📝 Letters From Viv – Caffeinated Chaos

It was just the Prologue…

Today marks a year since I boarded the plane without you. It all happened so fast. We were both last minute getting there. When my phone was ringing as it came out of the x-ray machine, I didn’t expect to hear what I heard on the other end. You brought your expired passport. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. By the time I got to the gate they were starting to board. I didn’t have time to think. There was no time. I was frantic in my mind trying to figure it out. I always figure it out. So I got on the plane.

I spent the entire flight looking up alternate flights and trying to find a way for you to get there in time. There were options. None of them were a guarantee. I don’t know if you didn’t want to try or if you felt so defeated that you didn’t have it in you to try, but in the end you didn’t.

I had never seen you not have it all together. You were the calm one. The one who went with the flow no matter how rough the waters were. Not this time. This time I could hear it in your voice. You were lost. You had let me down. You felt a guilt I’m almost certain you weren’t used to. I didn’t get mad. I don’t think you knew how to process me not getting mad. Mad you could handle. You could combat it. Disappointment and guilt were foreign to you and you had no defense against either.

In my eyes, this trip was supposed to be the start of the next chapter for us, not the end of the book. You not making the flight changed our whole story. A story that seems unfinished. I will wait forever and a day for the sequel. In the meantime, not a day goes by that I don’t wish I hadn’t gotten on that plane.

My Last F-You

You know, right around two years ago I sent you the “f*ck you” email. After 3 years I was finally at a point where I could let go. That email was sent with rage. I wish I could say I never looked back after sending that, but I can’t. I let you go that day but what you did to me still lingered. My longing turned into that rage I mentioned. My love turned to hate. My sadness turned to disgust.

I buried it all for a while. Then I met the most wonderful man. He showed me what it was to truly love and be loved. The problem…I had scars. I was doing so much to not repeat the past that I hindered the future. Every step forward I took with him was a battle inside for me. A battle between the heart, mind, and fear. Needless to say, he left. I could blame you for that but I don’t. You may have caused the scars but I’m the one who decides how I let them affect me.

I’ve learned a lot about myself and love in the time since. I’ve learned that what we had was never true love of each other. It was love of the idea of each other. It was comfort and the familiar that I clung on to and not you as a person. I didn’t deserve what you did. But I’m the one who kept letting you do it. I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t asking for too much. I wasn’t crazy. I was scared. I was only asking for respect. I was constantly provoked. It wasn’t me. It was you. And I have to let it go.

I don’t think I will ever not hate you. I will absolutely never forgive you. But I won’t let it control me anymore. I won’t give you that power ever again. So, why am I writing this? Because I had to say it “out loud”. I had to get it all off my chest in order to release it. And because I wanted to say one last, “Fuck you!”

— Viv

Notes to Neverland: Be a Grown-Up

“Be a grown-up.” There was a period of time when that was a common phrase you’d use. I don’t know what triggered it to start or when you stopped saying it, but it still echoes in my mind several months later. Nobody was safe from those words. Not a stranger on the street. Not me. Not even you. The first time you used them towards me I was a little offended. I felt called out. I felt guilty. I felt like I’d let you down. It seems silly because it wasn’t all that serious. You weren’t trying to make me feel any of those things. Every one of those feelings was my own. But it was your words that prompted them. Little did you know what an impact they would have on me. How long they would haunt me.