I just went on

Telegram

to write you something I thought of and felt while on my walk this morning. Before you came to visit I was in quite the routine.

tennis

every other day, waking up early, ballerina like work-life balance. It seemed like everything was going swell and then you arrived.

At first I could manage some of the juggling. Could keep the balls in the air, though they were getting shaky. But eventually I couldn't even wake up before ten without an alarm. I had no motivation to go tennis, and the only things i could manage were my homelife, work -- barely --, and writing... again barely. I could tell that my writing was suffering... and this didn't actually make me feel that sad. What made me feel sad was thinking about losing my job that I just got, losing my motivation to live a healthy life, and losing you as a friend. 

In the midst of your visit I got to thinking that it was you who was causing all this. Or more accurately I got to feeling it. I think now I've watched this movie enough times that my head knows the actual villain from the one who appears to be the villain at the beginning. 

There's a phrase I repeated regularly during your time here. "whenever somebody judges another, it's always something about themselves rather than the other person." In this case my judgement came in the form of fear. I feared that I would lose everything that I'd worked for. This fear began scapegoating you as the cause. I got to convincing myself, it was right when you showed up that things went awry.

Maybe you being the trigger is the truth. I actually do still believe and think that. But that's not on you. That is something I need to deal with. I want to deal with it in a better way. Because before my plan of dealing with it was just blocking you out and just grinding the next few years until I reach some point where I feel like I've made a life for myself. 

But I've seen this movie as well before. Where a protagonist so obsessed with sharing a certain life with somebody else sacrifices their very relationship with that person thinking that they can just return once they have the life. The trap here is that the only way to share a life with somebody else is to actually build it together. There would be no way for me to come back to you once I've "made it" in a way where you're part of my life rather than just an observer. The only way we can be in our lives is if we build it together.

I just don't know how to build a life together though. Back to how I felt while you were here versus when you left. I feel so much lighter now, and free and healthy. I don't know why that is. But I do know that you have something to do with it. Not just the fact that you are gone, but the fact that you had been here. Your visit changed me for the better.

But I don't know how to reconcile the fact that I didn't enjoy a lot of the parts when you were here. In the aims of what I know is important to me in the long run I'm going to try to make good on spending quality time with you sooner than "a few years". Try to figure out why I like having had you here and then gone, but suffered so much while you were here.  We'll have another shot when you visit again soon. Try to convince me that I want what I want then.

Honestly I think it's because I've suddenly come to realize and suffer how poor I am. When I see you I feel such a contrast that becomes unbareable. I grew up thinking that anyone who got self conscious about such things were lowlives who should just get over their ego. But here I am. I care about these things. I have become just like Gatsby himself when I thought was like Nick.