GW's Advice

(I'm glad I managed to sneak in a May entry on the 31st day of this month)

I think it's weird how your opinion, feelings, and emotion towards one person can change so quickly and unexpectedly - and how drastic the Snow Ball Effect is. One might also call it the Domino Effect, but the end result is that it sets into motion a whole lot of sh!t and events that lead to one another.

With that being said, I've experienced and gone through a sh!tload of "character building" or "emotional training" these past months. They have all been a result of females - and I blame them for the emotional roller-coaster ride that I've been on. I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE! My brain is swarming and so full of assumptions, hypotheticals, re-enactments of things that have been said or done, things that I dream or think might happen - and it feels like it's going to burst. My heart on the other hand, feels like it's a punching bag. When I see or hear something from someone (or perhaps because they DIDN'T say something), I feel like my heart skips a beat because someone just kicked me in the stomach while someone else is simultaneously jabbing an ice pick deep into it.

I talked to Greg for just about a full hour on the phone tonight - and throughout the conversation he gave me some great wisdom that rivals the revelations that great philosophers have had in the past (in my opinion).

1. Turn a negative scenario/event and put yourself in their shoes - only then can you make the correct judgement call on what is appropriate to do or say.

I thought I had my mind made up on what I really wanted to say/ask someone as soon as I saw them the next day, because I believed that it would make me feel better somehow - even if the truth/answer was what I feared to hear the most. However, after Greg told me about (let's call this Greg's Wisdom #1) GW#1 and applied it to my current predicament... almost instantaneously I changed my thought process. It was like, "wow... I never thought about it from that person's perspective and I would never want that to happen to me." And so from this day forward, I will try to apply GW#1 during any situation where I get caught off-guard and feel emotionally unsettled.

2. Give them the benefit of the doubt - especially if they are/were your friend.

I tend to make judgements on people fairly early and quickly. And once it's been made, it's pretty darn hard for my perception of them to change. Despite my very pessimistic outlook on life and the dark rain cloud I cast over myself (and try to spread to others), Greg has convinced me of being a better person - or at least trying to. He says he likes to believe people are innocent until proven guilty (I've always thought of the opposite) and after listening to him give his perspective on why it tends to work out for the better if you give them the benefit of the doubt - life's a little bit easier to deal with. I think I'm going to try giving that a shot, despite how hard it may be. This guy used to be my friend, maybe still is, and may not have any intentions whatsoever of hurting my feelings (at least not on purpose).

To JMK:



My dad once told me a piece of advice that I think we’ve all heard at one point or another, and that is, “put yourself in the other person’s shoes.” And in doing so, I’ve realized how I must’ve made you feel these last couple of weeks – despite having a talk last weekend to express some of the things I’ve been thinking or feeling. I felt (you must’ve felt) like there was this person that used to mean something to me and had become a very impactful and meaningful part of my life. But all of a sudden the laughter and stories that this person has written in the book that is my life has started to fade away or the pages are even being torn out. The thing that hurts the most is that there doesn’t seem to be anything that I can do to mend the ripped pages, and I’m left completely in the dark wondering, “will it ever be okay again?”

This is the second of such things I’ve written to you, and for the second time I feel that it’s because you deserve to know. As hard as this is for me, and it’s taken me hours/days to get the words right (I’ve written and erased the same things over and over), I feel as if though it’s the right thing to do. I honestly don’t know whether or not this will ultimately help, but I think you deserve to know ‘why’ and so I’ll try to convey my emotions and behaviors into letters and words.

Why…
… have I been ignoring you? There’s no reason for me to lie to you, and that there’s a part of me for the past 2 weeks that has forced me to turn away from you. One of the reasons that I keep telling myself relates back to our talk recently – where you recommended that I find/do the things that make me happy. Well, something that gives me true joy is hanging out and laughing with my friends. So that’s what I did, laugh and laugh with the guys from work, making jokes, and playing pranks. But you know what?

That’s a bullshit answer.

I feel…
… jealous. Awkward. Angry. Disappointed. All at the same time when I see or even hear you. You don’t need a dictionary for me to tell you that none of those are positive emotions. And that’s the human-istic explanation behind my knee jerk reaction to distance myself from you and even avoid eye contact. It pains me to feel that emptiness inside me, like you’ve just stepped off the edge of a sidewalk without realizing it – and it was someone you had trusted who pushed you off. Metaphors and analogies aside, that’s the true answer to my behavior: it hurts me. Why?

I’ve realized…
… that I was looking for something that wasn’t ever really there. I had mistaken one feeling/emotion for another and the end result was a sudden realization by me. After a lot of self-reflection I’ve determined that despite many of my wavering morals and beliefs about different aspects of life – one facet that my conscious won’t ever allow me to violate is the already established relationship between a couple. Whatever instincts, logical reasoning, knee-jerk reactions (alcohol involved or not), or sexual attractions… I can’t/won’t ever break that ethical rule. Another honesty confession: had I ever wished/wanted to fool around? Yes.

I wonder…
… if there’s a way for us to go back to the way it was before? That question gives rise to the following one: thinking clearly with an ethical conscious, SHOULD I go back to the way it was before? The immediate answer that comes to mind is ‘no’ because of the way I’ve been feeling when I see you. But does ignoring the problem and looking for something to cover it up really make the negative feelings go away? The answer is again ‘no’ because not only does it just hide the problem but it creates another big one – and that’s us losing each other and the relationship we’ve built up to this point.

I wish…
… to never lose you as a friend. As a philosophy student, I’ve compiled a lot of stuff in my head over the years and a large part of that has to do with cherishing friendship and life. I’ve come to realize that I can't let people that have entered and become a special part of my life just disappear into this world - never to be seen again and without even having the slightest idea of how they felt about each other. I wish that I am able to look at you or be around you without feeling any of the negatives I’ve mentioned earlier so that we may begin to rebuild what used to be there.

I think…
… that we might both be disappointed. This is the hardest part for me to write/say to you, because (with my pessimistic mindset) I can’t honestly forsee other outcomes. With that being said, I think that we might not ever establish what we used to have. This hurts me so much because on the one hand I’m the one who’s choosing to take our friendship back a step, and words can’t describe how sad I am to lose what we used to have. I have sat here and thought about this for a long time, but can’t figure out a way to convey or articulate to you how the dynamic of our friendship will change from this point forward in time. I think we might not be nearly as close of friends as we used to be, and that will be something that will be painful for us to both get used to.

Do you remember the times when I would be looking at you, and you would ask me what I was staring at, and I’d say “nothing” ? It reminds me of something a girl told me once which was, “to find a true friend, you have to look beyond the eyes of the person and what’s inside their heart.” I think all this time, I’ve been looking at your eyes too much and not focusing on the thing that matters the most – our hearts. This friendship and chapter in our lives that we’ve co-authored means so much to me, yet somehow it changed. I know that I’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry for making you sad. But if I’ve ever been honest with you about anything it would be this: it hurts me twice as much for the things I’ve said or done (or NOT said and NOT done). My brain has not let me sleep well the last 2 weeks, and my heart is still at the bottom of my stomach from the sinking feeling I get each time I see you. As I’ve said, this has been extremely difficult for me to write to you, but there is one thing that I can guarantee to you forever…

… no matter what you go through, however many times our hearts get broken, I’ll always be there for you with my friendship to pick up the pieces.