Immature

(this song is ironically fitting.  here's the letter--)

Hey,

So, I know this is going to come to you at a time when it's probably not going to be the best for you to deal with it or process it at all.  I'm also sorry if this wakes you up in the middle of the night because your cell rings, but I've had a lot going on in my head and I feel the need to just clear it all out and tell you everything.  This is going to be very, very long.

Firstly, I want to apologize for my incredibly melodramatic text I sent you earlier today.  I was hyper emotional, as I've been a lot lately, and when that happens, I tend to think I'm a burden to others.  You've been the one person I've talked to the most through the last several months and so it was directed towards you.  I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have done it and it probably annoyed the ever living shit out of you.  I know if I got a text like that, it would probably make me grumpy or, at the very least, roll my eyes.

I'm going to start with the simple fact that in the last few months you've, quite honestly, become one of my best friends.  We've talked about a whole lot of stuff that I simply don't share with everyone.  I feel comfortable talking to you in a way I've never, ever experienced in my entire life.  I just had this instant trust in you for some reason.  It's probably my naivete showing, but I can't deny the fact that I felt something -- even if it was the beginnings of an amazing friendship.

I feel stupid typing this out, even right now, because I feel like you probably have already sensed this.  I do rely on you a lot more than I'd like to admit.  Even if it's just being a sounding board for the fact that my life, at this very moment, is a complete cluster of shit that I don't even know how to manage.  I've been thinking a lot about what it is I want to do with myself, where I want to be, and how I can make it work.  It just so happens that New Orleans fell into my lap, but I've been thinking about this since I got out of school.

On a deep level, you have a lot of what I want my life to be.  You're successful (even if you downplay it); you're secure; you've been able to move so far from home, but still maintain a closeness to the important people from back home.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't seeking that for myself.  I think that's a lot of what's going on my head.  I want so much to have so much of what you have, even if you don't see it as good as I do in my own head.  Quite honestly, I'm afraid I won't be as successful as you've been so far, and will continue to be.

You've been a real support to me.  You've listened to me go on and on about so much that I can't help but feel like I've poured myself out to you.  But, there's a reciprocity there that I can't deny, either.  I do also know a lot about you and your life.  We have a mutual trust on some level and I appreciate that about what we have.

I would be a liar if I didn't say that I am still very much into you.  I had been able, up until very recently, to honeymoon the two of us in my head.  Making every little thing into a sign of something more than, I think, it was.

The rational part of my mind told me that I was making more of what was, but the emotional part of me really did want something more to be there.  I wanted you to like me as much as I like you, as high school as that sounds.  But, I have also been afraid to tell you anything because I didn't want the friendship we have to change or be threatened and because I didn't want this thing I'd built up in my head to be broken in some way.

I know I'm foolish and naive and young and stupid.  I know that I'm probably coming off as some crazy stalker-type person and I wouldn't blame you if you're thinking I'm insane.  I probably deserve it, all things considered.

I knew when I went to visit you after my Louisiana vacation that I'd have a real test to see if what was going on in my head matched what was going on.

Since I'm being uncharacteristically vulnerable right now, I'm going to continue to press on and tell you that I was disappointed.

I wasn't disappointed in you.  I still do like you a great deal in a platonic sense.  I think you're a great person and an even better friend.  I was disappointed because, as much as my emotional self tried to do it, I came out on the other side of our time together confused and more vulnerable than I thought possible.

I had wanted to talk to you about what it was you thought was going on as far as our friendship, but I didn't.  It was cowardly of me because, honestly, I think it would have put me in a much better place now than I'm in, especially considering everything else in my life that's now up in the air or in flux.  Though I knew, deep down, that the answers I was seeking were not the answers I was going to get.  I knew that when you picked me up from the airport.

We had done nothing more than cuddle in bed before, during and after sleeping the entire time I was there.  The romantic part of me says it's because we were not wanting to cross each other's boundaries and go too far.  The logical part of me says it's because I had initiated it the first night.  The cynical part of me says that it's because I was there and a warm body.  The paranoid part of me says it's because you felt some sort of obligation to (as irrational as that sounds).

As much as I would have liked things to have progressed farther, I completely accept that they didn't.  When I first left, I chalked it up to both of us not wanting to cross any lines with each other the other was uncomfortable with.  As things settled back into life as somewhat usual and you had gone to training, I realized something very important: I have been taking this way more seriously than you probably have.

Since I've been down to see you, I've not gotten any texts back and I've called you once and IMd you once.  You've honestly seemed either distracted or disinterested.  It's like going there actually put me lower on your priority list than I was before.  We've been communicating in the same ways for so long that it's become part of my routine to do these things, and it's been distressing to me to not hear from you.

The rational part of me says that you've been gone for a week from work and you need to catch up and get back into the loop with the projects you've got going on.  They're constantly going and you need to get back in the game and contributing again. I understand how important work is to you.  You are always on your phone checking e-mail and doing other messages.  It takes up a really substantial amount of your time, and I'm understanding and accepting of that.

I have a hard time reconciling it because before I was down, we were communicating in some way almost every day.  Whether I called you, you called me, we texted or IMd, we were always talking to each other somehow.  And now that's dropped off to nothing and I'm just really confused.

I don't know what's happened or is happening to make this change exist, and my paranoia takes over.  I don't know if it's something I did, something I didn't do, or something completely unrelated to me.  I know I'm not the center of your universe, but I've had friendships in my past just up and end and I still have no idea why it happened.  It plays directly into an insecurity I have about myself -- that I'm really not the person I think I am and that the person I really am is someone who is better off with no friends at all.

I completely acknowledge that none of this is your fault and that some of this is probably coming as a complete surprise.  I also acknowledge that this may drive you further to not talk to me again.  In writing this, I have to accept that this is a huge risk -- and with huge risk comes huge benefit or huge defecit.  I'm hoping that this will help me move into a better place in my head because I need to put this to rest in my mind.

I may have mischaracterized what you've been doing and what's been going on in your life.  I will admit that I probably don't know everything that's going on and that working off of what I know is really dangerous.  Taking a little information from a broad spectrum is not a good plan, and never has been.  In trying to make myself feel better, I've been trying to rationalize myself into a hole that I can then cover in dirt and move on from.  I've not been able to do it and it's been making it worse for me.

I should end this with some apologies because I feel like I'm an idiot, here.  I want to apologize for just letting all of this build up on you.  I apologize for dumping all of this on you at once.  I apologize if I've completely just pushed myself way the hell out of your life.  I apologize if I've gotten everything wrong.

I don't expect you to respond to this.  Honestly, I don't even know what I expect to come of this e-mail at all.  I just felt that if I just put it all out there in a way I was comfortable expressing it, I could get myself to a better place.

I don't want to lose your friendship; it's really what matters to me right now as I've come to really rely on your support.  More than I've ever really to anyone.

I feel really stupid and bashful and, really, ashamed right now.  But, I feel honesty, even in the face of integrity, is more important than anything else.

Best,
James