Status Quo

Dear Jack,

You know what my first monologue was about in acting class? Now that I'm finally at NYU, where I've wanted to be for years, where I auditioned for, without you, even though you said you'd be there, and now I'm in a studio you know nothing about, living a life you know nothing about, with friends I love but who I can never love properly, because they aren't you. My first monologue in studio was about you. About the day you broke my heart. It's the only story I've got. It's the only thing I can say to explain why I am the way I am now. I blame my loneliness on myself. I push myself away from people because of my distrust, my fear that they will leave me like you did. It's been a year and a half and I don't know what to do about it. I wonder constantly what your life is like, what things would be like now if you hadn't left me. And I think I've realized that part of the reason it bothers me so much and still has such an impact is because in that situation, I had no power. You took away my control, and since then I've just given it up. I feel like I don't have control anymore. When people say they love me, or they care about me, and that they want to be there for me, I can't honestly believe them no matter how hard I try, or how much I want to, because all I remember is that you loved me. And you took care of me better than anyone I ever knew, and I trusted you with all my soul; I would have trusted you with my life. I gave you my heart, and you threw it back at me. So that's all I have to talk about. It's consumed me, I have become it. Me? My story? You, the absence of you, is my story. So I told it to these fourteen people that I'm supposed to be close to. I told them because I need them to understand. But I'm not sure they do. I'm not sure anyone ever can, who wasn't there in that moment when it happened, who doesn't know what we were like when we were friends. Do you know I don't even remember much anymore? The happy times have fallen away. All the real time we spent together seems to have disappeared and all I can remember now is so many nights of sadness, of missing you, of hating you, of wanting you back. I remember those first dark days in June, when I thought you would change your mind and we would be friends again soon. I remember darker days afterwards, when I understood this was how things were going to be, and I remember not wanting to live a life without you, a life where I couldn't trust the person I loved most in the world. But I'm here. I'm still living with it. And sometimes I just think. I wonder what I wouldn't give to see your face again, to have a hug, and be safe in your arms. I would give up so much to have you back in my life. All I've wanted since that day was to be friends again. I'm tired of being sad. I'm tired of hurting, of missing someone who doesn't even care anymore. I'm tired of caring about you. It requires too much energy. But you won't go away. My friend Maggie's father died when she was seven. She says she's learned to live with it because she believes that part of him is still with her, watching over her. And I realized that that's why it doesn't actually feel like you're dead. I thought it did, but if you were dead, I could imagine that you were with me, and watching over me. Instead I have to know that you're choosing to live without me. I've run out of things to say. This is just what's always in my head and I needed it to get out for a second. Merry Christmas.