I think the masochist in me would be relieved to see him still alive, because he was the first one who brought me close to the realm of death.
At this point I don’t know if I would feel any words needing to be spoken, because in the years that have passed, I have lived and answered thousands of unasked questions.
The time we shared barely registers as clear memories these days, as if the files have become so corrupted that only half of them open and the other half, I have the incorrect app required.
There is a side of me that might not be able to let go of the pain without first saying everything that hurt me – I’m sure this is fairly evident by the sent but never answered emails, and the three blocked platforms.
I have always swum in the deep end of the anxiety pool and I think it could be helpful to know what portion of our demise was due to tangible problems and what portion came from my brain chemicals screaming “fuck this and fuck this feeling”.
Despite knowing now what it truly feels like to receive unconditional love, love that doesn’t change with the size of my belly, or the depths of my sadness, or because I’ve asked for reassurance a few too many times that day, I still wonder what was so wrong with me that I didn’t warrant that kind of love from him.
I understand why things don’t work, and I understand human intricacies in a way I didn’t back then, and despite holding this knowledge, I still can’t reason away the shame I feel when I think about how I just couldn’t stick it out.
I believe, at the point I am now, that all I would genuinely want to say would be to ask if he understood that the version of us that existed in each of our memories was based around two people who didn’t exist anymore.
I would wish for him to keep wanting to live, maybe not even for him at this point but for anyone who may be close to him in his present life.
Because when he is at his lowest and most vulnerable, when he wishes more than anything to be removed from this hard rock, when he’s desperate in his attempts – that is when he holds the most amount of power over those with love for him.
I have never felt so compelled by death and as disenfranchised by life as I did when I loved him.
When I relive that feeling I voice to anyone who will listen that there becomes a point where you sometimes must do the painful thing to give yourself a fighting chance at healing – I’m yet to speak those words with conviction.
It’s easy to call myself a liar when I perceive what I did as giving up rather than saving myself.
It’s easier to love anyone else than it is to love yourself.
Maybe it isn’t him I need to be in the room with to have that conversation.
Lana Andrews 