This is my final addition to this level of the Mind Palace; at least on this particular... topic. What started as a university project turned into an emotionally explosive manner of introspection - a monument to the gravity of my suffering.
I've played the injured for far too long, immersing myself in the misery and struggling to digest the ''red pill'' realities of what's going on but, you know what, in that immersion I've come to many, many, many realizations.
Being broken up with was hard, still is - especially when I think about the illusory half-truths I fell for. When I thought I was setting the relationship up for the next phase of its development, I was actually leaving myself unprepared for its last phase.
FOUR MONTHS LATER.
Let me address the person who inspired this perspective directly - I've thought carefully and intently on every word you're reading. You've taught me more in the last two weeks than the totality of the last three years and a half years.
When I still loved you, my reason was ''she understands me''. It was how you could pick up the smallest nuance in my dumb jokes. It was in the way that you exhaled as I inhaled. It was in the way you felt your life and wanted to create something memorable with it.
You tried so hard to keep up with my mind-boggling ideas about life and death and the universe and whatever; I feel like at some point you just stopped trying, though, to understand because you just accepted that some things you won't understand.
I'll never forget the day we mourned Chester together - his death was a big deal for both of us and the band we loved. I can't speak for you but I'm prepared to delete every Linkin Park song I have, not because of the tragedy they experienced but the tragedy I'm experiencing.
While I'm at it, I might bin Three Days Grace and Coldplay along with them.
My Spider-Sense tingled when you sent me a link to some video talking about why comic book movies suck. The last thing we did before I asked you to be my girlfriend was watch a comic book movie - it's like you began dismantling things from the first brick.
There's this idealism about me - what someone else may see as a reason to break up, to me, may be a reason to stick it through and push forward because my mission throughout a relationship is one thing: ''make it work''.
So I listen and I listen attentively, particularly to key points that require a degree of maturity and self-awareness on my part. It doesn't take very long for me to admit that I'm wrong these days; my ego's deflated and I wait my turn to speak and respond.
I don't think I'm anyone but just another kid trying to learn what it means to be a grown up.
The whole formula isn't clear but I do know that part of it means getting on your face and owning your mistakes for what they are and trying to improve on that area of weakness. I don't need anyone to sign off on this for me, I know that's exactly what I did.
So I took the leap, trusted you with some of the more abstract internal complications I had because you asked me to. I tell you, truly, no one has ever made me feel so small and stupid for my emotional sensitivities the way you did.
Confiding in you began to feel like being picked last for the team.
And it was something of a double-edged sword because whenever I'd withdraw into the safety of my own mind all over again, you'd get furious with me that I wouldn't let you in.
Then you'd confidently assert that I should trust you and I would, until you sharply struck the part of myself that I showed you all over again.
Just when I thought I could match your expectation, I found another step that I hadn't taken. But I was always ready to take the next one because I'd hoped that it was the last.
Then you'd be fully happy with me and you'd forgive me.
It hit me like a ton of bricks that, maybe, you didn't understand me after all. I thought I was insane for trying to speaking up and getting crushed under the weight of your disappointment for speaking up incorrectly, like I was always studying but never passing the test.
It was more ''I'm accusing you of failing to make the effort to understand where I'm coming from'' and less ''I understand where you're coming from''. I could often see that me being angry at you just made you angry at me - ''forgive me before I get over you'' type of energy.
But you held me hostage, at emotional gunpoint, just to continue punishing me all over again.
Being in the wrong was a common place for me - you always had a way of deliberately invalidating my perspective. I had the most mind-opening experiences in the time that I was with you and the irony is you closed yourself off from me the more I grew out of myself.
The arrogant, unapologetic person I once was had your complete and undivided attention. The more patient, forgiving person I'm transforming into couldn't even get you to hold on one second longer.
I gave without you having to ask because I didn't want you to. If I was in a position to do something, I felt the responsibility to do it. If you had to ask then I'd know that I was losing you.
Do you know how else I knew that I was losing you; when my attempts to encourage you had no effect. I take pride in my ability to motivate and inspire - it's the leader in me. But what use was I if I couldn't spur on my best friend, my girlfriend?
Maybe none of that worked because you fully dissociated with those titles.
You sent me a song that says "cause I've found what I have been waiting for" - you, genuinely, had me convinced that I was what you were waiting for. Whatever, or whoever, you've found must bring you perfect joy; losing me weighed like nothing, didn't it?
Betwixt my enduring memory and close attention to linguistic expression, I'm still plagued by a lot of what you said; how no one would want to hang out with me if I stayed the same way, how you broke up with me once in October last year and again in April after years just to say that you don't see yourself dating me. Since then, you ''haven't lost a damn thing''.
It's easier for you to say ''let's be friends'' than it is for me because you haven't lost a damn thing - I've lost Ditto, I've lost one half of the whole idiot we made... I've lost you. The best thing about it is also the worst; you've made it crystal clear that it's dead in the ground and never going to feel the electricity of a heartbeat again.
The drawing of us you made for me in 2017 has a beautiful message written behind it: ''I give you a permanent key to my heart... something something something''. i GivE yOu a pErMaNenT kEy. What use is the key if the lock's been changed?
You know how much I love playlists - actually made a couple that I didn't play for you. I don't think it would've changed anything or if you'd even listen with the same intent that I created them with because everything about me blurred into just an ordinary day. Didn't it?
All the things I said I'd never lose, all the things I said I'd never do - I have and I did. Is that why I was never worthy of love and forgiveness? Everything I'm hearing, at least as far as the growth mindset is concerned, says otherwise. If mistakes disqualify us from love and forgiveness, we both lost that race.
I'm grateful that you held back some of the things you did because the things you didn't were already bleeding me out. Sometimes I say stuff about relationships and the room goes quiet - that's what we do when we see an injury.
Some of the things you said were like blades, slowly splitting open the fabric of my consciousness - I exuded out of the agony of my own failure and trickled a trail from what you said.
There's a kind of cunning behind you breaking up with me, though - you managed to lavish on me the fullness of your anger and got your revenge for the mistakes I made while keeping your own personal integrity intact. That was a smart move, smarter than anything I would've thought of.
I put my intelligence down and tried to be real; isn't that what you were trying to tell me? I didn't, for one second, think you'd use that to create a fracture and leave a vacancy for my mind to complete the breaking.
You won.
I've been reclaiming a lot of my lost territory, and in so doing, remembered the science of Linkin Park's music. I listened to a few songs off The Hunting Party and it took me back to the moment I listened to In The End for the first ever time nine years ago.
I made a new playlist for you, a strict LP auditory diet. You love Linkin Park more than you disregard my opinion so I think, in some way, you'll hear what I'm trying to say. In fact, you know the songs better than you know yourself so I know you'll finally understand what I'm saying.
FIVE DAYS LATER.
Let me address the person who's absorbed this perspective directly - I hope I've written something on this blog somewhere that's impacted you in some way.
It took me a week to identify and orient my reactions and turn them into the detailed response you just combed through. Knowing some of the things that I do, I can't stand being alone for very long without getting bored - I pretended to be an extrovert long enough to actually become one.
I don't know, I've switched into the hunter mindset in search for the next life changing experience. The time to be greater came and I've been, that time has come and gone but that's the design. Part of the journey is the end.
It's time to step up.
I've played the injured for far too long, immersing myself in the misery and struggling to digest the ''red pill'' realities of what's going on but, you know what, in that immersion I've come to many, many, many realizations.
Being broken up with was hard, still is - especially when I think about the illusory half-truths I fell for. When I thought I was setting the relationship up for the next phase of its development, I was actually leaving myself unprepared for its last phase.
FOUR MONTHS LATER.
Let me address the person who inspired this perspective directly - I've thought carefully and intently on every word you're reading. You've taught me more in the last two weeks than the totality of the last three years and a half years.
When I still loved you, my reason was ''she understands me''. It was how you could pick up the smallest nuance in my dumb jokes. It was in the way that you exhaled as I inhaled. It was in the way you felt your life and wanted to create something memorable with it.
You tried so hard to keep up with my mind-boggling ideas about life and death and the universe and whatever; I feel like at some point you just stopped trying, though, to understand because you just accepted that some things you won't understand.
I'll never forget the day we mourned Chester together - his death was a big deal for both of us and the band we loved. I can't speak for you but I'm prepared to delete every Linkin Park song I have, not because of the tragedy they experienced but the tragedy I'm experiencing.
While I'm at it, I might bin Three Days Grace and Coldplay along with them.
My Spider-Sense tingled when you sent me a link to some video talking about why comic book movies suck. The last thing we did before I asked you to be my girlfriend was watch a comic book movie - it's like you began dismantling things from the first brick.
There's this idealism about me - what someone else may see as a reason to break up, to me, may be a reason to stick it through and push forward because my mission throughout a relationship is one thing: ''make it work''.
So I listen and I listen attentively, particularly to key points that require a degree of maturity and self-awareness on my part. It doesn't take very long for me to admit that I'm wrong these days; my ego's deflated and I wait my turn to speak and respond.
I don't think I'm anyone but just another kid trying to learn what it means to be a grown up.
The whole formula isn't clear but I do know that part of it means getting on your face and owning your mistakes for what they are and trying to improve on that area of weakness. I don't need anyone to sign off on this for me, I know that's exactly what I did.
So I took the leap, trusted you with some of the more abstract internal complications I had because you asked me to. I tell you, truly, no one has ever made me feel so small and stupid for my emotional sensitivities the way you did.
Confiding in you began to feel like being picked last for the team.
And it was something of a double-edged sword because whenever I'd withdraw into the safety of my own mind all over again, you'd get furious with me that I wouldn't let you in.
Then you'd confidently assert that I should trust you and I would, until you sharply struck the part of myself that I showed you all over again.
Just when I thought I could match your expectation, I found another step that I hadn't taken. But I was always ready to take the next one because I'd hoped that it was the last.
Then you'd be fully happy with me and you'd forgive me.
It hit me like a ton of bricks that, maybe, you didn't understand me after all. I thought I was insane for trying to speaking up and getting crushed under the weight of your disappointment for speaking up incorrectly, like I was always studying but never passing the test.
It was more ''I'm accusing you of failing to make the effort to understand where I'm coming from'' and less ''I understand where you're coming from''. I could often see that me being angry at you just made you angry at me - ''forgive me before I get over you'' type of energy.
But you held me hostage, at emotional gunpoint, just to continue punishing me all over again.
Being in the wrong was a common place for me - you always had a way of deliberately invalidating my perspective. I had the most mind-opening experiences in the time that I was with you and the irony is you closed yourself off from me the more I grew out of myself.
The arrogant, unapologetic person I once was had your complete and undivided attention. The more patient, forgiving person I'm transforming into couldn't even get you to hold on one second longer.
I gave without you having to ask because I didn't want you to. If I was in a position to do something, I felt the responsibility to do it. If you had to ask then I'd know that I was losing you.
Do you know how else I knew that I was losing you; when my attempts to encourage you had no effect. I take pride in my ability to motivate and inspire - it's the leader in me. But what use was I if I couldn't spur on my best friend, my girlfriend?
Maybe none of that worked because you fully dissociated with those titles.
You sent me a song that says "cause I've found what I have been waiting for" - you, genuinely, had me convinced that I was what you were waiting for. Whatever, or whoever, you've found must bring you perfect joy; losing me weighed like nothing, didn't it?
Betwixt my enduring memory and close attention to linguistic expression, I'm still plagued by a lot of what you said; how no one would want to hang out with me if I stayed the same way, how you broke up with me once in October last year and again in April after years just to say that you don't see yourself dating me. Since then, you ''haven't lost a damn thing''.
It's easier for you to say ''let's be friends'' than it is for me because you haven't lost a damn thing - I've lost Ditto, I've lost one half of the whole idiot we made... I've lost you. The best thing about it is also the worst; you've made it crystal clear that it's dead in the ground and never going to feel the electricity of a heartbeat again.
The drawing of us you made for me in 2017 has a beautiful message written behind it: ''I give you a permanent key to my heart... something something something''. i GivE yOu a pErMaNenT kEy. What use is the key if the lock's been changed?
You know how much I love playlists - actually made a couple that I didn't play for you. I don't think it would've changed anything or if you'd even listen with the same intent that I created them with because everything about me blurred into just an ordinary day. Didn't it?
All the things I said I'd never lose, all the things I said I'd never do - I have and I did. Is that why I was never worthy of love and forgiveness? Everything I'm hearing, at least as far as the growth mindset is concerned, says otherwise. If mistakes disqualify us from love and forgiveness, we both lost that race.
I'm grateful that you held back some of the things you did because the things you didn't were already bleeding me out. Sometimes I say stuff about relationships and the room goes quiet - that's what we do when we see an injury.
Some of the things you said were like blades, slowly splitting open the fabric of my consciousness - I exuded out of the agony of my own failure and trickled a trail from what you said.
There's a kind of cunning behind you breaking up with me, though - you managed to lavish on me the fullness of your anger and got your revenge for the mistakes I made while keeping your own personal integrity intact. That was a smart move, smarter than anything I would've thought of.
I put my intelligence down and tried to be real; isn't that what you were trying to tell me? I didn't, for one second, think you'd use that to create a fracture and leave a vacancy for my mind to complete the breaking.
You won.
I've been reclaiming a lot of my lost territory, and in so doing, remembered the science of Linkin Park's music. I listened to a few songs off The Hunting Party and it took me back to the moment I listened to In The End for the first ever time nine years ago.
I made a new playlist for you, a strict LP auditory diet. You love Linkin Park more than you disregard my opinion so I think, in some way, you'll hear what I'm trying to say. In fact, you know the songs better than you know yourself so I know you'll finally understand what I'm saying.
- In The End
- With You
- P5hng Me A*wy
- Lying From You
- What I've Done
- Talking To Myself
- All For Nothing
- A Line In The Sand
FIVE DAYS LATER.
Let me address the person who's absorbed this perspective directly - I hope I've written something on this blog somewhere that's impacted you in some way.
It took me a week to identify and orient my reactions and turn them into the detailed response you just combed through. Knowing some of the things that I do, I can't stand being alone for very long without getting bored - I pretended to be an extrovert long enough to actually become one.
I don't know, I've switched into the hunter mindset in search for the next life changing experience. The time to be greater came and I've been, that time has come and gone but that's the design. Part of the journey is the end.
It's time to step up.
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