Dear M,

Whenever we speak, we go around in circles. In the end it all ends up the same way it always has and we both just feel pain. I always say I have said everything I have needed to, but it’s never the case; I always hold back because the truth is, I worry I will hurt you too much by being brutally honest.

I wish I could tell you to stop being a victim.

I wish I could shake you and tell you to be responsible for yourself and your behavior and your actions and stop blaming the world for what has gone wrong in your life and what will continue to until you take control of it and yourself and admit to your part in all of it.

I wish I could stop blaming everyone else for what has gone wrong in your life and hold you responsible for your actions and behavior and accept what has happened between us.

Some days I really hate you, I hate your depression and your addiction and the fact that you chose them over us.

And I hate that I don’t really know how you are feeling and what you are going through and how to help you. I feel selfish that I feel better when I don’t think about you.

I feel bad when I enjoy myself and forget about you. I don’t know how to be your friend. There are too many things unsaid and unresolved to just move on as friends and it never seems to work when we try because of it.

I wish I could cut you out of my life until I feel better.

I hate that I’m still defending you to people I love and love me and you never defended me in the first place.

Not when I was the only one helping you or looking after you, nor before. 

I just want to accept the past for what it is and let go.

I want to stop making excuses for you and for me too and I want to hold you responsible forwhat went wrong even as much as I do myself, despite of your struggles.

I hope you can make peace with your past and focus on the present, I hope you find your happy
place and I’m sorry I couldn’t take you there.

“If you tell a truth it becomes a part of your past, if you tell a lie it becomes a part of your future.” 

This is what you never understood.

And that is ultimately why things fell apart, and it’s not to say you weren’t suffering or still aren’t, but there comes a point in everyone’s life when you need to decide when enough is enough, when you can no longer try for someone else when they don’t try for themselves.

But I’ll never say all this to you, because even with the distance between us now I would never desert you and all you would have to do was ask and I would be there to get you through anything you needed, even when you don’t deserve it, because that’s how love is.

Hopefully one day that love will be a healthy love of a dear old friend and the past will just be the past and the future is bright for both of us in our chosen lives.

I wish you nothing but good things, and for me too,

J x, age 29