To the One I Loved Who Never Loved Me

To the One I Loved Who Never Loved Me:

I sincerely hope this finds you well. I’m sure you’re not reading my blog, so if this apology does find you it must be the most popular thing I’ve ever written. Yes, you read that right. I’m writing to apologize, of course, in a way only I could. You don’t need this apology, but I do, and they say I won’t be well until I say I’m sorry to the people I wronged as a result of my drinking. I knew if I called you the tone and rhythm would be all wrong, so I hope you still appreciate me being a stickler for words being in their proper order and providing an appropriate rhythm. You deserve a letter. You have always been a most inspiring muse, even in my dreams.

I am truly sorry if you ever felt I used alcohol to make you do things you didn’t want to do. That was never my intention. I’m just an alcoholic, and alcohol was the fuel that made me interesting to myself, and most anyone else from what I’m told. I brought booze to drink because I was a drunk, not because I thought it would loosen your pants. I was desperate to get into your heart, and each time your pants and I ended up on the floor, it became less and less momentous. Although, enough cocaine can make a pantsless night in the Painted Canyon momentous. 

I’m sorry if I ever scared or hurt you as a result of my drinking. I know my temper can be frightening, especially when I’m drunk, and given how much you challenged me, I’m sure I scared you. I scare myself sometimes, but we all inherit unwanted traits and learn bad habits.

I’m not sorry for arguing with you. It was one of my greatest pleasures. I knew well before we kissed that I loved you. You were willing to argue with me about politics after I asked you out for drinks the very moment I saw you. Despite the naivety of your argument, your spirit and total lack of fear—fear of being wrong, ridiculed, or relegated—made you more beautiful to me than the way you tried to advertise that spirit and fearlessness with a short haircut and high heels. I don’t even remember any of my female professors wearing high heels on campus. But you had recently freed yourself from a long-term relationship, rejecting a marriage proposal no less, so that spirit of yours was so saturating it lifted my ass right out of its seat, carried me to you, and made me do something I would have never done, even with three drinks in me. But I got you laughing, and your smile made me smile, so when you went home from the bar with my classmate who was clearly incapable of connecting with you intellectually, I hung around for the more fulfilling fruit.

You kept seeing him; you kept seeing me. You kept fucking him; you kept fucking around with me. We were best friends, which is terrible for me, the one in love with the one who never loved me. We had all the fun the other guy’s uninteresting ass couldn’t manifest except in the minutes his empty head was bailed out by his hammerhead. I’m convinced I got the better time with you the entire time you two were dating. I know this because I’m writing an apology to a woman I allowed to torture me for half a decade or more. He never could or cared to comprehend you. Crazy is what he called you. I agreed, but because you’re my kind of crazy. If you ain’t crazy, you ain’t too damn interesting, and we were the most interesting people either of us knew. Remember?

But things can be both interesting and awful…the Holocaust, for instance. Loving you was my Auschwitz. There was no escape, no torture could change who I was, and there was no convincing my captor, me, to release me. How bad was it? You took me out to our bar after I almost lost my leg in a motorcycle accident. I professed my love for you, much too loudly, again, I apologize. We played pool, you got hives from the beer, took Benadryl, and attracted the attention of some deuche. Then you had the audacity to allow this stranger to drive us to his house for beers and to watch his stupid dog do stupid tricks before taking us home. That stupid dog somehow impressed your drunk ass enough to leave me, your friend of five years, weeping onto my bloody, bandaged leg on a porch swing while you foreplayed your way into forgetting or ignoring my physical state, not caring much for my mental state.

I had a nervous breakdown on a porch swing of a stranger set on fucking the one I loved who never loved me. But I figured out what I’d do with my future, including what I’d do for a living, wiped my eyes, and limped well over a mile on a leg I nearly lost to the home of a true friend. I must have been a true friend of yours, too. You abandoning me for a strange dick while I was disabled didn’t stop me from helping you the moment you needed it.

I was never who you wanted, but I was exactly who you needed so damn often. I hope someday you find someone you need but might not want and give them the chance you never gave me. You depended on me, and I was always there. You were there for me once, too. I’m sorry. I haven’t forgotten this is an apology. I’m sorry I called you codependent the last time we talked. It was absolutely inappropriate and perhaps inaccurate given how long it had been since we spoke. I don’t have much evidence of people changing, but if you have changed, good for you. Now I’ve got to try.

Oh, and that motorcycle accident that nearly took my leg happened because I was overjoyed. Witnesses will confirm that I was sitting upright for a few seconds just before coming out of the Bozeman Pass and into the gusty crosswind. I was doing two things: 1) stretching, and 2) screaming with joy. Unfortunately, the stretching and joyous screaming resulted in my backpack shifting to the left side of my back and started falling further off my back and down my left side. My backpack already had shifted weight to the left side of the bike, which makes it turn slightly left, so when the wind caught me I was already on the left side of the passing lane. Then I passed a semi-truck and was hit with a strong gust of wind blowing me and my light, little crotch rocket towards the cement barrier separating oncoming, freeway traffic. I thought I had recovered without hitting it until I saw a six-by-eight-inch section of skin on my thigh flapping in the wind. Thanks to Obamacare, I was insured.

But why was I screaming with joy? I told myself it was because I had my life figured out. I knew where I was going, what I was doing, and when I was doing it. But that wasn’t it at all. I was joyous because I was almost home, where my heart was…with you.