Letters to Ghosts of the Past

The Trigger

To the one I wish I could really say this to, and then let go of forever,

Unlearning you has proven to be an agonizing process of getting burned over and over with no end in sight.

Some things, they say, are easier said than done, and I get it now. Because I've known for over a year now that I need to get away from you, but every time I try I'm pulled back in by the love I once had for you. Because when the light hits you just right, when you smile in the right way, part of me believes that you're still there somewhere.

I am constantly torn between loving you and hating you, and after so long it gets so fucking frustrating because I just want out. I look back on the years of turmoil and you are always a major factor in that darkness.

For years, your actions had intense, heart-crushing consequences on me. I blamed others but I now realize it was you all along and I you knew what you were doing, and I wish I could go back in time and make you realize just how much that truly affected my trust and ability to open myself up to others.

But at the same time, who the hell am I to tell you how to live? I don't get to dictate that. Sure, when we saw each other every day, I could blame you for things like that, but now? No.

Still, it hurts more than you could ever understand to see you with the reason I hated myself for most of high school. I think I've finally figured out that the two of you together are a trigger for the anxiety and depression this whole thing has thrown me into.

I want to let go. And I have, to an extent. I'm just so lost. Because I know you're bad for me, but you're also the best thing I have.

That's changing too, though. I've gotten a taste of being loved unconditionally and it sure as hell isn't what you've shown me these past ten years of on-and-off friendship and mental abuse.

Sometimes I wonder if you even know. Other times, I'm positive you do these things on purpose.

You can, at once, be the kindest and most selfish person I've met in my life, and I truly don't know how to handle it.

I love you and I hate you at the same time and time does nothing to help me process this.

I want out, and I want to forget every moment spent with you, but some of my greatest memories have you right beside me, smiling like I hang the damn moon and stars.

How do I always get the short end of the stick? I never win these things. I'm always the one who ends up with trauma. And I'm starting to realize that the more progress I think I make, the more trauma I unearth that I've locked away because I simply could not handle it at the time.

I feel like an inconvenience to you sometimes and I know I can't keep doing it. I've grown that much at least.

I've wanted so bad to impress you and for you to accept me for who I am for so long that I forget I've accepted you without that judgment for just as long.

I'm done trying to impress you.

I'm done putting in more effort than you.

I'm done with half-trust and thinking before I speak, and being only half my true self.

I don't have to do that with anyone else.

You're not there enough anymore. You're not the person I'd do anything for anymore and I can't keep pretending you are.

But I'm still stuck in this decade-long habit of seeing you as my number one. Even though I haven't been yours in years now. Maybe I never was.

I can't even cry over you anymore. I feel numb.

In this moment, I am sure that I hate you more than I love you.

But I also know that tomorrow will change that again.

It's a cycle I've yet to escape.

But I'm closer every day.

And the fact that I'm open to it means that's it nearing.

So I breathe, and I wait, and I carry on, with less of you in my heart each day.

Not alone, but without you.