to love for the hope of it all

i should have a clear idea and decision about the events of the weekend, or even just a clue about how i feel at the moment. i truly don’t. not a single goddamn clue.

listening to ‘free now’ by gracie abrams after not having listened to it since last october feels ironically tragic. i guess i never quite understood just how much i could relate to the song until learning new information saturday night. i opened a can of worms that i can never close. usually a.b.s. is the one who throws us away, but it feels like i did this time.

“It’s a pain that I caught you at a bad time
It’s a shame that I memorized your outline
You were straight up with me, you were so kind
But I knew what you knew, honey, great minds
It was harsh ’cause I lost what I wanted
I was brave when I kissed you in London
We’re collateral here, man, we got hit
Hope you find somewhere safe for your baggage
Every page that I wrote, you were on it
Feel you deep in my bones, you’re the current
And I showed no restraint, it was something
I was scared until you made me love it”

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I interrupt my own post with the best news I have received in a long time – my friends had their baby daughter!! She’s the absolute cutest lil baby and I couldn’t be happier for them. Receiving the ‘Autie Ari now!’ text literally knocked some sense into me. I forget that there’s good going on in the world even when I can’t find it in myself to focus on it. I wish them nothing but the best an dhope I’m able to contribute in some helpful way.

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i’m going to return to studying. i took a lil break to reply to some texts (including one from one of my closest friends from uni telling me he’s visiting london the weekend after my birthday!) and try to process my feelings since i kept getting distracted by them but i think the key is just to power through. i was overthinking after the group call last night until i started playing a game and just dumping all of my thoughts out vocally to a friend. life is good if i just let it be. if i just don’t get caught up in everything going on in my head.

i’m not sure if this experiment will yield any positive results at all – my guess is that he doesn’t notice my absence in the slightest while i’m losing my head calculating scenarios, and it probably serves as a pleasant break away from me that’s going to make him realise he’s completely unaffected by me. i’m not entirely sure what this week will do for me either. i can feel myself slipping further and further away from him, i’ve been able to feel it for a little while now, and i don’t think i have the strength to keep pulling myself back.

when i wanted him to ask me to stay, it was because i needed a lifeline to feel like i wasn’t completely alone. he couldn’t provide it. i keep replaying conversations we had on saturday night and it all just hurts – positive things were said as well, easily the loveliest things he’s ever said to me; but they’re sandwiched in unintentionally hurtful comments.

drunk him knew that i wasn’t second or even third choice in this. that i existed not in comparison to others but paralelly and that he could choose me and be happy (his own words). sober him won’t admit that. even worse, now that he opened up he’ll be looking for the first out he can get, which i lovingly and openly provided (how smart of me!) with this ingenious experiment of mine.

“what if we take a week to see what it’s like when we’re not in each other’s lives?” what if we practice what i feel has become inevitable? what if i think about you all week and you don’t even have to deal with me? enjoy the ari-less week! so you can decide later on that you choose an ari-less life.

i do mean it when i say he’d regret losing me. i know that’s true in the long term. it’s inescapable. i’m not sure he’ll realise that enough for it to make a difference.

it’s kind of hilarious that the first person i really opened up to about my never being enough for people just completely forgot that i said that. just conveniently swept it away. it’s funny in a life-altering way that i was actually correct in this case as well. it’s not even that he doesn’t have any sort of feelings for me (because that’s at least being admitted now), but it’s that they’re not enough. i‘m not enough. i could overthink myself back into sickness really easily with the ammunition of saturday night. i’m already back to staying up far too late in hopes of just passing out in bed (what i usually consider our bed) to avoid being upset, and just not feeling hungry at all. things just feel bleak again.

last night it felt like this was the end for us. i’m not sure if it was a gut feeling or if i’m finally letting go. i think i’m actually really terrified of letting go. i’m not entirely sure why but it feels i’m gripping onto whatever i can to stay. i don’t know that i should anymore. the thought process used to be so easy – i have feelings for him (i’m sure there’s romantic love mixed in there but at this point i’m not sure to what extent) so i’ll keep waiting and hoping things turn out well. he’s made it clear he doesn’t really know how to do that. how to appreciate someone, how to care for someone, how to love someone. seems he can only get a grasp on feelings once it’s torn away from him. i don’t know whether i’m supposed to do it to him or not. it feels cruel.

i think knowing that it would affect him in some large capacity, whether now or just in the long term, is part of why i’m holding on. i don’t want to hurt him, ever. i don’t want to be the reason he’s up overthinking or negatively impacting him in any way. but he’s not really giving me a choice anymore. i need to be the one to decide to end us, and i can’t find it in myself to. or at least couldn’t – i don’t know if i could now. i used to be so sure that i couldn’t, but i know we’re getting closer to the scenario where i just give up on him. i think enough people have (including himself) and i didn’t want to ever add onto that list. i still don’t.

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i’m actually going to return to studying now. i have a colossal amount of material to get through today (hopefully). taking the time to write things out always helps. no wonder i was writing paragraphs upon paragraphs around christmas – nobody calms me down quite as well as i do.