Bi-,

I hope this letter will be my last entry in this chapter of my life. Although I do not agree with your decision, I do respect it. So, I will let you go. Before I lock away this chapter, there is a lot I need to say. I know that the likelihood of you ever reading this is mostly nil, but I hold on to the hope that years from now, somehow when you need it most, this letter to you will cross your path. First, I want to tell you how much you are loved and why. How can I put into words what I see in my head and what I feel in my heart? You are the most beautiful piece of art. Everything about you is flawed and thus makes for the most perfect art. When you and I connect eyes, I can see all of the pain you’ve ever had. It hurts and it’s deep and I can feel it. That pain is as deep as mine and you’re the only person that I have seen a depth that equals mine. I sympathize because we are both broken people who have been broken by others. Then we were forgotten about by the world and left behind. Two glued-together hearts that met at either the best or worst time. In the middle of the night, when you couldn’t sleep and would sit at your desk drawing, I would quietly watch you, slouched over and busy in your own space. You reminded me of what I would draw if I could to capture all of the emotions inside of me. My heart said to my brain that this habit of yours is something that I would love to grow old with. Your peaceful space was a place that I wanted to exist in, but of course I left you alone to focus and just watched you from afar. To see so much unresolved pain in someone made it obvious how I fell farther in love when you would smile or laugh. This doesn’t even begin to speak of how home was a tangible feeling when you would wrap your arms around me in a big hug. How could a person with so much trauma and pain exude so much warmth and comfort? I realized that this is what other people think of me. You were my stable foundation that was never supposed to crumble. I admire you for letting me in to see the real you even though it was so brief. You’re loved for all of your strengths and weaknesses, too. It just has to be said that your hair, your nose, your hands, your fashion choices, all my favorite and unique things.

I think that the steadiness I felt around you tainted my view of you. I think I felt that our insane amount of similarities meant that you could read my mind better. I misunderstood that we process our feelings in a completely different way from each other. I may have taken for granted that you understood what my actions were trying to convey. When we first met, I was not in a place to live a happy ever after with you, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t want that happy ever after. I had made prior commitments before I met you that I needed to see through, because not seeing those commitments through meant that I would destroy someone else’s life. That is not who I am and could never live with myself if I did that. I feel that I did my best to be open and honest with you from the very beginning. I thought that the transparency would sate you enough to give me the time I needed. I had hoped that you would be understanding. On your birthday, I said things that weren’t what you wanted to hear and I distanced myself from you. I was in a very confusing place and state of mind and I admit the things I said did not match up with what I was feeling or thinking inside. I needed space to sort through these confusing thoughts and make a huge decision that would affect the rest of my entire life. It took me a couple of weeks to make this decision and I made it. But you didn’t wait. You took these couple of weeks to shut down to prevent yourself from getting hurt. I mean, I understand why you did this, but what a detriment to your trust in me.

I could tell that you were in pain. I didn’t understand why you were in pain and I realize now that my love language and yours is different and I wasn’t able to be there for you the way that you needed. I’m sorry for that and I have learned and grown from it. I tried to keep us close on my end by buying you gifts when I traveled, talking to you ever chance I got, etc. I noticed that you never reciprocated, and I noticed how you became harder and harder to get in touch with. At that point, I wish I knew all the right things to do, but I don’t think there was a right thing that I could’ve done. It seemed that you had begun shutting down on your birthday and nothing I said or did would open you back up. Nothing I said or did would get you to listen to me – I said it over and over again, I love you. Come back to me. I never shut you out. I…just needed some space and a slow down so I could give you everything that I felt that you deserved. But it was too late. You shut me and the world out again. The window closed.

In my head, I still loved you and everything I was fixing in my life was for myself and my own independence, but also for you in a way, at least it was giving myself the freedom and independence to make decisions based on what I wanted and not what I had to do to survive. When we met at Dragoncon, you were already gone. I was expecting you to still be the stable foundation that I ran to for warmth and comfort and support. To me, you were still the person I fell in love with who cared about my feelings…I had waited six months to see you. To smell you. To laugh with you. In my head, you were a person that in reality, no longer existed. I came to DC sick, emotional from my period, emotional from my mother’s death anniversary that was quickly approaching. Very emotional, stressed, and elated all at the same time. I was so overflowed with unexpressed love and to be greeted with someone who wouldn’t even touch me or make eye contact with me…it crushed me. It fucked me up badly. I didn’t understand. I spent a week in confusion and pain. I thought you’d be happy to see me, happy to hug me, happy to have someone to talk to into the night about everything in our lives.

That last day, I realized that the you I fell in love with was gone. You were gone. It was like experiencing a death. I didn’t know what else to do but drink to stop the grief and the dawning realization that the man I knew no longer existed. I was angry at you. Why would you do this? Why couldn’t you listen to me, talk to me, express what was inside to me? Had I not proven myself to you? Had I not told you that I loved you and had we not promised to not abandon each other? I didn’t want to die that night, I just wanted the pain to go away for a while. Losing you was…the most painful thing my heart has ever felt. I can’t even put into words the despair and grief I felt inside. I couldn’t breath. I couldn’t exist in reality because it was that painful. Before my flight, we hugged and told each other we loved each other. You were wearing the bracelet I made you. I knew when our hands let go of each others, that was going to be the last time I ever saw you or talked to you. You took my heart with you and I was left with just an empty cavity in my chest.

I fell apart on the hotel floor, Geo- came to hold me and let me scream it out and cry. It’s a day I will never forget. Since then, my days have been nothing but painful. I exist only because I have to exist. I don’t want something new, or someone new. I made a decision to love you forever, and even though you are gone, that is still my decision. I will go on to live our dreams without you in hopes that one day, you’ll come back. If you don’t, that’s ok, I will find peace in my life and the decision that I have made. And I will never regret loving you. My anger has resided for now and all that is left is love. I hope that you find someone who can love you with the depth that you deserve, and I hope that you can return that love and learn not to fear it. People make mistakes and I hope that you learn to forgive. I hope that you can learn to stop running away from your emotions and stand up to them instead. I hope that you find peace…I hope that I can find it too.

Whenever, if ever, this message finds you, I am here for you. Your face will be what I see when I close my eyes to sleep, and although I can’t get myself to say or hear your name aloud, your warmth and kindness will reside inside of me and I will spend my life trying to give that warmth and kindness to others.