think I've mentioned, before... These [letters] are a pretty terrible longterm judge of who & how I am, being, as they are, based on something that affects me so tragically.

Not sure where I was going with that, but it is true.

I'm in a strange place, today. Highly caffeinated, but largely sedentary- the most I've moved today was for a cleaning frenzy this morning, after my room finally got to the tipping point in re: filth. The rest of the day - what little of it I've been awake for, anyhow - has all been logistics work for my upcoming trip.

Beyond excited to be home, and that feeling is only growing over time. I'll get to see friends, and family, and my dogs, and the trees & mountains... It's so flat here. & we might be the tree city, but nothing matches the bucolic wilds I grew up in.

Trying to push back against the ever-stubborn part of me that's ecstatic to be closer to where you are.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-28

Goose-

Emotional distance sucks. Maybe it's just the feelings I'm having tonight colouring my mind, but it feels like I already have trouble connecting with folks, in sort of an Asperger’s way. But then this, on top of that difficulty?

I genuinely don't feel like I can trust anyone. Not implicitly; not the way I [bafflingly] still trust you. I have close relationships with people, but somehow I always feel removed or aloof, however much I don't want to be. Emotional dissociation, I guess.

Today's been all about dissociating, actually. From when I woke up to right now my head has been clouded, and it feels like I'm hovering a couple feet behind my body, watching it take action & make decisions for me. Third-person living. I haven't felt grounded since January.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-27

I wonder if you ever told Michelle about any of this. I mean, logically speaking, she had to hear something… But I'm talking more along the lines of your feelings on the subject.

It bothers me that someone could be so close-minded and explosively reactive. I was trying to dull this cut in the beginning, right when it all went down, but now I really am arguing against her. Sure, it might be a little shitty. I don't care anymore. Not from this far away. I feel wronged, and I can't believe you put up with that kind of bullshit.

Remembering things like that conversation, in Muddy’s, before all this... The lines are blurred, & the colors greyed, & all of it fades. I've moved beyond sad, in a sense. Resigned myself to feeling this forever. To watching you disappear- slowly at first, and then all at once.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-26

Goose-

I sent you a message again last night. Every time I reach out, it's this whole process of trepidation and judgement. I spend ages deliberating, then draft and redraft, second-guessing the whole way… Then hours on the far side regretting those choices that I made.

You can't be in love with someone who isn't there. I remember writing that a while back. But that comes as a package with not being able to break things off with someone who's not there, either, I'm realising. That's a pretty good working definition for lack of closure anyway. And it describes what's going on in my head perfectly…

I'm not willing to accept that things went to shit for anything other than circumstantial nonsense getting in the way. Our story has not run its proper course, and it should be allowed to do so. Plus… I told you I would wait.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-25

Goose-

How long to hold on? Of course, that implies that I know how to let go, too. Unanswerable questions again. Joy.

Logic tells me there's an end to this, just as there is to all things. But I can't figure out when or even where it is. So thoroughly trapped that I can't even see the bonds. You're a fucking incomprehensible miracle. A godsdamned torturous masterpiece. Who sent you?

Last night I dreamt I died. I spent the vast majority of the rest of the vividly tangible experience trying to communicate with the living. There was something important I had to tell them, and the only thing that had any kind of effect was writing letters.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-24

Goose-

Maybe this will all start to make sense when I get back. I mean, it’s laughable to think everything would just gel on its own. But I miss my mountains & forests, and all the people among them.

Christ, Goose, I miss you something fierce, too. With the same kind of ache- I found home in you somehow, and it’s been so long since I’ve been back. & who even knows if I ever will be, at this point.

These feelings are so intertwined. I worry I’ve changed too much already to come back to Burlington, too. I can't tell if I'm romanticising my old life or if it really was better.

The fuck wouldn't be better, honestly. My fingers smell like cigarettes and I hate myself. Hate you. Hate hating. What did you do to me? Why can't I stop?

Please. I can't even tell what I'm begging for anymore. I don't know what to do.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-23

Goose-

Went out for coffee after the bike clinic with some folks who were here last night for a party. It ended up making me super spacey, but the trip over is more the point. I don’t just... do things that spontaneously a lot.

They’re more that type of person. It’s a couple- Andrew & Dawn, I think they said. In the span of time it took for us to get to the coffee shop & back, they’d changed their plans from leaving for a sightseeing trip to Canada the minute we were back at the house to possibly moving in. How do people live that freely?

I guess it’s a product of anxiety, but there’s no way I could ever be that way. However much I might want it... Even though they obviously face a lot of hardship along the way, from some of the stories they were telling, they seem happier, somehow.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-22

Goose-

After having just pushed my Thanksgiving plans into action - my first trip away from here - things feel somehow very solid, all of a sudden. It’s fitting, but illogical, at the same time. As if leaving this place with the understanding that I’ll return solidifies that everything I’ve experienced in the past seven weeks, and now it’s all for real.

One unfettered, shining, pure positive: just like for the past... oh, maybe seven years, now? Anyway, just like for the memorable recent past, significantly large number of years, I’ll be at the fall concert Carbon Leaf does at Higher Ground. I’m not giving up that part of me, & it feels wonderful to say that.

There aren’t many of those left. Concretely ‘me’ pieces. They float amongst whatever comprises the rest of my mind these days, and bump into each other, or the hunk of lead in my chest, or the pit of emptiness in my stomach.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-21

Goose-

Life with [what roughly amounts to] a nine to five is pretty exhausting. I still haven’t figured out a way to pull it off and keep up with my exercise regime, and considering how important that was to me when I first got here - a microcosm of how important it is to me in general, as a way to combat emotional distress - that’s no small matter.

But I don’t leave wanting more. I mean, obviously I don’t leave wanting to have stayed, but I’m getting at something different... When I punch out, I might want a drink or two before I go to bed, but on the walk home I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Like I made a difference; like what I did that day mattered; like I’m enough.

It’s easy to pass things off as insignificant, especially if you have as terrible a sense of self-worth as I do. At the end of the day - figuratively and literally - I’m working a shitty retail job. But this one’s mine. And I think (even with the limited life experience I have) it’s in a worthwhile field. And it’s damn well satisfying, even if I don’t know why.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-20

Goose-

It’s so disconcerting not to know who I am, in the sense of what I stand for. Or maybe to not be able to identify which is which, if they’re differentiable? Whatever it is, I feel inadequate in the face of any situation that requires me to express myself. Do I lack identity, or do I simply lack the tools to find it within myself?

To the best of my knowledge, I characterise other people like this all the time. & if there’s no trouble with that, I also shouldn’t have trouble treating myself like anybody else when making those judgements. But it feeds into dissociation if I follow that path... This is so fucking tangled.

You brought me right out of this state- and effortlessly. Even when I was panicked. Just like it was nothing. I guess that’s one of the raisins I still believe in this so adamantly- because it was so effortless. I miss you so fucking much.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-19

Goose-

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me. If I’m imagining all these boundaries; if opening up just takes allowing myself to do so. That little step toward the future, & away from self-doubt.

It doesn’t feel like there’s a conceivable world in which I wouldnt’ve done already if I’d had the option. Because why? Why suffer through that, with no positive outcome?

Today has been a cacophonous mixture of having too much energy physically & absolutely no stamina to match it mentally. It dragged, and every question was nigh on impossible to answer, and I felt like everything I did mired people down. So just about your average day, I guess.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-18

Goose-

Depression is honestly pretty mystifying. How does it make any sense at all that I could be having these feelings and still be going about my life as normal? I look at the average interaction I have, and it’s incomprehensible.

I wonder if people know. I wonder if anyone cares. I know logically that of course some people do, but that uniquely terrible twist to it all keeps whispering the doubt into my ear.

Every day feels like a farce, based on the events of the one before it- comprehensible in the short run, but functionally meaningless over time. The rut is getting so deep I’m starting to believe nothing will ever change it.

Today started okay. Things change. Wish I knew how to take matters into my own hands.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-17

Goose-

As a continuation of a thought I wrote about something around a week ago... Being busy makes it hard to feel down, yes. But it’s not a substitute for happiness. It doesn’t fill that hole. You don’t actively try to be busy throughout your life, simple for its own sake; you don’t worry about how busy other people are after a misfortune; you don’t wish people a busy holiday. Busyness is a substitute, and a poor one at that, no matter how effective. Just because something works to solve a problem doesn’t mean you’ve found the right answer. I was wrong to think it might be enough, and I feel like a fool to’ve been chasing the wrong thing for so long, now.

[letterstogoose]

2016-10-16

Goose-

Maybe I’m too busy singing to notice how the music has shifted. Maybe I’m oblivious, or in denial, or maybe I don’t know how to react at all. Maybe I let every day go by untouched because it seems like no matter what I do I break something, and it’s easier just to let go & cede to fate.

The person I’ve been seeing for lunch at work invited me over today. We went through the motions of meeting roommates, then napped in their room. They invited me to smoke when we woke up, and then we put on some standup in the background & started making out. It didn’t take long before things escalated. I’m still reeling.

I guess I just don’t understand how someone can be so okay with the mess I’ve become. Sure, our relationship doesn’t necessarily necessitate that, and mutual attraction is a hell of a drug. It still takes me by surprise. I don’t exactly have a healthy sense of self-worth these days. But for now - for today, at least - things are okay.