The Final Chapter

[I begin with a preface to share that some of the events mentioned in this post were from 8 years ago. In writing this, I wrote a draft based on memory, and then I went back through with my journals to verify the accuracy of events. I also included a lot of reflection because I can see things differently now that I am removed from the situation. After drafting, I called one of those involved to let them know what I was writing, and we ended up having a 2.5 hour conversation about these events, and we were able to own our parts of what went wrong while also understanding the other person's perspective. We were able to get some closure and acknowledge the growth we have been able to make as a result of this time period. Please know the care that I have put into telling this story and please respect the privacy of this other person. Time has passed, and this is not a reflection of who either of us are at our current stage. As a result, I am removing some of the names of people to help them move forward in their life without people using this against them.]

When I got hired at Port Huron, I didn't know anyone from the area. I grew up around 30 minutes from there, and it was a place I had heard of but never spend time at. I continued to live with my parents as a way to save money, and I had my few friends from high school and college, so I wasn't totally invested in "committing" to the place where I worked.

Early into the year, our school had the Cross Town Show Down, where our high school football team plays against the other one in the district, and our staff had a tailgate ahead of the game. I went and mingled with various people, but I felt completely uncomfortable because I didn't know anyone and had been in my little bubble acclimating to the school.

A week or so later, I was roped into being a chaperone for the Homecoming dance. Once the dance had started and the students were checked in, another new teacher was sitting at a table near me. He asked me what I did for fun because he was new to the area and was looking for activities to fill his time. I told him that I was mostly unfamiliar with the area and did most things towards where I grew up. Again, I can be so uncomfortable when I don't know people, so I didn't encourage the conversation, but we sort of made an alliance and stuck together for the rest of the dance. At some point, we were moved by the bathrooms to monitor the behavior and make sure students were behaving themselves.

In our new location, we - read he - began chatting with two new people. One was a fellow English teacher and the other was her husband. They talked about how they were outsiders as well, and they were interested in doing things, but they mostly spent time at home because they didn't have a group to spend time with. Fast forward to the three of them making plans for trivia. Since I was standing there, I was also invited to participate.

The following Monday, someone followed up to make sure we were still going to go to trivia. Another young person was invited because she had done her student teaching in the building and was working as the college advisor. That first week, we won the game thanks to Jess' brilliance. I honestly told someone the next day that it was fun, but I doubted it would be a thing. (I was so completely wrong in that assumption!)

This is where some timeline gets murky. I remember that we began with trivia as a weekly activity. At some point Sydney invited people over on a Friday. I began working at Paumac on certain days because I wanted and needed some extra money (thanks to the retirement guy taking my entire paycheck basically. Fuck that guy!). I remember a Friday where this new teacher, Megan, and I went to the Gaslite per Eastman's recommendation, and we played pool. (In looking through my journals, apparently it was an impromptu bar crawl, where we explored a few hole in the wall places in downtown PH.) Clearly, we all were beginning to be fast friends and plans kept being created.

By December, I had developed feelings for him. He had a girlfriend at the time, who was finishing school, so she was never around. Our group had been spending so much time together, and he and I began spending time one on one because we would hang out before trivia and drive together, especially since I didn't want to drive home after working in Marysville to drive back to Port Huron. (For those unfamiliar, PH is 30 minutes from my house, and Marysville is a town right next to Port Huron. It's sort of an in between, but it's much closer to PH than my house. I would have gotten home and then turned around for trivia. It really didn't make logical sense, and I didn't want to find places to hang out between that time.)

[Dear reader, I will elaborate on the friendship I had with this person throughout the rest of this writing, but I had a real soul connection with him. He is the first person in my life who I have known I love with my whole soul, no questions asked. There are other people and relationships where I have been like "I guess this is what friend love is" or "This must be familial love." He is the first person where my entire soul knew without a doubt that this is what love feels like. At some point, I wrote him a letter that explained how my brain wanted to translate this unconditional love to romantic love, and I don't think it necessarily was that. As someone who is yet to find romantic love, it is easy to make an assumption that this new version of love had to be that. With time removed, I have now found someone else with whom I feel this same level of love, and I know it is not romantic. At the same time, it is not platonic. It is some beautiful version of love that is pure and does not need a label. It is a soul connection. Pure and simple.]

During our work holiday party, our group of five was introduced to two new members through a blind friend date. Our colleague had a friend at one of the middle schools, and they thought we were all compatible because of our outsider nature. They had moved to PH, and they were into things that our group was. We met at someone's house, and we honestly hit it off. They were invited to trivia the next week, and they were completely welcomed as members of the group.

With these two, we added a game night on Wednesdays. Overall, we would spend Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays together doing our various activities - trivia, games, D&D, and pool. At times, this friend and I would also spend Saturdays and Sundays together, particularly when his friend came to town. Over time, he and I were making a lot of plans together, just the two of us, and in our conversation, we talked about how at the time, he thought he was an extroverted person and wanted to make plans constantly. It was an avoidant strategy because he was afraid to be alone. At the time, he was the one acting as a leader to make plans, so I assumed it meant that he liked me, which ultimately he did, just as someone he enjoyed spending time with. He knew that I was willing to do anything, so we fell into a rhythm of doing random activities together outside of the group dynamic. In our call, he mentioned that everyone else had their spouse and life outside of the group, and since the two of us didn't, it was natural that we partnered up.

In February, we had a midwinter break. During lunch that Thursday - Valentine's Day - he asked me if I wanted to hangout and play pool with him since we didn't have to work the next day. He had laid the groundwork for that prior to lunch because his friend was potentially coming to town. Another friend invited herself and her boyfriend to join us, and the four of us went to Gaslite to play pool and have a drink. I drove him, obviously, because that was our pattern. In my journal, we were very playful on the ride back to his apartment. When I dropped him off, he was very sincere towards me, then he gave me a two handed handshake (one on either side of my hand) then gave me a hug. This is where I feel like I began reading into his actions and feeling like there were mutual romantic feelings between us. (I see in my journals that some reading into things was happening prior to this interaction, but this was where it felt like there was potential for something to emerge.)

[Dear reader, I want to add some side notes here. First and foremost, this man had a girlfriend, and I promise with my whole heart that nothing physical ever happened between the two of us. Not when he had a girlfriend, not when he was single. There was one time WHEN HE WAS SINGLE that we ALMOST kissed, but we both separated from each other quickly, and it's ultimately what led to some introspection about the fact that nothing was ever going to happen between us. Finally, there were actions that led me to believe that this person had mutual feelings for me. I really do think that we mutually loved, respected, and appreciated each other, and I did not make things up. However, there were items that fell into a gray area that I read in one way that I can see now meant something different to him. I was building a story in my head based off our interactions and using a magnifier glass to amplify the meaning of things that didn't match the reality of the situation.]

Over time, I had conversations with my friends about what was happening. One of the couples shared their own story and how it mirrored what they saw was happening between the two of us. At one point, his best friend messaged me to say "[this] confirms that he likes you." It didn't feel like I was making anything up because other people shared how they saw our interactions and felt like there was something emerging. I was fanning the flames, but everyone else was stoking the fire. In reflection, I am mad at myself for close reading the situations instead of having the conversations about everything that was happening. I wish I had been direct and not allowed my imagination to taint my perspective of what was happening.

By the spring, we started to add other people into the mix. This group wasn't meant to be a clique. We did what we could to invite anyone who was interested in joining to come out and participate in our activities. As a result of constantly finding things to do, we had so much fun, and while we worked together, so much of our time together was not talking about work. Since we played games and did activities, we separated our work selves from our outside of work personas. Yes, they obviously overlapped, but it wasn't all focusing on our work and talking about our job.

At the end of the school year, we went outside to play frisbee at a local park, and the seven of us ran around and laughed. I have never been as happy as I was that day. I vividly remember Jess coming up to me and wrapping me in a hug as we laughed. It is a moment of time when I can say with complete certainty that my entire soul was so deeply happy - a truly transcendental moment in my life. I cannot express enough the love I have for all of these people. We spent so much time together, and I shared so much of myself with them that I felt so safe and loved. This is such a magical time in my life, and I cherish the memories. Even after all this time.

On the last day of school, we went to get dinner and drinks to celebrate the end of the year. My plans had been to spend the night at Jess and Wes' house, and my friend chose to stay the night as well. That night, I slept on one couch, and he slept on the other. As we fell asleep, we held hands. (In my journal, there was a random piece of paper that recapped the night and a conversation with my friends, stating "the last day of school, [another friend] was obsessed with me and it was irritating [him]... I think that's why he held my hand that night.")

That summer, we went on multiple camping trips. One at the end of June was for Jay and Andrea's birthday. They rented a camp sort of thing. At that event, I hit a point where I felt like I was delusional and making shit up, and it felt like a lot of people were turning on me and telling me that everything was one-sided, and I was crazy. I started to pull back from him after that, and I was dealing with the internal turmoil of how everything was playing out. It was around that time that I felt frustrated that he was evasive, and I didn't feel like I knew where we stood, but I didn't know how to broach the subject.

In August, we had a conversation that didn't quite get to the root of the issues, but he did reassure me that I wasn't delusional or crazy. I told him that I was afraid of losing our friendship, and he was concerned about the same thing. I can remember this conversation vaguely, and I think we were not direct enough. This was a place where if I said the things I had been feeling, the trajectory of everything afterwards could have been different. We skirted around the issue and made amends enough to move forward, yet it was still unhealthy and problematic.

Another camping trip in August was when he mustered up his courage to tell everyone that he and his girlfriend had broken up. This was obviously something I had been wanting to happen, and I was glad to see it happen, but I also wanted to give him time and space. In my journal, I see that after this point, I started staying at his house. In our conversation, he said that to him it wasn't a big deal if I stayed over because we were hanging out and would be in the morning, so I might as well have stayed the night and saved myself the travel time. Again, it's funny to see how innocent his perspective was.

As the new school year started, things changed. Jess and Wes moved to Pittsburgh for Wes' seminary degree, and honestly, the group dynamic wasn't the same. Everyone fit so perfectly and interacted in very specific ways, and I lost two people who meant a lot to me. They were confidants, and they were "my" couple. I spent a lot of time with them as the three of us, especially because we hit a point where I would sleep at their house when I wanted to crash somewhere. In one of my journals, I shared that their loss in the group made me question where I fit with everyone because it felt like he spent a lot of time with the other couple in the way I spent a lot of time with Jess and Wes as their third wheel.

Our group stayed close with Jess and Wes, and we did a camping trip for the Ren Faire and drove to visit them in Pittsburgh for a weekend. It was just harder for them to be as connected because they lived in another state and were going through a transitional time period in their life.

Even outside of the void of Jess and Wes, I was growing frustrated by the mindset of the group. It was very all-consuming. As the school year went on, we added Thursday night trivia to our rotation of activities, and I felt like there was a group mentality where individuality was lost. I was also feeling like my opinion was not as important as others. During our entire friendship, I was the one putting in the effort and driving to Port Huron and spending all my time in other people's spaces, so I would ask for people to come towards me. It was always a battle, or someone would do it once and feel like my desire to feel important was satiated when it wasn't. At times, it was cliquey, and I tried to maintain relationships with other colleagues outside of the group, and I would feel frustrated when people only wanted to talk and spend time in our cluster. WE ALWAYS SPENT TIME TOGETHER, WE COULD SACRIFICE SOME OF THE TIME TO INTERACT WITH OTHERS!

For the new year, Jay and Andrea threw a Roarin 20s gathering. Andrea had a tradition of writing things on a piece of paper and burning it as a way of leaving something in the previous year. I don't remember everything on my list, but I do remember that I had something about leaving ambiguity in 2019. I couldn't be in an in-between any longer. This was around the time of the almost kiss if I remember correctly. As a result of the almost kiss, I made a promise to myself that I was going to voice my feelings because I could no longer be in a relationship with someone when I wasn't in a relationship with that person.

In March of 2020, as we all know, the world shut down. On that Friday when we knew we were going to be online, we decided to get dinner and have one last evening together. At some point, we did something, and then everyone went to their respective places, and we were going to meet up again. I went to his house and sat on the couch while he did something in another room, which was totally normal for us by this point. While I sat there, I started crying. It had hit its point where I could no longer go forward as things were, so I decided to put my shoes on and leave. I did not say anything. I called Andrea on my drive home to explain that I was going to call it a night, and I said that I had been delusional for too long, and it was time for me to realize that this wasn't actually turning into something. She was very sweet about it and tried to reassure me, and I told her that I wanted her to be honest with me, and she told me that I was right.

A few days went by, and I wrote up a script. I called him, and I explained that I had feelings for him. I forget everything that I wrote and most of the conversation, but his response was that he was good just being my friend, and I told him I would get off the phone with him. I was crying and couldn't continue a conversation like normal after I had put myself out there. Things were clearly not going to be the same after that.

That night, I messaged Jon in some emo way, and he called me to video chat. I tried to get off the phone because I was sobbing, and he was so sweet to me. What he said that night has fundamentally changed me. He told me that I had nothing to be ashamed of by crying. He told me that he knew I saw crying as a weakness, but he reassured me that it wasn't. He told me that he was proud of me for putting myself out there and shared in my misery because he too had made a fool of himself that day.

I refused to see it at the time, but this is when my dynamic with Jon started changing. After that point, he invited me to hang out with him a lot, and I kept up a wall towards him because I never thought he was seriously interested in me. Everyone tried to wake me up, but I was really adamant that we were just friends, and he would never be interested in me.

Anyways, I digress. With Covid and the shutdown, our group decided it was an amazing opportunity for us to do trivia at home. We would rotate the hosts and the format of the game, but we kept trivia alive once a week. I remember one of the weeks, I left the screen to sob. It was so hard pretending like everything was normal for the sake of everyone else while also seeing someone who I had been rejected by.

At some point, before Covid, I had decided that I was going to make a jar of compliments for him, and I bought supplies for the project. I decided that I was going to complete it even with everything that happened, and I dropped it off on his porch with a letter explaining why I wanted to write those things. He wrote me a letter in response. (Me being me, I have the letter and a draft of my response that I sent him.) He acknowledged the jar and how meaningful it was to him. He shared that I was someone he felt comfortable to express himself with, even more than some of his closest friends who had known him longer than me. He said that he anchored himself to that town and that job and those people because of me. He said that he took our friendship so very seriously and was afraid that by not reciprocating the feelings, he was going to lose me, and while he understood that things would change, he still considered me one of his closest people. In the letter, he also sent me a painting of a pineapple in honor of Psych, one of the few recommendations of mine that he had taken and enjoyed. (I still have the painting.)

[Dear reader, reading this letter after six years hits differently. I see the care he had for me and how genuine our friendship was. He was my absolute best friend on this planet, and I loved him wholeheartedly. Even now, I fucking love him and miss him, and I am optimistic that something will put our paths together again, so we can have a more mature and boundaried version of our friendship. He brought me out of my shell in a lighthearted and playful way, and in this letter, he shared how I challenged him to take risks and view things differently. The loss of this friendship has left a hole in my life that no other lost friend has. Do not get me wrong, I miss the whole group and each individual person, but this was MY person. My #1 favorite person on the planet, and in reading this back, I think that feeling was mutual. For the record, there was a day when he did verbalize how much he appreciated me outside of the group dynamic in a way that was different than the others, so I know I am not pulling that out of nothing.]

I decided to write him a response that asked a lot of questions and shared my feelings of what had been happening. We wrote letters back and forth, and we texted, and we were still doing things with our friends. Three conversations and tones for each.

Once the weather started getting nicer, I would meet up with Andrea to go on walks. We would rotate if it was in Richmond or Port Huron. Some of the days, we would get to go orders and park our cars places, and we would invite some others to join us. During a lot of our walks, she and I talked through what was happening between him and me and our multiple facets of conversations. I appreciate her and our friendship, and I appreciate that she accepted me as her friend without making me feel like I was abandoning the group.

In the summer months, he and I got to a place where we talked through EVERYTHING. Andrea had recommended that we talk it to death like they do on Superstore when Amy and Jonah accidentally make a sex tape, so the whole store asks all of the questions until it is no longer funny or interesting for their coworkers. Her suggestions honestly really helped. It cleared the air and made space for clarification of impact vs intent.

He and I got to a good place again. Until I got a call from him one day explaining that he had asked out our mutual friend's sister and had gone on a few dates with her, and he wanted me to know out of respect. That hurt.

Especially when our group continued to hang out together, and she was there. It felt like a slap in the face. Everyone in that group knew what had happened. They knew about my feelings for him. Had known that I was rejected. I felt like a fucking idiot. That everyone was judging me and thinking I was a fucking idiot. (I know that they probably weren't judging me, but I sure as shit was judging myself.)

Looking back through my journals, I see how he and I were working to patch things up and had a lot of healthy and vulnerable conversations. I genuinely believe that if we were two people without a group dynamic, we could have moved forward in a good and healthy way. The outside eyes and feeling like an outsider weighed on me. It was especially hard to feel like I was interchangeable with this other person. She slipped right in and filled my role. I was obsolete.

[Dear reader, I know that I am simplifying this, and they have been in a very long term relationship at this point. However, in my life, there are points where I have felt like I am disposable to people, and this is one of those places where it felt like I wasn't good enough, so I was replaced by someone better. Again, I know this was weird for him to navigate. He was trying to bring his girlfriend around, and she was related to someone in the group, so it makes sense that she had a place in the dynamic, but I was uncomfortable by that because I felt discarded and no longer had the footing in the group like I did before. I know that a lot of this was my perception of the events and no one meant to make me feel disposable.]

As time went on, I would go to gatherings and stare at the clock. I would question how long I should stay or at what point I could leave. I would watch and negotiate with myself because I wasn't there long enough or I felt like I had been there too long. I would wait for people to leave and give me the opportunity to join them. I was miserable.

For some events, I started skipping them, and I explained that it was too hard for me to pretend to be normal and fine after everything that happened. One of those things was a camping trip. I simply refused to join. One of my friends shared how sad he looked when people would tell him that I wasn't coming to activities, but there were times when I did show up, and he would act weird with me. In his defense, I am sure he was trying to balance being normal and giving me space as well as balancing the feelings of his girlfriend and mine. But I was frustrated because it felt like everyone was catering to him and defending him and choosing him over me.

Since I was difficult and saying no to things and removing myself from the situation, I was the one who lost out. I get the logic that if we both are invited and I say no, he gets to keep the friends, but it hurt to feel like I was uncomfortable and everyone knew I didn't want to be around him, yet no one made events that catered to my needs. No one put in the effort for a relationship with me once I was no longer wanting to be with the group. It felt really unfair, and I was really resentful. In our conversation, we addressed this. For him, he couldn't stand being alone. He wanted things to be normal, and for him, it wasn't weird to be around me. I am a more independent person, and I was always more comfortable being alone, so it made sense that I backed off.

At some point, I was having conversations with members of the group about these feelings, and I was told that I was making issues in my head because no one else felt uncomfortable, so I needed to get over it. I was told that I needed to patch things up, and that people were worried about me because "I was hermiting myself away from the group". I was told that "not to be insensitive" but I was fucking up the dynamic by no longer coming around. During one of those conversations, I expressed that I wasn't going to be the same and the group stuff wasn't going to be the same because of everything that had happened. It was a phone call, and I ended up hanging up on her and decided that I was no longer interested in being her friend after that point.

[If you're reading this and you are that person, I know you had good intentions. You were trying to reassure me that no one was judging me the way that I was judging myself. You thought I would cool down and come back, and you wanted things to be normal. You didn't want to make a choice and exclude anyone, and I know you were in a weird position. However, I could not stand to be around everyone and feel as stupid as I felt. I am sure that I was the only person who felt awkward and uncomfortable, but that is enough of a reason to want self-preservation. I needed to lick my wounds and recover from the mortification. It didn't matter that it disrupted the group. It made me feel disposable, like if I didn't fit my role and let things continue as they were, even at my detriment, then I lost my friends. Even prior to this, I had a lot of feelings that I was the one who needed to show up to the group to have friends. I felt like if I didn't drive to everyone and put in the effort, I didn't matter to the other people. You proved me right by telling me to get over it because I needed to think about the group dynamic. The group mattered more than my feelings.]

In January of 2021, I wrote a reflection about how I made a decision to remove myself officially from the group. It was too hard for me, especially when the magic was lost. It was such a beautiful space for so long, and it was now only bringing me misery. As a result, I no longer interacted with the group in the same way. I no longer accepted invitations. I stayed in my corner of the school until I needed to walk by their classrooms, and then I felt stupid and dumb. They continued to be friends and spend time together, and I got to see it as I walked past. I did stay in touch with Andrea and continued my friendship outside of the group.

By this point, I was spending a lot of time with Keiryn and Jon. It was my third year, and they were the people I would eat lunch with and found a safe-haven with. With the Covid shot, there was a day I went to the bar with Jon because I had been so tired of being cooped up at my house. He and I genuinely were becoming friends. Keiryn convinced me to go to Savannah, GA for our spring break, and she opened my world! I am forever grateful for that advice because if I didn't do it then, there isn't a world in which I live in Massachusetts by myself now.

For the rest of the school year, I was really cocooned into myself. Covid had shifted things in me, and as I shared in my previous post, I was mentally exhausted from the many shifts that happened during the school year.

There was a day when I stopped by Andrea and Jay's apartment to drop off quarters (that I had collected for them to use in their laundry machine), and I was told I could stay for dinner, but they had plans with him and were making something specific that I wasn't interested in eating. I hadn't talked with Andrea or seen her, and my mind assumed she had been busy. It was really sad for me to know that she had been making plans with this other person when she wasn't making plans with me.

After months of feeling distant, she and I had made plans, and then we set follow up plans for later that week. She called to cancel our plans and reschedule them to this cottage, where she was going to invite other people to join. Obviously, you can guess who was included in the invitation. Her response was that it was hard to choose between us, so she wanted to give us both the invitation. I explained that her including him was the choice. She knew that I was going to opt out every single time when he was going to be somewhere. She explained that since she had spent more time with the group, it was easier to invite them over me. Then she tried to make things right by limiting their time at the cottage, and again, I was disappointed that he could come after 3, so it meant that I would have to leave at 3, even that was making him the preference in the invite.

I texted him to tell him I wasn't going, so he should enjoy it for the entire day because Andrea told me that my invitation was open and she wasn't going to take it back, even though I made a clear stance I was not joining. I ended up calling Andrea and leaving a voicemail, which my journal says was a goodbye. I explained that I was hurt, and I wished her the best on her next adventure, and I loved her. We texted, and I told her that we had had a beautiful friendship, but it was time for it to end. She told me that I was throwing away our friendship because things got hard and I wasn't putting in the work necessary to maintain it. I was told that it was a pattern where I throw away people and have too high of expectations, so no one can meet them. She said my decision was unnecessary and hurtful. I decided not to respond to her message.

[Dear reader, Andrea very rightfully deleted me from social media and has lost my number. Or at least, I assume. I have tried to make amends with her, and I wrote her a letter to apologize for my actions. She didn't respond, and that is okay. I don't blame her. She was a dear friend of mine, and I loved that we found a rhythm during Covid where we spent time together. She made me feel like I wasn't disposable and helped me process a lot of what happened, and I really regret burning the bridge because I lost someone I loved. At the same time, I don't regret burning the bridge because I was genuinely so disappointed and dejected by everything that happened at the time. Sorry, Andrea. I fucked up.]

In reading my journals where I outline everything that had happened for this time period in my life, as well as our text exchanges, none of my decisions were made lightly. This was a long series of feeling rejected by my friends and feeling like I was the problem for changing the way I showed up. Did I change things? Yes. Do I think it was fair that no one put in the effort with me? No. Choices were made continually, and I was repeatedly told that I was the problem for making things hard for everyone else. It's funny because I see that a lot of people tell me I have a pattern where I throw things and people away, but I don't think I am acting rashly or incorrectly. I was repeatedly hurt by people who I loved. I was tired of feeling hurt and sad by everyone and their actions. I see a lot of parallels from this situation and the fallout from my decision to cut off my mom. In many ways these two things intersect. In reflection, my strength to leave this group and my job gave me the strength to leave my mom.

In the fall, I was having a really hard time. I was very apathetic because of the mental exhaustion of Covid and also feeling alone at my job. By October, I had my breakdown week, where I cried every single day for that week. Jon and I stood in the parking lot on that Friday, where I explained to him that I was struggling as we hugged. He let me cry, and then he asked me if I wanted to hang out with him at his house. By this point, I was appreciative to have one lasting friendship that I took him up on it. We drove in our separate cars, and when we got back to his house, we sat on his couch, and he found something for us to watch. At some point, I continued to cry, and I put my head on his shoulder, and he pulled me onto the couch. He had his arm around me, while I cried on his chest. Eventually, he paused what we were watching and let me elaborate on why I was having a tough week. Then we went back to watching whatever we were watching.

At some point, we both fell asleep or at least were in and out of sleep. He most definitely tried to kiss me, and I rejected him because I was like "there's no way this man actually wants to kiss me. We're just friends!" So I woke up and snuck out of his house around 3 in the morning. He very kindly pretended to stay asleep, but he texted me thirty minutes later (the length of my drive home) to make sure everything was okay.

[Dear reader, hindsight proves that I wasn't reading that situation correctly, but there's clearly a pattern where I have miscommunicated and misunderstood things because things haven't been explicitly stated. I need shit to be clearly spelled out. I don't trust myself to interpret actions! I also think this proves all the people right that there was some form of feelings this man had for me. I mean, a guy can shoot their shot with you and not have it mean anything, but he knew me well enough to know that I am not promiscuous or down for a fling. He's not a dumb man, and he clearly was calculating the situation at the very least.]

Over the course of my last year, I got closer with Jon. At some point, I realized that I liked him. He was adamant that I didn't actually like him, but over time, I really knew my feelings, and I didn't let him dissuade me, so I made him have a face to face conversation with me about it. In the conversation, I told him I needed him to tell me in his words that he liked me, and he asked me why. I looked at him, and I said I needed to hear them because every time I put myself out there, I get told I am crazy and the feelings aren't reciprocated or I misread things, so I needed to hear the words. He huffed and said "yes. (pause) I enjoy spending time with you. (pause) I have fun with you. (pause - a bit longer) I like you (with a hand gesture)." So romantic, I know, but it honestly is his personality because he said it super reluctantly and like he was annoyed. I know Jon has his own post on here, but he and I had a lot of real and genuine conversations about our feelings, and it has helped me to realize that I am capable of having vulnerable conversations with someone. Even if someone is reluctant to having a conversation, if they value and care about you, they will listen to your needs and understand where something is coming from. I never felt incapable of telling him anything because he proved to me that he was someone who didn't judge me.

Since I knew I was quitting my job and planning to leave Michigan, it put the two of us in a weird place. We didn't actually want to pursue anything because he wasn't going to leave and I wasn't going to stay. I was in a really messy headspace, so it was also bad timing for anything to develop. We spent a lot of time together (not in a euphemism sort of way, in a hanging out and watching movies/tv together sort of way). For a long time, we stayed on good terms, and he was able to help me grow and heal from the other situation.

With the first situation, I was SO AFRAID of being vulnerable. I was afraid that saying something out loud would crumble my world, which it obviously did, but I realize that if I had said something sooner and not held my tongue, the whole thing could have come out differently. I could have put boundaries in place where I wasn't feeding an imagined story. I genuinely think that person is a soul connection (twin flame), and we were brought together to expand our worlds and challenge us to change drastically. As a result of our friendship and relationship, I can't fathom ever again holding onto a secret for as long as I did. I can't imagine being afraid of saying my truth because it only harms me and my connections when I am being dishonest and fearful.

When I cut off my mom, it helped me to process the loss of this friend group. I had to hold onto my feelings for a long time when it came to my mom, and once I acknowledged that her behavior wasn't acceptable, it let me accept that I wasn't overreacting or being dramatic by leaving that friend group. My tolerance for shrinking myself and refraining from speaking up was gone. Throughout my life, I allowed myself to scavenge for breadcrumbs, and I allowed myself to be undervalued because I was raised to believe that I wasn't worthy of certain things. Having conditional love trained me to be afraid to ask for too much or think of myself as someone who is worthy of reciprocal and unconditional love. I realize that I was never asking for too much for wanting to feel like I mattered, and it was okay for me to leave a place that didn’t feel healthy for me. My feelings and my comfort are things that are non-negotiables now - I do not need to shrink to protect others! I can take up space! I do not need to cater to the feelings of those around me and play roles that don't suit me, especially when I am abandoning myself to keep the peace.

At the end of the day, I still love and appreciate this group of people way more than the hurt at the end. Enough time has passed to where I no longer feel the pain and rejection I did by everything that transpired. Did I burn bridges and cut people off? Yes. Do I regret leaving the group? No. Do I wish things had ended differently? Obviously. Do I still love and care about these people? Absolutely. Many things are true at once. I see my faults in the situations, but I also think I handled it as best as I could at the time with the skillsets that I had, just like I think the others involved did. Everything that happened occurred as it was supposed to because I have changed drastically as a result of this situation. I am grateful for how all of this has shaped me into this version of who I am now.

I am rooting for every single one of these people. Always and forever. I appreciate the wonderful times we had together. It was very special to me, and I know it was special to them as well.

[Dear reader, I encourage you to ask yourself if you are holding onto something that NEEDS to be said. Please do not hold it in out of avoidance or fear of rejection. You are worthy of love, and you are not asking for too much by getting clarification from someone's action. You are not being a problem by setting boundaries to allow for both people to feel comfortable. Please say what needs to be said. Don't wait until it is too late to recover. It is worth having hard conversations.]