Hey. It’s been a while, or it hasn’t.
You know that I’m a writer, an English major…If I’m good at anything, it should be expression through words. But when it came down to the nitty-gritty, and I looked you in the eye, sent you a text, disappeared off the face of the planet, disappointed you in an unspeakable way…I had no words. I had nothing for you. I had no words of comfort. I had no words of meaning. I had nothing to say but “I’m sorry.”
They say that “I love you,” is a term spoken too many times and not really meant, but I just so happen to believe that “I’m sorry” is even worse. It’s so empty. Just words. It’s just empty letters with puppy dog eyes and three syllables. You probably don’t even realize I feel something until you see the bandages on my knuckles or the brace around my wrist. Guilt is an emotion that is far too hard to hide.
Well, Shakespeare did not become famous by having King Claudius of Denmark apologize to Hamlet for killing his father. John Green didn’t become famous for Margo Roth Spiegelman apologizing to Quentin for disappearing.
There are so many ways to say it. There are so many ways to say that I screwed up. What way did I screw up? If I’ve hurt you, you know it, and this is for you. You know exactly what I’ve done to bring the looming dramatic tears to your eyes. The dramatics were entirely merited. I’m just an ass.
“That’s the trouble with caring about anybody, you begin to feel overprotective. Then you begin to feel crowded.” - John Updike.
“The old line ‘You deserve someone better than me’ in this case was not just an old line. She deserved someone who would love her and take care of her, and he knew he never would.” - Norris Church Mailer.
“At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid, and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved.” - John Green.
“When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did.” - John Green
“It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.” - John Green.
The things that I have done to hurt the people that have entered and left my life…I feel like they will never stop haunting me. Every time I see a picture you, or your face in passing, there is a surge in my stomach and a pain in my chest. I think to myself, “This is a person who cares for me. This is a person who gave me a piece of their soul, and I tore it to shreds. Why did you do that? You idiot.”
Mostly I have hurt you to protect myself.
I hurt you because I was afraid.
But sometimes, I hurt you because I was selfish, arrogant, wanted everything and nothing at the same time.
Well, life just doesn’t work that way. And I had to learn that swallowing my pride is the hardest thing I will ever do.
“You see, at the beginning we weren’t fighters. We weren’t yellers or throwers, even if we eventually came to be. It would take time and much deeper wounds for us to get to that point.” - Dinaw Mengestu.
You’d think I took lessons from Junot Diaz and all of his tales about breaking hearts.
Maybe one of these days I’ll write about each of the people I’ve hurt, and maybe I’ll be just as famous.
But just know that etched within every single word I write about you is an apology added up to make one giant “I’m sorry.” I can rant and rave about how it has no meaning, but what other words do I have to use?
Thank you for giving me the fuel to write my fiction, mostly based on fact. Mostly based on you.
I’m sorry that’s what it takes for me to show my true colors and emotions…
But that’s the way of the writer isn’t it? Succumbing to alcohol and silence, slipping further into the keys on my keyboard, or the ink on the page.
