My Open Letters – The Second

Dear ——,

Some days, I feel like the worst person in the world. Maybe that’s why being an imp fits so well. I know I’m terrible, many people say it to me, and yet I keep on being an imp.

I know, looking back, there were a few times I said to you that my identity was always a hard thing to grasp. And then one day you said I was an imp and it just kind of clicked. There was no doubt in my mind, from the time I met you, that you would end up showing me who I was. Or at least helping me mold the major part of who I am. I know, because I wrote a piece back when I was first talking to you. That got a lot about you wrong, but everything about you that pertained to me was accurate. I said you helped me find myself, or create myself, even though at the time you hadn’t, not completely.

But thinking of my identity, I also remember saying to you or maybe even writing in that piece that I often became exactly what people needed. Every relationship in my life came down to being what other people needed, or even wanted in their life. This is why I was never myself. And I think when you had read the piece you told me that you felt the same way. That you became what other people needed and you mentioned that you were largely still trying to find yourself.

At the time, I did wonder if that meant you were becoming someone I needed. A persona, or mask as it was. I knew we were both good at taking on a persona, though ever since I started looking for myself, it’s certainly become less powerful for me. But you, you are good at it. The more I think about the parts of your life I saw, the more I could see it. Becoming this person for your mother, this one for this friend, this one for that friend. They are small things, small changes that are made that make such a difference. The way you think about something, or how you move might be all that’s needed for people to have different ideas of you.

So, I can’t exactly blame you for making a persona for me. I even have a name for it, that I gave it. And that you’ve since abandoned, because I’m no longer in your life. I also can’t blame you for making that persona, because I’ve done the same to far too many people, and some of whom I’ve been in a relationship with.

Really, we are a lot alike. To the point that you’ve even said you wondered if we were too much alike. Maybe that’s true. Too much alike in the sense that one of us would always be in a persona. But, in working to discover myself, and with your help in creating myself. I did manage to realize one discovery. You shouldn’t feel bad about becoming a persona for some people. Because that persona is still you. The only way other people ever came to believe that persona was real, was because you put life into it.

You may have played a part for me, but that doesn’t mean that part isn’t real or part of you. Through the simple act of having played it, you gave it life and brought it into you. Even if it never comes up again, which it will, if you ever look back on our moments.

I also said or wrote at one point that you poisoned my memories. That I could never be sure if you were really happy, or enjoyed your time with me. That every moment I’d look back on with you, would just make me question whether you actually cared, whether you actually wanted those moments. But that was placing a lot of unnecessary blame on you. I poisoned those memories by thinking they could be impacted by things you said well after those moments had been made.

And even then, they aren’t poisoned. Sure, some of them make me cry, and drawing on them can certainly bring tears, but tears aren’t caused by poison. They are caused by emotion. And those emotions aren’t always sad or bad, or caused by the memory. Instead they are caused by the idea that I won’t see that part of you again. I smile and cry thinking about all the times you would shake your head in a teasing or playful manner, and give that cute expression with your eyes getting big when you were acting all innocent and nodding while agreeing with something like the fact that you are a brat.

I have a lot of your facial expressions stuck in my memory actually. I even do some of them without thinking. I think, that’s one of the ways you had an impact on who I am. I draw on parts of you, much like I’ve drawn on parts of a lot of other people over the years. I’m the sum of the parts of all those I’ve met and many more.

Maybe you are too. Maybe we all are, which is what makes it so hard to figure out who we are. Cause we are always adding on new parts, from new people we meet, and trying to solve where the parts we already have came from. Except, it’s like trying to solve a rubix cube when you think you are supposed to be solving a jigsaw puzzle. We don’t pay attention to the parts, not the ones we gain, or the ones we already had from past memories. Not unless someone else points it out to us, or we are being especially self-aware when we use those parts.

And here I am, analyzing again. It’s an obsession. Actually someone else analyzed one of my personas at one point, and I realized it applied to the real me. I like to solve problems, and fix things. Even when they aren’t broken, even when I’m the only one who thinks there’s a problem. And it’s not like I care about the recognition of solving it, otherwise I wouldn’t be picking things that can ostracize me, or make my relationships, friends and lovers resent me for touching on them. It’s just cause I need to solve it. It’s quite literally an addiction or a complex.

A complex, psychologically, would mean it started when I was a kid. And I can see the pattern for that. Especially since I can’t seem to stop doing it. It’s just, built into me. It’s part of who I am, like all complexes. The interesting part is there’s actually name for this complex. I know, because it’s been said about Sherlock Holmes and a more modern version, House M.D. Just minus all the drugs and hookers (for now). It’s called the Rubix Complex.

You see a puzzle and you have to solve it. Maybe it started because I always had to finish my puzzles when I was a kid. It was the only thing I could control. I always had control over my puzzles, and I could always solve them.

And I apply the same thing to us. I keep looking back over, wondering what I can do now that would change things. What can I say? What can I do? That would just at least get you to talk to me. How can I fix the rift between us? Even by writing this I’m still giving into that complex. I’m still trying to find a way. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop it. No matter how many times you tell me to just leave it be, to stop talking, to go away. I’m not disrespecting you, I’m not stalking you. I’m just trying to solve the one thing that is dependent upon you to solve.

It’s why I asked you ‘Why’ so much. It’s the only thing I could think to say. Why. Why. Why?

Sure, it left a hole emotionally for me, but that repairs. That mends, and eventually I know I’ll be fine. I know, emotionally I am starting to manage to move on. But mentally, I can’t. It’s why I think about us, it’s why I keep looking back. It’s why I keep thinking about you, even though it can leave me in tears. I have a puzzle that I can’t solve without you, because you won’t give me the pieces to finish it. And it’s not like you are doing it on purpose. I don’t think you are trying to be malicious. I know you can be terrible like me, but purposeful harm wasn’t your thing.

It’s more like we are sitting next to each other and yet we can’t see or touch each other, instead we can only talk. But I can only speak Russian, and you can only speak Italian. And I have the puzzle on my side, with the edges all set in place, and you have the remaining pieces. But you can’t understand what piece I need next, and I can’t understand why you can’t give it to me.

It’s beyond frustrating, it’s exhausting. I can’t go a week without looking back at it and then feeling like shit because I can’t fucking solve it, cause I don’t have the pieces.

But maybe I do have the pieces, and I’m just not solving it. No matter how much I look in front of me, I don’t see the pieces and I keep thinking you have them, even though you gave them to me.

Maybe, the problem is that I didn’t want a piece. I wanted you to slide over the whole puzzle, completed so I could just understand, because this is the one puzzle I didn’t want to even start and now I have to finish it, somehow. Even if it means overcoming my blind-area bias or a communication problem I have no idea how to begin to solve.

I just don’t know. And I’m so tired of saying I don’t know.

Signed,

The Imp

P. S. Terra says Hi.