B.
It was one of those low-key therapy sessions inside his car parked at that open space near our office when I told him about my writing. My mind is a terrible place. I have succumbed to the necessity of writing — to remember, or sometimes to forget. It’s as simple as getting something (or someone) out of your system like saving things for later but never really wanting to get back to it.
I could write about food, make up, clothes, movies, or many others but these do not occupy me. Instead, I write about people, art, numbers, and politics for these are the things that matter. You don’t write about what is unimportant. You write about what presses you — that thing that keeps on bugging you until you are able to write it down.
We sometimes write to answer — a question, an opinion. We write because we want our voices to be heard and our words to be read. But what we often forget is that we do not have that much control on who or how it is read (or if it even is).
* * *
Let me tell you a story.
I once wrote about an ex of an ex. I wrote about her because she occupied a space in my mind. Did I regret it? Yes. I regret that I gave her a power over me, unknowingly. I wrote about her not knowing what response I wanted to elicit — until one day she conceded. She conceded that she read my entries. She conceded that yes, she was bothered by the fact that I got what she used to want or even loved. She conceded and admitted that I did affect her. But then she wrote down telling me to celebrate and then asking, did knowing she was bothered make me happy?
To answer truthfully, no. It didn’t. I felt bad about making some other human being feel bad. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve not being able to defend herself. She didn’t deserve not being able to express herself. She didn’t deserve a word I wrote when I have never heard her side. And I felt bad because I was being unfair.
She was right. She had every right to be bitter, to be angry, to hate people. Because I was not there when she was cheated on, when she was lied to, when she was left alone, and all the time after that.
For some weird reason, we ended up talking. I told her about my mishaps with the same guy she used to date and she told me he was like that from the start.
So this is me writing about you now, openly expressing that I am.
I’m happy for you, where you are and what you are now. And I apologize for all that has transpired. Thank you for teaching me to know my worth, that it’s okay to admit your loss, that you’re bitter, that you still haven’t moved on. Thank you for letting me know how to not give a fuck about what a blind girl says because after all, that time I was blinded by love.
Thanks for being the bitch that you were, without which I would have still been the insensitive immature person I used to be.
For teaching me to ignore the past when it comes calling for it has nothing new to say, thank you.
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