like clockwork

Dear K-

You have nothing to feel ashamed of in this circumstance. People of our disposition fall in and out of love, even though many times we wish we could be in love, even if just to spare the feelings of the other person. I know I have debated with myself alone at the kitchen table over a cup of tea, asking why I no longer can feel as enthused, as mesmerized as I once was, and why I inevitably have to hurt anyone who dares to get close enough to me to care. The heavy chains of guilt are always there. The feeling is unavoidable. I blame myself for leading them on, even if it was inadvertent. I hate to be the source of pain for someone, especially when I don’t have a good excuse other than “I just don’t feel the same anymore”. It makes me nervous. Can I trust my own feelings at this point? When did I become so mercurial, that not even I can predict my sentiments in a month’s time anymore?

I think you made the right decision, if that means anything, coming from me. She doesn’t want you, she just doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t blame her; I’ve been in those uncomfortable shoes before and tried to waltz that same clumsy step. No one benefits.

You can find someone else to dote upon. You can find someone else to make smile. It’s one thing to find someone to elevate to be the center of your life, to admire and adore, but it’s another thing to find a Daisy Buchanan for which to waste your life away. Think about it. Daisy is Gatsby’s ideal, he falls in love with the idea of her, what she represents…but when you look a little deeper, Daisy is really an awful person. She’s a disappointment. Shallow and selfish, she gets by on her beauty and charisma, but she is barely a husk of a being once you scrape off those superficial layers. That was always the problem and the appeal of the Great Gatsby for me: Daisy didn’t seem worthy of the adoration awarded to her. As much as it frustrated me to see someone so hurtful and superficial be worshipped by a wealthy, love struck man for his entire life, it also seemed painfully realistic. Of course someone would throw everything away for her. Some people need that corporal source of light and purpose in their life, and Gatsby was one who needed a goddess, even one that he built up and embellished in his mind, in order to drive him. Don’t be fooled into thinking you need a Daisy Buchanan, K. Find yourself a powerful, eloquent women who not only appreciates your devotion but reciprocates in kind. Find someone who not only sparks the fire in your heart but douses it in gasoline and continues to stoke it with wood throughout the long years, after the initial fuel has long since burned off.

I know. Easier said than done.

I am probably a little more sympathetic than usual because I have also recently hurt a few men whose only offense was trying to love me. I have a heavy heart, K. Many men have tried to lift it and it has only ended in pain.

It’s spring. Try to think of the sun washed afternoons and the lingering cool twilights of summer to come.

Stay vigilant,
-k