this is something i told myself i would never write, but alas, here i sit writing it. Oh well. I know myself and i know that if it is rambling around in my brain in the way it is, the best thing to do is to get it out through writing. Whether it is the best thing to actually send it is another matter, but if you are reading it i guess i’ve said fuck it either way and sent it. None of us has ever said i was the most rational of all although i am feeling more rational these days then i have in awhile and you yourself aren’t even close to being the most rational, so whatever.
With my departure from berlin you and what arose between us there fell out of my brain, i stopped thinking about it, stopped feeling hurt and stopped feeling so angry at you. For some reason though in the past days it has resurfaced and is bugging the shit out of me. For the first time in years i can finally be present in my life without thinking of how and when you and i will meet and what will unfold, and so i certainly don’t want space taken up with my anger and frustration at what actually went down. And so the last few days have been driving me crazy that you have popped back into my mind and won’t leave me alone. Mostly the thoughts are focused on the things i didn’t say either for lack of my own empowerment or space that i felt was mutual and safe. And it frustrates me to think that you are out there happy and content without having to acknowledge how you treated me or what went down. Of course i am frustrated with myself for how i acted, i was coming from a place of severe disempowerment and fear and hurt, and acted out in ways that i am not proud of and hope in the future not to duplicate. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge your own actions or even admit to yourself or me that you had actions that were not the best pisses me off to no end. The fact that you couldn’t or wouldn’t even sit and talk with me, face to face, in order to respect our friendship and communicate the fact that you no longer wanted to find out what it would be like to share time with me was shit. I don’t need you to love me but the way you went about things wasn’t okay. And fine, i came to your place at 1am and yelled at you and i sent an angry sms, i take responsibility for this, but you’ve said yourself over the years that i am a person that is patient and forgives and so you should have understood that there were issues that needed to be addressed. Think over the years how many times i have told you i was hurt by your lack of communication, by your ability to just cut me out of your life without seeming to care and think about how each time i got over it and then tell me i am irrational and a bad person for ‘causing a scene’ because finally we were in the same town and you were totally shutting out me from day one without being willing to admit it. Above and beyond it all though, the thing that fucked me up the most was that you said you cannot feel safe with me in your home. Why? Because i refuse to let you hide behind the walls that allow you to just shut everyone out? Well, you finally figured out the way to get me to leave you alone; in my world one of the worst things that i could do is make someone i care about feel unsafe, so i walked away thinking ‘fuck. I make her feel unsafe. I am fucked.’ i came to realize though i didn’t feel safe with you, that for all this time i’ve felt manipulated by you, going back to that first night in bil’in when i said i didn’t want to be intimate with you and you sat in the corner and sulked until i gave in. and even you telling me i make you feel unsafe is a kind of manipulation designed to redirect having to look inside yourself. Do you think that your tactic of silence is really any different then my action of crossing a certain point and yelling? Just because you didn’t shout or raise your voice does not mean you aren’t being hurtful or creating situations of unsafety.
And yeah, i did not rush to your side when you were in jail in boston, but i certainly never deserted you. i was there for you in the best way i could have been at the time making myself available by mail and phone until i could make it across the country. But even all that, your journey to the states, really had nothing to do with me, but was all about what you wanted, when and how you wanted it. Even in that instance i was only informed by you how things would unfold, that you would come without wanting help for a visa and that you would come and spend three months in my home. I told you at the time i didn’t feel like i was a part of the process but was willing to support you anyway. But then when it comes to me crossing the ocean to find you, i have to eventually beg for a guest spot in your home because from the onset you told me i wasn’t welcome a space there and then i am treated like i am supposed to kiss your feet for being so kind as to offer me a place for a fucking week.
You treated me like shit. Like some random person that isn’t worth your time, like some foolish child that you feel doesn’t get it or isn’t cool enough. I understand that you don’t want to have any semblence of a ‘straight’ life, neither do i, but that has nothing to do with treating people the way you did me. It is in no way radical or revolutionary to think it’s okay to simply cut people out who haven’t hurt you without an explanation or with a fucking email to say ‘sorry, i don’t love you anymore’. Revolution, to me, includes radicalizing how we treat one another, it means stepping up to accept our behaviour and changing it in order to suit a radical world. And fuck you if you chaulk all this up to me giving you an ‘educational lecture’. You lost the ability to call me on that one two minutes after you followed up a similar reprimand by lecturing me.
So apologies for being boring and writing these words that you probably won’t ingest anyway. Someday when your ego is not so much in your face read it again and maybe you’ll get what i’m trying to say. For now though i’m sure it only pisses you off to no end and confirms your belief that i am out of control, causing a scene and fucked. Whatever. I don’t care anymore. Right now, it’s all about me, about making myself feel better and clearing my mind. And to that end, i will say don’t bother to reply. I am not interested to resume contact but am only being selfish and clearing my own mind.
So, i apologize for my errors in human interaction, i never claimed to be perfect though and i certainly never ran away from you without an explanation.
i’m glad you’re finding happiness in the world and folks that feel like family, i hope it suits you well and for the sake of folks you will encounter from here on out, i hope you learn some good things about how to treat people.
Kisses.
–flo
or perhaps it should be something more along the lines of:
i’m trying to figure out the best way to write this in order to clear my mind, get my point across and share some things with you that i feel you could stand to be reflected on yet to do it in a way that you will ingest it and not immediately turn off and disregard it because you chalk it up to a ‘lecture’. It’s a difficult balance to find. Especially assuming you just don’t care and won’t listen to what i have to say anyway unless it is me groveling at your feet.
I guess i’ll start with the obvious-i was quite hurt by our process in berlin. I was hurt by the fact that you didn’t feel it important to actually sit with me face to face and explain what was going on for you in relation to me. Everything else is secondary; my hurt that i was just supposed to accept your treatment of me (ie; lack of direct communication) without acting out or simply being brushed off as ‘making a scene’, my hurt that after all was said and done and i was trying to check in with you in order to get closure, you continued to feel the safety of your walls were more important then me as your friend, my hurt that in after all this time, you could simply brush me off as someone unimportant, treat me like i am not worth any type of process that lends itself to friendship and let me hang there in hurt without seeming to care. I do not feel i have treated you in this way over the years. even if i could not always immediately be there for you in person, i feel like i have always done my best to support you. i understand you have been hurt in life and probably have a lack of trust because of it, and that you don’t want reminders of that hurt in your life, but i think your practice of shutting people out without explanation or acknowledgement of possible injury is fucked and not okay. i do not feel that i have hurt you over the years to the extent that warrants you to need to cut me out as you did so you won’t be reminded of something (especially when i came there because it was mutually desired by us both). I am not the israeli army and i am not your family and for you to put me in the category of those things and shut me out totally disregards me as a person and is in no way radical or revolutionary.
I feel that you tested me by pushing me away until i reacted and then used that reaction to blame everything on me. I’ve come to realize i knew this was how things would unfold and was a fool to ignore that intuition and think things would be different. I think none of these years have been about me or even about ‘us’, but about you and what you needed in order to survive and feel loved and that it was something that was never meant to be actualized. It only existed to ease your soul when you were depressed and needed a life vest and as soon as you found some other way to not be so depressed i was no longer a needed entity. I have realized this for some time but always tried to quiet that voice in my head instead wanting to believe it was some magical friendship that would be revolutionary if only we could make it to the same town. The reality though is that as soon as it became apparent that i was unneeded you threw me away without seeming to care.
