Dear... Short Term Friend, Long Term Memory
Last November was the anniversary since we last spoke, although the length of time isn’t relevant, the anniversary still provides me with a mixed bag of emotions every time it comes around. It’s fair to say, the last time we spoke didn’t exactly end on good terms…
…but that was no fault of yours.
Every time the date hits, it fills me with a lot of regret and, quite simply, sadness, but just because the ending wasn’t a happy one, doesn’t mean the story was entirely bad. I remember when we first met on the second night of fresher’s week, I was never good at holding my alcohol but I drank a bit more than I should to mask my anxiety. As we walked a long distance to the club in a large group that probably wouldn’t have been able to fit in a double decker bus, I eloquently announced “I need to go for a piss”. Although there was a local pub, the barman wouldn’t let me use the toilet unless I bought an overpriced pint, so to avoid this hardship you gathered your friends around me to create a human barricade to save me from potentially getting arrested for urinating in a flower bed. Quite frankly, if they are not the credentials of you qualifying as a gentleman, I’m not sure what is to be honest… but after that you often took time to speak to me if you ever saw me passing by on the street and although we were friendly, it wasn’t until the summer when we really became friends.
After agreeing to help me with my fitness, we spent our summer doing intense 4am training sessions and running around on historical buildings. At Uni you had a reputation for being “a jack the lad”, but after getting to know you, it came apparent that you were incredibly kind, compassionate and unique. There are many situations that demonstrate this such as the time we got stopped by the police because they thought you were carrying weed (when in reality it was a plant pot full of sage), or the time you successfully retrieved my bike barefoot after it was stolen by a “gypsy”. But the moment that really sticks out is the time you nursed a dying pigeon in your hoody which was a really lovely moment, however this was soon interrupted by a drunk girl dressed as a cat calling us “pussies” (bit ironic).
It became apparent you were a very rare person and you supported me with a lot of issues, I remember one day after having a nervous breakdown you gave me a massive hug. I am not someone who really likes physical contact and I am not someone who is very good at making friends, and although it sounds cringy or cheesy or whatever you want call it, I don’t know, it was one of the few times where I felt cared for. After that moment, that is when things went downhill. Although I have always had some type of mental health issue such as anxiety or depression, that’s when things progressed, I became deluded and I started having the same amount of personalities as I did have clothes, I started hearing voices, I wasn’t really sure what was happening, I became a bit of a parody of myself, incredibly paranoid, incredibly distant, but the aspect that really pains me are the things I said, the shit I came out with. To be honest, I don’t have the strength to put what I said on paper, I am too ashamed, too cowardly and in some respects I can’t remember a lot of it (whether that is due to the illness itself or due to it being blocked out by mind, I’m not really sure). Yes, I was ill, yes, I was delusional but that is still no excuse. A few weeks after I was discharged from Hospital, you confronted me about the situation. I said it was a lie, that everything I said was a lie, it just seemed simple to say that; I didn’t know what the hell I was going through, and that seemed like a plausible reason. I thought it was happening, but it was still technically a lie. You said I did a bad thing but I wasn’t a bad person. We didn’t speak after that. I dropped out of uni, got a diagnosis of a severe mental illness, went on a strong dose of anti-psychotics and had intense therapy whilst going in and out of hospital.
I am sorry this part of the letter isn’t written very well, truth is I don’t how to write this bit but after taking many years to get myself back on track, I have done a lot of thinking and I have come to a conclusion. I’m not sad because I lost you, I am sad because I put you through that. You deserved a lot better than that… you deserved a lot better than me and for that I am sorry. I did get diagnosed with an illness, but it was MY illness and I should have taken more responsibility for my actions. I know at that time you were going through your own personal problems and I am crushed that I wasn’t able to support you, that I was so wrapped up in my own mental situation that I wasn’t able to mirror the friendship that you gave me… and to be quite frank, sorry really isn’t good enough.
At the beginning of the letter, I mentioned the length of time we haven’t spoken is irrelevant because the truth is I felt the same amount of pain this anniversary as I did the first year’s anniversary of when we cut contact. Although our friendship only lasted for over a year, you became such an important part of my life. Through this situation, I lost a lot of friends, but with you, I felt like I lost more. One of the last things you said to me was, “You have eyes on the front of your head for a reason,” and I have tried to put this into practice. There are times when I have been tempted to contact you and tell you these things; maybe the reason I haven’t is due to being ashamed, embarrassed, cowardly, whatever you want to call it, but maybe the reason I didn’t contact you is because you deserve to be an amazing person and quite frankly, I think I was weighing you down. Some people are not meant to be in your life forever but that doesn’t mean they don’t contribute to the person we are meant to be (I think I may have got that from Bo Jack Horseman) and although we probably won’t ever speak again, you gave me so much wisdom and a determination to make myself a better person.
Rather than end this letter with an apology, I want to say thank you… thank you for the memories and thank you for the wisdom. Wherever you are in the world, whatever you are doing and whoever you are with, I really hope you are happy.
Goodbye mate.