Letters to you... how I am

You never ask about me any more… how I am.  You ask about my job, you ask about the people I’m with but never about me.  I wonder why this is.

I wonder if it’s because you just don’t care anymore – though I’ve seen the boy you are, struggle to let go, move on.  And I know your feelings were real, for a time – so I’m fairly certain this isn’t true.

I wonder if it’s because you’re afraid of the answer though you can only assume what that might be.

You might think that I’m still sad and hurt but I’ve turned that corner.  The feelings have settled deep in my bones, replaced now by my internal happiness, stronger now than anything else.  My optimism breathing in the face of everyday life.  Faith in the unknown, in the future – in everything getting me to where I need to be now, step by step by step.

You might think I’m over you, moved on.  Would you be able to grasp that? Understand? Know that my love for you was real even as now I’m letting go?  Trusting in the grand plan the universe has for me.  Do you hang on to the hope that I once uttered – doubts creeping into your decisions in the darkness?  Questioning your choice?  Do you keep yourself from asking because my happiness might cause you to slip further away from your own? 

 “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”- Carl Jung

I keep asking about you – the shadow of a boy I once knew, the boy I barely recognize right now even as I compare him back to the stranger I once met over coffee.  Your actions have returned, patterns repeated to where we began but your ‘okay’ is laced with sadness down deep.  Your smile a little less bright now, ordinary.  A change that has come over the past few months – a change that our friends now on the sidelines see as well.  You are morphing into something else, someone else – shedding your skin in hopes of finding the boy you want to be – is it working?  This distance and space you’re creating, this world you’re crawling back into? 

I understand your need to stand on your own, defend the outward choices you’ve made but I don’t understand the separation of yourself from everything that made you happy only months ago – the training, the people that supported your desire to be strong, to be the best version of you – the ones who love you exactly how you are – you’ve cast them all to the side now.  They see that, feel it too.  Wonder where you are, seeing the cracks now creeping into your mask, your armour.  Perhaps that’s why you hide.  The new friends don’t see your humanity, your true identity still so unknown – your realness.  They haven’t seen you at your limits, sweaty and sore, collapsed on the floor as ragged breaths slowly bring you back to consciousness.  They haven’t seen the heights you reach in moments of sole focus, heavy and fast and on the verge of breaking – finding that next level that makes you better every day, connected to those supporting you.

I wonder if it’s because my answer might mimic your own – my ‘fine’ or ‘okay’ an echo of the falseness in your responses, the lack of substance between us, the truth in how far apart we now stand.  Accepting my answer at face value – the difference between us.

My ‘okay’ might break you though – the girl who would have moved the world for you – somehow – if only you’d asked.  My ‘okay’ truly echoes my stance right now, strong, solid.  Confident and content.  My entire being believes that our story is far from over, spirits guiding me to where I am meant to be.  I trust in this separation, this need for growth, time for us to become equals in your eyes. My ‘okay’ is solid and that might scare you the most if you ever care to ask for it.