winter letters cont
uusiji1/1/24
Elizabeth
i remember you said that Moon thinks that men who don't like cats are a red flag. i can see that argument. a cat is selective with its love. it needs attention when it wants it, and can't stand it when it doesn't. but a cat will claw and bite you and won't apologize.
i think that people who don't like dogs might also be problematic. they can't stand the idea that it will love them, no matter what abuse you put it through. it will give you constant attention, it wants constant attention, it will serve and fetch and protect you, it will be concerned for you if you seem hurt. it will also hump your leg and growl at strangers.
i know that this metaphor feels stretched. that's because it is. men and women are not dogs and cats. but i think that love has many forms. i'd like to explore them with you.
i feel like we should get back together and i think its a good idea. i believe that the problems that you brought up are fixable, and i'm more than willing to put in the work. i don't just miss being loved, i miss you. i'm working on myself in therapy, i feel like i'm getting better. i think we deserve another chance.
happy new year Elizabeth. what's your resolution?
Uusiji
1/2/24
Elizabeth
there are so many things i'm wondering about you right now. i'm in a curious mood. you said i didn't ask a lot of questions, and you were right. i was overworked all semester, but these are important to ask in a relationship. i wish i did. i want to be able to ask them in the future.
what do you fear most in this world? something physical, like snakes or flying.
what do you fear most in your life? something nonphysical, like dying alone.
are you a beach person, mountain person, or a sinister third thing? i think you prefer the beach, but i'm not sure. there's a chilling beauty and splendor to the mountains, especially out west.
what's your favorite meal? i want to learn to cook it.
what super power would you want to have? i know its childish, but i'm interested.
what race do you think you are in LOTR? what race do you want to be?
would you rather have sons or daughters?
what would you name your daughter? i have dibs on naming my son for personal reasons.
what is the whole story of peru? i didn't ask because it seemed like it was traumatic and stressed you out, and i didn't want to be a source of stress. i see now how that thinking is stupid.
why am i little jimmy?
how long would it take for you to date someone to marry them?
why do you feel small with me and what does that mean?
am i allowed to ask about what you talk about in therapy? what do you talk about there?
i wish i asked these questions. i really want to know the answers. i hurt my hand pretty bad today, so i can't type for much longer, but i'm very interested. i think i was a bad partner because i've never had a serious romantic relationship before. i didn't want to belittle you, so i treated you like a best friend that i fucked. i forgot that you're not just my friend though, you were my girlfriend. its hard to understand that distinction, but i think i'm getting there. a girlfriend requires more attention and love because they mean more. you have to be there for your girlfriend in ways that would be weird for your normal friends. it seems so obvious, and i feel so stupid.
Uusiji
1/3/24
Elizabeth
i hesitated writing these thoughts down. i didn't like having them. these are probably the meanest things i've ever said to another human being.
i can't believe you broke up with me. you were everything to me, i would've done anything to make you happy if you had just asked (not hinted, asked. i can't read minds). after you broke up with me, i talked to a lot of people. they said that you sounded crazy, and that i shouldn't want to come back.
but i also talked to them about their love lives. i talked to a lot of people, and explored how they love. after all this, honestly, i think you made a mistake. i don't mean to sound egotistical, but i'm tired of kicking the shit out of myself. i think you will struggle a lot to find someone like me. someone who really cares like i do, who wants to understand you and is already pretty compatible and isn't a piece of shit. you may eventually date someone who can communicate the things you want to hear, but after talking to a lot of men, i can tell you that there are a lot of psychopaths who know what to say. there are a lot of selfish fuckers out there, and the idea that one might take advantage of you fills me with dread and rage.
i might not be able to tell you what you want to hear sometimes, but i promise you, i can count on one hand how many times i've lied to you (do you like this song? do you want to go out tonight? does this outfit look good? etc.). i've never lied to you about my commitment or love. do you remember when i said that, when i met you, i was falling in love so fast that i might kill myself if i fumbled you? i hope that one's a lie.
[jeez, foreshadowing much?]
i think you are afraid of commitment. i think you really like the idea, but you don't really know what commitment is. it means communication and compromise and telling your partner things they might not want to hear. not being able to read your mind and pick up on hints doesn't mean that i'm not committed, it means i'm stupid.
i'm sorry. there's just a lot of emotion here. i realize its because i'm not getting responses to letters that i'm not sending, but i feel like i'm constantly apologizing and beating up on myself and thinking about you, and you're fucking not. it feels like you don't give a singular fuck about how i feel. "get over it uusiji". fuck you. how am i supposed to get over losing the person who i thought completed me? "you've been really selfish with your feelings this whole breakup". you fucking betrayed me. we agreed to communicate and talk things out after [library-gate], and you went and did the opposite.
[context: library-gate is when she tried to break up with me before because she was unsure if i was using her for sex and her roommates pressured her to. i convinced her not to, and she mad it clear that she regretted it the day after.]
do you remember our suicide pact? i had an interesting thought about it recently. it wasn't a really a suicide pact, it was a living pact. as long as the other person lives, the other can't end it. they have to both live and support each other. i thought that's what we had. i recognize that i wasn't great at reciprocating your love, but you never asked me to try and improve, you just gave up. i wanted to ask you to work it out so many times, but every time i did, i just came back to you saying, "Uusiji, i'm breaking up with you, and i'm not changing my mind". what am i supposed to do in the face of that?
i think i should stop writing these. writing letters without getting responses is unhealthy, parasocial even. i thought it would be good to get all my thoughts out, but i have a lifetime's worth of thoughts about you. how did i get so tangled up in you? writing these only makes me want to fix this more, but i think i need to emotionally distance myself if i ever want to come back, if i want this to become fixable. i'm sorry for what i did. i want to believe you're sorry too, but i don't think you've ever really said it. or maybe you did. maybe i am crazy. i think that these thoughts don't belong on paper anymore, i should just leave them to wither and decay.
see you around.
Uusiji
1/7/24
hey Elizabeth
short one this time. i've gotten past the sadness mostly. skiing down a mountain at mach 7 will do that to your nervous system. the way you texted me last night wasn't very cool though. i wish you wouldn't unsend texts, i find it really disrespectful and annoying. that's kinda why i called you out on it; i saw the message, waited a minute because apparently we're both playing games now i guess, saw you unsend it, and replied anyways to let you know that i know. kinda disrespectful, and makes me hate myself a little bit for playing these kind of games. i hate playing relationship games, i think they lead to disappointment and unnecessary pain.
regardless, i'm a massive simp for you i guess because i'm still willing to get back together. i still have feelings for you, and i think that we could be really good together this semester and maybe the year after and the year after that. hopefully. i hate when people say that you shouldn't love people for their potential, because that completely dismisses the concept of personal growth, and also because i think love is the act of sticking with someone when its not okay or amazing.
there are several things i want to work on and i want you to work on, but i did say that i had to keep this letter short. i'm very hungry and my family just got home, so i gotta eat dinner.
yours, Uusiji
1/9/24
hey Elizabeth
[warning: i mansplain what i think her feelings and problems are to her. this was never meant to be seen by her though; never tell someone these things directly.]
why did you break up with me? i've apologized for my mistakes, but in retrospect, and after talking with my therapist and friends, i don't think they were that bad. i want to talk to you about you today because it seems like you have somethings that are preventing you from being in a normal, healthy relationship. i've selected a few problems that i have found in my reflections that i'd like you to know about. you might think i'm an asshole or crying sour grapes, but if we ever get back together (which i hope we do because i love you and there's so much that's great about us), i would need you to work on these. actually, you should work on these regardless of me.
idealization
it seems as though you have idealized love and relationships to the point of viewing them as magical or intellectual pursuits. i don't believe in any form of spiritualism and i dislike the over-analysis and categorization of emotion, so my take on love is that it isn't some grand pursuit of the mind or soul or some magical entity that we try and contact. i view it as the compatibility of personalities and a simple but powerful pact of trust. you can disagree, but i think a lot of your dissatisfaction in love, life, and your quest for zen stems from you believing that there must be something "more" or "deeper" or "purer". i could be wrong, and you might not feel this way. i'm not there to talk this out with you; you've made sure of that. there is no obvious tipping point or state you will reach when you find zen or love, as the state of being in zen or love requires you to not try to be there.
insecurity
it seems as though you don't think you deserve love. again, i could be wrong. however, the way you need reassurance of my love as if it were some feeble flame that could go out if i turn my head or you fart makes me believe that you are deeply insecure about this. this next sentence is going to make me sound like and asshole. if i were to psychoanalyze you from my armchair with zero credentials or training, i would say that the marital turmoil of your parents and the way your mother treated you in your formative years [context: her mother sent her out of the country after she found out she had sexual contact with a boy during middle school] has left you with a skewed view of how love works. i'm not saying that to be mean, i just think about you constantly, even now, and because you won't talk to me, i have to come up with other things to think through about you.
[context: yikes. again, this wasn't meant to be read by her]
anxiety
i don't mean to make you feel shitty and trapped by some diagnosis, but i think that this is the root of the two issues i mentioned above. your anxiety makes you overthink both your outward and inward views of the universe, causing you to be dissatisfied with both. i can't solve this for you, and your therapist or psychiatrist might not be able to solve it either. i don't want to sound mean or threatening or scare you, but you have to consider the possibility that you might be stuck with this for the rest of your life. i empathize and feel scared for you. here's a crazy idea, again coming from the mouth of someone with no therapeutic training: accepting this and believing in it might bring you peace. every human is different, and there is no "correct" way to think or feel (aside from sui- or homi-cidal). if you accept that you are an anxious person instead of trying to "get better", you will come to understand your anxious feelings as baseline, and be able to work through life starting from there, the ground that you know.
again, i'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist or therapist or even situated in the study of humanities, but i think these are things to think about, or maybe talk to your therapist about. i could be very wrong, but i want to help you in some way because i want to see you succeed.
[yea don't listen to this advice, i am not a doctor]
anyways, happy birthday. i'd ask what you want, but you shut me out. actually, i guess i'd ask you if you liked what i would have gotten you. i'm honestly upset at you for doing all of this. you shattered this relationship for reasons that could've been fixed and were temporary. fuck you for that, actually. and that's if you've been honest about the reasons. if you're lying, fuck you harder. you've denied me the privilege of visiting you in jersey, of knowing your family and childhood nest, of getting to watch you open my christmas presents, of sipping coco at night in each other's arms, of watching snow fall together, of texting you right before and after i flew in a plane, of sharing the gorgeous and deadly view of the rockies, of seeing new york through your seasoned eyes, of giving you birthday presents, of enjoying an actual break from jobs and stress and school with you, of preparing for the shitshow of school once again. i wanted to be there for you so badly, but fuck me i guess.
but i'm a man. i will be the bigger man and swallow these feelings in the interest of feeling better ones later. i will be a man and not be petty and catty. i'll put in the emotional labor so that we have a chance, because i know there's so much here. you keep giving me mixed signals and it fucking hurts so goddamn bad. i'm not catatonic like when you broke up with me, but it hurts so bad. i don't want to become resentful though. i will have to find a way to forgive you, because covering up resentfulness isn't healthy and won't lead to true love. i don't know how to do this, but i have never wanted anything more in my life, so i'll just have to try.
love, Uusiji
1-14-24
Elizabeth
that last letter I wrote was fucking awful. i'm an ass. forgive me, i was upset and i didn't want to feel that way anymore, so i chose to feel vengeful and judgmental instead. i'm sorry, that was dumb.
i found your wattpad today. i shouldn't have gone looking for it but i missed you so much this morning. i missed waking up to you and hearing you breathe beside me. fuck i'm crying now.
anyways i found your wattpad. it didn't help me at all. it just made me love you more. there's so much of yourself that you've hidden. maybe i didn't know how to look. i want so desperately to see inside your brain. i read your [REDACTED] story thing. there's so much more there than you told me. i want more. you're so goddamn special. i can see the woman i love in the stories she wrote as kid, its incredible and amazing and i love you. i read your blog posts and i feel like we had the same childhood. the same imagination. the same loneliness. i love that dumb photo you posted of yourself for random strangers to see. i love you so fucking much.
i don't know if you feel the same way about me. i know me loving you isn't enough to have a relationship. why don't you love me? i want to try again so fucking bad, i've never wanted something so bad in my life. remember when i told you that if i fumbled you i might kill myself? i meant it (legally speaking that is a joke). FUCK I WANT YOU ELIZABETH. i don't want you because i'm lonely, i want YOU. you are special to me in ways that i can't articulate because my stupid man brain can't verbalize my feelings. every day feels like my heart is gone and there's just a hole there, a mindless dark whirlpool sucking my blood and life deep inside.
with every ounce of love left,
Uusiji
1/15/2024
Elizabeth
[context: i wanted to practice writing a suicide note as a thought exercise. i thought i would be cathartic somehow. i would not recommend anyone ever try this, it doesn't make you feel better at all.]
consider this a suicide note?
feelin pretty down rn.
not doing so well.
people say there is no one and you will find other people.
but it took 22 years to find another human who saw me.
who actually touched my soul.
i can't wait that long again.
its too painful.
being without you is too heavy a burden to bear.
i went back and read the letters i wrote.
i dont deserve anything.
i am less than.
i am a self pitying mess and a hypocrite and a pessimist.
i dont agree with some of the stuff i wrote or the things i said but i was just trying to be honest.
every word i ever gave you was honest.
im sorry for doing this.
i understand if you dont stick to the pact we made.
were not together anymore anyways.
were not connected anymore.
i dreamed of owning a house with you.
a small modest home.
with a library and no tv.
with three bedrooms.
we had the big one.
kids took the other two.
at least one girl.
i wouldn't want all sons but all daughters is nice.
drive to the farmers market.
make you food.
keep you warm.
show you love.
take you home.
i cant imagine doing that with anyone else.
its been two months and i still think about you all the time.
i cant believe how i fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me.
life is too heavy to lift myself.
im done.
im so sorry but im done.
in your memories, Uusiji
1/16/2024
Elizabeth,
[context: this text exchange that started during our staff meeting]
I have no words for how scared and excited I am right now. I want this time to be different. I want to talk to you over dinner about what our goals are and what our needs are. If they align, then I’m going to try so fucking hard. There’s nothing that I can’t handle, I will be the man you deserve and need. If you are open to communicating, then I am open to anything. I can’t wait to look back on this fondly. You won’t regret this.
Hopefully yours again soon, Uusiji
1/17/2024
dear Elizabeth
[context: this text, followed by a phone call that i initiated where she said we weren't compatible]
im writing this 5 minutes after our phone call. you are so complicated.
i don't know what else to say.
i don't know why you did what you did.
you have hurt me so bad.
you don't even want to talk to me.
did i hurt you that much?
i'm so sorry if i did.
i would have carried you over the altar and fathered your children and cared for you by your bedside.
i would have drunk your tears and kissed your wounds.
i would have faced the evils of the world together and defeated our sadness together.
i don't believe in the one.
but i believe in you.
and i can't believe in anything else.
my beautiful woman.
when you dropped me off yesterday, you unbuckled your seat belt.
did you mean to grab me?
make me stay?
i would've.
i would've stared into your giant blue eyes until the sun set.
i would've cried on your seats just feasting on the view and knowing that you wanted me too.
i didn't even want to go to college.
i didn't want to do anything with my life.
but you inspired me to live because you made life seem worth living.
i'm erasing myself tonight.
i'll probably call you before just to hear your voice, even though that’s selfish.
maybe i'll ask you to play a song on your guitar.
i'm so tired.
i'm so tired of being in pain.
its not just you, life has always been so hard.
if you killed yourself i would leave with you.
you killed my connection to you, same thing.
i can't take this level of torture anymore, im not strong enough.
maybe thats why you broke up with me, because you sensed that deep down i was too weak.
loving and protecting and caring for you was the only time when i felt alive.
you gave me a purpose.
you gave me so much hope yesterday, i woke up and i saw color in the world again.
i heard the birds and believe for a second that things might turn out okay.
that i might right my wrongs and be able to love you like you deserve.
maybe if i was stronger.
i wish i could've kissed you and held your hand one last time and listened to you breathe.
love, Uusiji
i remember biking home from [work] and seeing a girl draped in flannel. i thought she was beautiful. i wanted to find a way to talk to her. i remember being put into groups during outdoor staff teambuilding, and being disappointed that she wasn't in mine.
then she came up to me after a shift. she made small talk, and asked if i was going to a party later. i was delusional and hated myself, so i couldn't fathom that she wanted me to ask her out, but i desperately wanted it to be true. eventually, i got the hint.
she sent me a funny shitpost later. i was falling in love a little bit.
i told her to meet me outside a convenience store [downtown] under the parking garage. i waited for her on top of the parking garage, pacing back and forth, anxious and excited. i hoped to see her from the top of the garage, looking out for her distinct flannel and beautiful hair. i saw her round the corner under the train tracks, and i sprinted down the stairs to meet her.
she smiled at me, ear to ear, and then everything followed.
when she texted me our first playlist, i tried to listen to it while washing dishes. i couldn’t, as soon as the music hit i was so overwhelmed i sank into the floor, unable to stand at the love i was feeling.
i once started crying after driving her home because i remembered a dream i had where she died. i had to pull over, i was so upset.
my favorite photos of her are the ones where she smiling but doesn’t know shes being photographed.
i will love her forever and ever and ever and ever.
date ideas:
[local scenic driving route] to watch sunset (aesthetic as fuck)
hike entire 4 mile trail on [local mountain] (lots of time to talk)
dinner and a movie (i pick dinner, you pick movie)
super fancy dinner where we get really dressed up
smoke sesh on roof and watch stars
observatory at different time of year so we see different stars
talk about kids (how would you raise them)
talk about long term goals in life
go up to jersey and see hometown (see your ghosts)
partner karoke (we will destroy it)
play guitar and piano in [music hall] (maybe learn a song together)
[local art museum] (i think you said its not that good but i want to see)
read books on [the quad] together (i will need to borrow one)
farmers market (truly organic food)
go to rave that [my sister]'s always talking about
go thrifting
go camping (build fire, cook hot dogs and smores, tell ghost stories)
partner massage and spa
rage room (invite your roommates, i want to see Moon's strength)
sit and watch video essays together (you like science, i like movies, trade)
go bar hopping and streak [quad] when not on period so you're not embarrassed
shave eachother (feels so cute and intimate and domestic, i want to get it right)
take dancing lessons so we can actually dance in bars
lotr marathon with your roomates
go to an actual fancy observatory
spend a day listening to you explain your spotify playlists
spend a day understanding your anxiety and psychosis more so i can be more aware
make up christmas where i wake up before you and decorate your apartment while you sleep
gift ideas:
jeans like mine
sour patch charcuterie board
chocolate strawberries and flowers
inca kola
thrifted leather jacket with patches
dinner ([tapas restaurant]) and movie (whatever she wants) and pegging (femboy outfit)
shelf for her books to save their spines
a dress she feels sexy in
clean her car for her
bake her banana bread
real converse
does she want a kindle? would she find it heathenous?
fantasies to discuss:
[removed because i don't think a therapist wants to know all the kinky shit she and I were into]
really crazy sexual gift experience:
[removing this entirely, it is too filthy. really detailed pegging fantasy]
plan for spring:
friendly exploratory coffee chat
fancy dinner date
super emotionally intimate talking session
date with her friends, maybe rage room or something fun
hike in woods
bar hopping and dancing
drive to a real observatory and profess love???will she kill me???
no sex until after this, and from then on only when she initiates or says its okay for me to initiate