Open Letter

Dear,

Thank you.

Now that the dust has settled I’ve been able to start looking at all this from a wider perspective and I completely agree with what you said about not making a big deal out of this situation.

I’m an emotional person and need to learn to not get overwhelmed and place so much importance onto subjective aspects of my life. It’s all part of a learning process and, especially at this age, I'm nowhere near a finished product. That suggests that there is a completion point but there isn’t because we never stop growing. I wouldn’t say it’s a question of im

maturity, childishness or pettiness because everyone reaches that point at a different time. Those words are loaded with negative connotations that honestly make me feel more ashamed and embarrassed for losing my way; but I don't need to.

Until you’re in the middle of that mental storm and fighting to not drown in your emotions you don’t truly know how you’ll deal with that situation. I needed to experience that in order to learn more about myself. I can’t control how I feel but I can certainly control how I choose to react to it.

I was too concerned with trying to be the person that I thought you thought I am. This view is backwards because how am I suppose to keep up this character all the time when in fact it's easier to be myself? And if that's not enough for someone then that's okay because it will be for someone else.

I really value our friendship and what we have. I guess I was scared of losing it which is probably why I overcompensated. But what you said last night reminded me that regardless of what happens, it’s all going to be just fine. There’s no need to fret about how things will turn out and just let it happen; like you said, if things are going well then just enjoy the moment. My panic came from my perceived lack of control. When I don’t feel like I’m in control I begin to worry and question who I am. Looking back, I already knew all of this but when I was blinded by irrational thought.

One of my friends explained it in an interesting way; they called it the Snow Globe Effect. When something emotionally sets you off it's as if you're in the middle of a snow globe. In the moment you can't see the clearer picture because everything around you is chaos. Until everything settles again you're overwhelmed, you panic, you can't think straight, you don't know when it's going to end. This can last for hours or even days and the longer it goes on the more blinded you become by it all because you've forgotten what the clearer picture was.

During this the insecure voice in my head was shrieking at me telling me all the reasons I wasn't good enough. At the same time it was trying to find anything to blame except for itself and questioning everything; begging, pleading for some sort of control or certainty.

If she means that she wants to keep things open it means that she’s leaving the door open for something better to come along? How would putting a label onto it prevent that from happening? By putting a label on something you’re just buying yourself time and prolonging inevitable hurt. What would a label give me that I wasn't already getting? A label or sense of certainty was the security my self-esteem needed because it was easier than teaching myself to let go.

Being able to let go is probably one of the most difficult things I've had to learn to do. When it's not going well I find myself relapsing into the comfort zone of depending on external validation. When I catch myself doing that I get frustrated with myself for doing it which leads to being annoyed that I'm not self-assured enough, so I search for short-term external validation and the cycle begins again.

I need to be kinder to myself.

I do need to spend some more time to reflect and focus on myself; and this is not something that’s going to happen overnight. Like I said, I was working on that this year but clearly got very side-tracked over the last few weeks. I know I’ll look back at this and appreciate that I took this route because next time I find myself in that situation I’ll be more prepared. Having the open invitation to speak to you about how I feel is a massive weight off my mind which I'm going to take you up on (when I stop worrying about what you think of me after that).

So this is really my way of saying thank you for pulling me out of the troubled waters even though I'd convinced myself that you pushed me in.

Best,

Thomas

#PVS