Silent Letter

You don't know the first thing about me. It sounds like a stupid regular cry of a spoilt white suburban teenager but for me, its a truth. It's a cold hard truth that isn't meant to be shouted and then followed by a slamming door and pumping up my hard rock punk tunes. For me, its a resounding statement that haunts me and follows me everywhere I go. Like a thin shadow upon the ground that is there, day or night, light or no light. But you could never understand this. Because, once again, you've misjudged me, misgauged me.

I go through every day trying to do my best, trying to so hard to stay awake and just battle that monster that rears its ugly head the moment my eyes pop open. I try to be as sincere and dilligent as possible and always try to be agreeable or, if I can't be that, be quiet and indifferent to you.

But if you knew me, you'd be able to see this in every action that I take. Of course, you don't know the first thing about me so, for some reason unbeknowest to me that leaves me absolutely perplexed, you just assume the worst of me. And then you stupidly wonder why I don't tell the truth: because of your immature, horrible, vengeful, vindictive, childlike attitude concerning things of this nature.

For instance, if you knew me, you'd know that I love to see love around me but cannot commit to anything relationship-wise for the life of me. You'd understand that I have a palette for the finer things in life, can understand movies of great and subtle context. You'd realize that I appreciate these wisps, these moments of life and that I'm an observer who understands people, body language and life far greater than you realize. That I can understand and predict outcomes of peoples emotional scopes, and have deeper mental understanding of their behaviours on a more...spiritual, "fate-driven", intangible, philosophy of life context. You'd know that I'm sensitive and my sensitivity causes me to be far too emotional and very empathetic; I can feel people's sorrow, their joy and pain in levels that you could never even imagine because even words elude those depths. You'd be able to comprehend that I'm just different, that I live in my own shell, that I process my thoughts and understandings in a way different from those around me. "Those people", being people typical of my age. I'm atypical but this is neither good nor bad. It just is; thank you machiavelli.

If you understood even one tiny detail about me, you'd be able to see that everytime I cannot make you happy or fail at something you want, I have anxiety attacks, cannot think straight and the latter eats up at me for several days. I cannot get up, cannot function or think clearly. The word is depression, I am depressive and it takes me all my effort to keep my head above the water. For you. Because, as you've already proven years ago, that sort of understanding is beyond your emotional intelligence and capability, to handle, you who want everything simple and easy and bottom-lined. You'd also know that when I prayed for my marks to come out the only thing I kept saying was, please don't let them be hurt because of me.

I don't understand. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Okay, I can't articulate my feelings as coherently as I'd like but that is your own fault: everytime I tried when I was younger, you either rudely cut me off or scoffed at my flowered words as though they were something fruity and bookish, too high-level to be sincere and almost surreal in their reality. Too pompous, too idealistic and filmy. But those were the words of my heart and I couldn't get you to understand then. And now that I try and mould them for your sakes, I still cannot get my point across.

Which then leads me to this, the inevitable. By doing what you want, I am miserable as it is but you too cannot appreciate that I'm doing it for you. Instead, you berate me and grate on my nerves. Instead of encouraging me and putting a hand to my head to shield me from the elements you think reverse psychology will work. Here's a newsflash: talking in a ridiculing manner about my already low self esteem and trying to point everything WRONG with me and doing it in a disbelieving, vindictive manner is not going to help me. It's just going to lower my already pretty shitty self worth which I have been trying for 3 years now to rebuild.

So what is my final decision, my conclusion in these chain of events? I quickly realize that doing what I don't want to do, for your sakes leaves me unhappy as it is, that goes without saying, but also doesn't serve it's initial purpose: it doesn't make you any nicer or more encouraging or more loving. You are not proud or pleased. The outcome is neither good or bad; it is nothing. And that is even worse than the alternative. That nothing gets any better. Ever.

I can now only afford to scoff at your explanation of "she's only doing this to take the easy way out" because I've tried to convey in words the sincerity of my actions. Just because I never shared with you my hopes and dreams and wants with you before doesn't mean that they haven't been there all along, hiding from you. Just because I now bring them up with such fierce conviction means only that I've finally found the courage and spine to be able to look at my life and say, No, you are under my control and I will be happy no matter what.

Anyhow, the conclusion: the final result is this. I decide, to hell with that; it doesn't seem to be making any difference to you but more importantly, it doesn't seem to gel with me either. Then why this sacrifice for no results? Why bear the burden if no one, not even those you love, will at least commend you for it? Why? For honour? For respect?

Fuck honour. I'm fucking sick of honour. For respect? I have clearly not gained one ounce of respect by doing the right thing that you wanted me to do. Why continue? So that both parties be miserable? Doesn't it only make sense that one party should sink it all in, go the full monty, deal with the extra, marginal unhappiness by the other party and be happy themselves? If I have to be happy and do what I want, I might as well do it, because it doesn't seem to make much difference to you. And hey, so your opinion of me dips lower. Who the fuck cares. Honestly, I'm already in so deep, what's a little more? At least, that way, one of us is happy. And the most important thing is, this chain of resentment, this firewall of temper and dissatisfaction and anger toward everything you have done in my past will finally be broken.

I regret so much, cry over so much that happened, blame you for so much. But that was when I was younger: I had no control over it. But now...now I'm older. I do have control now. I don't want to feel any resentment, I don't want to blame you for something I could have changed.

The truth is, I did it for all the wrong reasons. I expected happiness to come from expectation. I expected it. That was wrong. Goals are important, but expectations only curb and curtail ones full creative powers. For once in my life, I felt successful. I felt loved. I felt like a normal, prodigal child. I saw that I had the power to make you smile in pride, to make you realize that I too was worth something, that I had capabilities that you had never imagined and that, where words had failed to convey, my actions were leaving you speechless instead. And oh my, was that power heady. It was something that I had never wielded, never even seen in myself before. Sure, others had them and I envied them so very much. But to be able to feel that power, to be able to have it...I cannot even explain what it meant to me. And how dangerously illusatory it made the entire situation.

I know now: I should not have done it to make you happy. I only made myself unhappy in the process. And now you're even more disappointed. I should not have lied to myself and told myself that I'm capable of this and that and things of which I have absolutely zero interest in. I should have let you seen me for who I am, should have let you know that whatever I am, I am me and that you will just have to accept that. But firstly, I should have been able to accept that. I should not have compartmentalized; you see, one part was me, the me I saw and knew. And then there was the me whom you saw and thought you knew, took for granted and assumed. I should have let the me me bleed into the you me. First, I should have been okay with me. Only then could I have expected you to come to terms with it.

And besides...what is so bad about me, anyhow? Okay, so I have a drop-of-a-hat temper. I'm stubborn. I have a superiority complex. At times, I'm arrogant, brash, unrealiable, sort of clumsy, impatient, a tad unaccepting, a little judgemental. But that is just me. For example, it's taken me a long time but I have now come to terms with the fact that you are vindictive, mean-spirited, childish, immature, uncomprehending, egotistical, and arrogant, and ever-ready for a fight or provocation. And that nothing I do will ever change our relationship. But there's good in me, too.

I try, so hard, I'm sincere and disciplined and somewhat righteous (for the moralistic things that matter, anyhow). And there are so many good things about you, too. Why do you always assume the worst of me and question my integrity? I've told you this from day one, the one thing I've shared is this: I absolutely hate, hate, hate it when you question my integrity, my intentions. Nothing flares me up more. No genocide or hate killings or massacres or anything gets me more riled than when you question my motives, especially when I'm trying to stick to and do the right thing.

God, I have more to say but it's all a broken record. I'm so tired of this bullshit. And I'm so tired of waiting for life. Ever since I can remember, since I was eight or seven, there's always been a Greek chorus in my head: just a little further, and it will get better. Just a little further, and it will get further?

But no. How much further? I'm not being impatient, I'm being realistic. When I was 8, I wanted to be 12 so I could dress the way I wanted to. When I was 12, I wanted to be 16 so I could drive and get the fuck away from you. When I was 16, I wanted to be 18 so I could finally leave this fucking shit hole, the depression, the anger, the guilt and get back to reality and live on my own terms. And now that I'm 18...all I want to do is have a hole open up and swallow me. All I wanted at 18, was to be 25 and graduated so I could start living life. But wait. At 25, I'd start wishing that I was 27 and had all my loans paid off while working in stuffy, shitty cubicle in some high pompous firm with insincere, single-minded, depthless, money-mongering idiots who cared only about their stock benefits and the newest cars. And then at 27, I'd wish I was 29 so I could finally earn a degree doing what I wanted to and then wish I was 30 so those loans from my second "epiphany, quarter-midlife crisis" degree could be paid off, again. And when I was 30, I'd probably have an anuerism or go insane and hang myself or put a gun to my head. And the worst part is, I'd constantly be living, waiting for the next thing to come. And I'd blame you for it.

You say you can see 10 steps into the future and anticipate things. Then why can't you anticipate this? Why can't you see all this falling apart, all of me falling apart? That I'm so lost and so confused because you've instilled into me a fear of life and the unknown consequences that are automatically always bad? Why do you make me feel guilty for feeling happy? Why do you make me think that just because I'm happy one day, that I must be quiet and sober the next day or else I'm frivolous and wasting life? Why is showing that happiness and feeling that happiness wrong? Why do you think that just because I show and feel happy, I'm automatically careless and childish and don't think seriously enough about the future. Why must my happiness be rationed and measured so carefully and labeled when there's precious little of it in my life in the first place? Why do I let you get in my head? Why can't you see that everything I've done, I do, I've done it for you?

Because you don't know. You don't know the first thing about me.