Dear X –
I love you madly, deeply; I wake up in the middle of the night craving you. When I am overstimulated and need a minute (or five, or ten), you are always there for me. I have loved you since I was 18 years old, even though when we’d first met four years earlier I was both exhilarated and repulsed by you. I didn’t know what to expect back then, or how my body would react to you. The truth was, you made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t feel special or different around you; in fact, I loathed who I was when I was around you. But I wanted to keep up with my friends, and they were always hanging with you, so I kept trying to enjoy your company.
As time went on, you started to grow on me. Soon, I couldn’t get away from you. I could always smell you on my clothes, my skin, and my hair. I began to lie about where I’d been, so that no one would know I’d been spending time with you. I hid the evidence as best I could: I would shower as soon as I got home; I would wash my clothes twice, sometimes three times. I would chew gum, spritz myself with perfume, spray my car with scented fabric spray. I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone. I started to suspect I was keeping up the charade for myself, but I blamed my parents, then one day my children, for the need to keep this secret.
One day, while driving with you, I got so upset I tried to throw you out the car window, but you refused to go. Instead, you burrowed into the car seat, clinging on for dear life. I had to pull over on the side of the highway to dig you out, but the damage was done. You had ruined my brand new car, and repairing the damage to hide this new, more obvious evidence cost more than I was earning in a week. That was supposed to be the end of us. I swore I’d never be alone with you again.
But then I went to college, and nights in my college dorm were lonely, and you were allowed to visit me in the lounge, so we ended up spending night after night after long night together. I would write for hours with you by my side, breathing in tandem until the birds began their morning song. I’d finally turn in, dry-mouthed, chapped lips, eyes red and burning, and we would part ways until it was time for class. Looking back, it seems impossible to believe you were ever allowed on campus at all–much less inside any building whatsoever. But that was a different time, and you were allowed to go almost anywhere with me: restaurants and bars, school, public transportation and municipal buildings, bowling alleys, golf courses.
If we had met today, our relationship might not have become one at all. At the very least, it would not have been so all-consuming. In today’s world, it is too hard to keep you a secret. I was never proud of our relationship, but now that I am a mother, a partner, a role model, a friend and mentor, I keep the secret of the time we spend together close to the chest. I don’t want people to know about you, and I don’t like the looks I get when people find out.
After more than 30 years together, on again and off again, it is time to say goodbye for the last time. I have tried to quit you so many times before. Some of those times were more successful than others. I was able to forget about you for a year or two–more than once or twice. Never entirely of course–but I could think fondly of the time we spent together without wanting to rekindle the flame. I had other things I loved more than you: my children, bicycling, running, swimming, fresh air, the taste of food. You didn’t fit into my life the way I wanted to live and experience it.
But life is hard, and I am sometimes weak. Someone would bring you around and eventually I would reach out. It only took one time to jump back into our old routines–first, we’d have coffee together in the morning, then we started walking after lunch, and eventually I was looking forward to our evenings together. And even though I knew I was spending more time with you than was good for me, just the thought of ending it made me want even more of you. Soon, I was lying to my partner, then my kids. Even the dog knew and kept his distance because he could tell something was different.
The more time I spent with you, the lonelier I felt. I hated what you were doing to me, but I didn’t know how to let go. I saw how hard it had been for others, and I didn’t want to admit it would be that hard for me, too. I tried cutting back, thinking that I could minimize the damage; I tried bingeing, hoping to make myself sick enough to reject you once and for all.
No matter what I tried to do to control how, when, and why I turned to you, I couldn’t break the habit of using you as a way to self-regulate. I found myself driving to get you in the middle of the night when I woke sweating, heart pounding and mind racing about the latest complication life had thrown my way. I found myself missing you when I was out with friends. I hated writing without you by my side. I tried to replace you, but every substitute was subpar. You were an unbreakable habit and my only self-destructive vice. So I made excuses for allowing you back into my life, even though it meant pushing others away, hating myself for the hold I let you have over me.
Our relationship has been on-again, off-again for over 30 years–longer than my first marriage, longer than some of my closest friendships (lucky as I am, and loyal too, keeping in touch with so many friends I have known since childhood). But I am coming to terms with the reality that I don’t have any impact on you, and your only impact on me is negative. Like one or two or half a dozen friendships I have had to either quit cold turkey or slowly drift away from, I realize that our relationship is more harmful than useful. So it is time to let you go, too, because you are literally destroying me from the inside out. My skin, my hair, my lungs–not to mention my blood pressure, inflammation, migraines, joint pain–are taxed by every minute I spend with you.
You used to be an excuse to spend time with friends, to take a break, to spend some time alone with my own thoughts. But all my friends have put you permanently in the past, and I am the only one foolish enough to pledge my continued loyalty. Instead of the social lubricant you made me believe you were, you have repelled the people I love and want to be with. I don’t want to die young, and I certainly don’t want to die alone, slowly, painfully, fighting for each last breath. I don’t like the way you’ve aged me, especially when what you promised was a foothold on my youth.
You are one (or one hundred) toxic encounters I can avoid, so that I am better equipped to handle the ones outside of my control. I can no longer afford to keep you around. I would rather spend the time I’ve wasted on you taking care of myself. I can’t keep hiding the injuries you’ve caused, and I am beginning to worry about the damage you will cause if I keep letting you back in. It’s time for me to choose a healthier option. To protect myself, to love myself. I no longer need to make excuses for self-destructive behavior, and I don’t want my children or students to experience the hypocrisy of our relationship. I am sure I will always feel nostalgic for the times we spent together, but it just doesn’t feel good anymore. If I’m being honest, it never really did.
I believed your lies for long enough. It’s time I stopped gaslighting myself. There are much better ways to spend my time, and time is not as infinite as it once seemed.
xoxo,
Jen
(mostly) full disclosure 