John Lacey

I pause for a moment to wonder if it is really appropriate to write what I intend to here. I suppose the category is called “Personal Universe” for a reason. I just ask that you treat what follows gently, it comes from a place filled with wounded pride and mental anguish. I have to believe that it is better to commit these thoughts to the written form than have them continue to terrorise my mind.

I completely intended to watch the video. I clicked on it. I decided I would wait for it to load. Somehow when it had, I just couldn’t bring myself to click the play button. I sat with a sense of abject terror that if I did watch it, if I did see this person’s face again, or listened to their voice, I would die a little inside.

A dynamic between the two of us has changed. Well, if I’m being completely honest, something within me has changed. I stopped listening to the voice in my head that said, “What you want is still possible.” I started, instead, to listen to what the other person was saying. It isn’t malicious. It is rather matter-of-fact. I feel as though I can’t fault this person for feeling the way they do. But I am also so tired of gritting my teeth and pretending to enjoy the status quo. What becomes of my feelings? I am tired of making myself wrong for feeling the way I feel. I am tired of pretending to be okay with this arrangement. I am tired of this level of emotional dishonesty. This is exhausting. I deserve better.

The truth is wearing your heart on your sleeve is a wonderful thing, sometimes. When it is reciprocated. Otherwise you just risk blood stains on your shirt. I don’t know how to resolve this ‘thing.’ How do you continue to be “just friends” with someone who has so little interest in you as a human being? How do I bring myself to think of this person and associate something other than gnawing fragments of rejection and indifference?

I find myself forever thinking in Annie Lennox lyrics. As tempting as it might be to randomly list them, I expect this would be a self-indulgent and entirely academic prospect.

I need to find a way to let go of all this. I need to invent some kind of story my psyche will be sufficiently content with, to explain the way things are. And I need to move on. I need to stop deriving a sense of worth from the interest others may have of me.

All these things are well and good, in theory. Putting them into practice potentially another thing entirely. In the meanwhile I have to find a way of penning a note to someone, without quoting the Eurythmics.

What I really want to say is simply this:

I wish I was invisible
So I could climb through the
telephone
When it hurts my ear
And it hurts my brain
And it makes me feel too much
Too much too much too much.
Don’t cut me down
When I’m talking to you
‘Cause I’m much too tall
To feel that small.

When, really, what I would like to say… what I would like ultimately to say and genuinely feel with every fibre of my being is - here’s to new beginnings.

Wish me luck.

Categories: Personal Universe
Tags: features, relationships