Woozle/Jenny/Dear Ghost-Jenny/2018/03/21

Dear Ghost-Jenny,

Something has been bothering me a little, and I'm wondering if you can clear it up: how much of the way I remember you being (before things started going downhill) is how you actually were, and how much is my embellishment?

I have a few flash-memories that kind of epitomize how I think of you during those times. In one, you're sitting in the front passenger seat of a car and I'm in the back right behind you and you covertly reach your right hand around the seat to touch mine while the driver is briefly out of the car. In another, we're holding feet under the table (both of us wearing socks), gently caressing and comforting each other out of sight of the grownups.

Then of course there were all the times where you would touch me but I wasn't allowed to touch you back. I'm not forgetting those. It's just that I understand the various forces that made you feel unsafe if I did; it wasn't that you didn't like me touching you. If anything, it was that you wanted it too much, from what I understand now (and I think I understood it then as well, though it was much much more painful to think about then).

During those times when we could touch, though... I felt like you were as focused on me as I was on you. I ache for that, now... and I remember you writing, at the time, that you ached for more; I'm not sure what evidence could be clearer.

I'm doing my best to answer my own question, since you're presently unavailable to write back.

Maybe what I'm really wondering is if anyone will ever feel that way towards me, ever again. The thought of how unlikely it is that this could happen – it was pretty amazingly unlikely even then! – is... just so very hard to bear. I don't want to be here anymore if that can't happen.

I don't know what to do about it. I start thinking of ways out of this trap, and trying to gather the necessary energy to pursue some plan... and then I feel overwhelmed and sad and spiral down. So I have to be really careful not to try too hard... and that becomes another layer of the trap.

Another question: Is it wrong of me to spend so much time, so many words, on grieving? I have poured out my grief until it became a lake, and built a home by its shore. I've painted it from every imaginable angle, spent days sailing on it, gone diving to its bottom... and I have no plans to stop. I don't know how else to live.

I know you'd want me to live my life. I don't know how. I went looking for a life to have; I thought I'd found it, for a little while, but it was... pretty much just my imagination again. It was all built on hope and potential, none of which materialized. I don't think you'd want me to apologize, so I won't... but I want to. I want you to forgive me for the trainwreck I've become. I don't know if you would, but I like to think you'd understand. Is this what you were afraid of, for yourself and maybe for me? Does this mean you were right to get out when you did?

I swear I don't know... but as my time is slowly eaten up by the act of surviving, "yes" is the answer which seems to be slowly clarifying through the distant haze.

I hope something changes that, but I find it increasingly hard to imagine.

It's weird to find that as soon as I stop hating myself, I can finally accept how unbearable it feels to be alive.

I wish you were here. We need to talk.

Love always,

W.

Post-Script 3/22 (Thursday)

I think the key may be this: when I hated myself, I would just blame myself for my pain... and then just kind of shut down emotionally because I was already doing everything I could to be a better person who didn't deserve that pain, and maybe I just inherently did deserve it or something, and being me was just kind of shameful and unworthy. Now, though, I've come around to the idea that maybe I don't deserve it, and maybe I actually deserve some actual happiness... and yet it's still not happening... and somehow that hits on a much deeper level than the unworthiness I felt before. There was no hope before; now there's hope, but it's being denied. (Before: You don't deserve happy. Now: You deserve happy, but you can't have it.) It's taunting me. Or something.

I have to think about this.