Message in a bottle

To whom it may concern.

This is a letter that will never be sent. I see no way how. Not at this time, anyway. Best to just leave this *out there* and you will come across it if you are meant to and, indeed, you know where to find it if you are supposed to read it. I won't hear mention of my sullying anyone's name. None have been mentioned. If it may sit uncomfortably with you, you can choose not to read it. But I have to get it out. And here is where I choose to. You remain anonymous, unless you respond, and only I can be judged by this letter I am writing out to the unknown cyberspace into which I'm sending it.

What a shame you didn't hold on just one more year to hear me say "I get you more now than I ever could have before." What a shame you didn't have more patience. With me, with yourself.

Things have been striking me like blows out of the dark these past months. I've stood on the brink of full blown depression and something keeps spitting me back out. But it's a cruel half-life to be living, one of immense ingrained sadness (melancholia) littered with days of feeling just so-so. Never completely, wholly joyous. It's come as a nasty shock to me, as I hoped I could just be left alone to enjoy this time with our baby. But life has had other plans.

I'm afraid to just contact you and say "Hey! I remember you saying this, I get what you mean now", because there is the inevitable point-scoring to be had by you. There always was. If it wasn't "Just wait until...", it was "I told you so" and I don't want to hear that. Who does?

I wish nothing even had to be said. I dream of a life with you where we just look at each other and we know. We just shake our heads and one says "It's just..." and the other says "I know". And we both know that we both know. But that won't happen. It never could have. Before, my struggle to conceive, which clouded my empathy, prevented it. Now, your lack of natural empathy does. Some people have this. Some people don't. Some people's hearts bleed so much for others it's hard to stem the flow. Others have hearts that are boundless but they don't give out wisely, yet they probably always feel like they are giving and they feel spent and wonder why, why did they not see how much I was doing for them.... I'm sorry if I never saw you were giving so much of yourself to me. I suppose what you gave wasn't what I required. I know I felt like what I gave you wasn't enough, but unless you were lying, you would always tell me how much I meant to you and that I was your "rock". It seems sometimes some people give a little of themselves and it's like receiving a flood, whereas others feel like they are giving an ocean's worth and it's only a drop at the receiving end. Is that a fault of the giver or the receiver? My answer to that would be "Neither". It's simply a case of poor pairing of energy exchange. One person's trash is another person's treasure - and maybe one person's drop in the ocean is another person's Atlantic.

I feel I protected you and those close to you from yourself and some of those now-recognisable harmful ways as much as I could. I'm coming at it from a new perspective now. Not one of "Why don't you just clam up and be thankful you even HAVE children", but of truly understanding what it is like to live the dream day upon day upon day. And herein is my latest challenge, which I know you would (at best) only attempt to understand for a brief moment but never really experience; that of the mother still aching from loss, wanting to make good this opportunity she's been handed to mother again - hating herself for not being happy (as if she's never satisfied, even now that her primitive instinct has been fulfilled, fretting that something in her is still preventing the joy and she's allowing it to be so), still not buying clothes too far outside of her baby's current size for fear of them not being required, beating herself up for not being "happier" but caught between worlds that leave her wishing she could just settle in and be joyous.

It should be noted that none of this is admission that I would do or say the same as you. We are different people and I express and give of myself far differently to you. It's what makes the world interesting, that difference. No, I am merely saying I understand where you have been coming from when I have witnessed what I have when it comes to you. And I am sorry if you ever felt judged. It was never my intention to appear to be judging you. I was more trying to understand (albeit defunctly) why you would do and say certain things, squirrelling away Notes To Self at the same time that I must remember never to "do this" or "say that". But it's far easier to stand on the outside and look, no? Now I am where you have been before me and I can say, it's bloody hard not to do the same as I've seen you do! And why we shall forever stand apart, because you can't possibly, conversely, experience what I have and put yourself in my shoes, step around in them and feel what it's like to walk around each day amongst people who appear to you to be squandering their "luck" at conceiving easily and having healthy, living children.

You once claimed I was "like this" (I assume that means rotten, evil, no good, mean, never nice to you?) even before Ella. Well, yes, our conception and miscarriage issues have been going on for years as you well know. Before that, I was a young adult learning my way in the world and figuring out who I was. As were you before me. Funny that all those past errors in you were always overlooked by me and absorbed into our relationship, yet mine were dragged out years after the fact to be used by you to (once again) point-score. It's sad. You'll never see. Never ever see what you are like, because you admit no fault. I admit too much fault! See? We're incompatible. Please don't think you have all bases covered where I am concerned and your knowledge of who I am and what I stand for. You don't.

There is still work to be done. I'm doing it. I'm walking it. I get it now. I get you more now. How utterly sad then, that you may never know. Sadder still that your pride will probably prevent you, even if you do find this and read it, from just allowing me to be who I am with this new experience - I sometimes wonder what it would be like to still have you in my life (as you have long since removed yourself from it) and think that by now, I would be caught in a web of deceit again, not allowing myself to be honest around you and tell you that your words sting and smart like cold sharp slaps across my face. But no, I was never allowed to tell you that - you labelled me "too sensitive" a long time ago, justifying yourself against my feeble protests and continuing on with your assaults unchecked. Your whole character goes unchecked, by everyone around you. People give knowing glances - I've seen them, not instigated them - and I am still told to forgive as you know not the damage that you do (to yourself, mainly). It's a stark contrast to the proclamations you have made of yourself that you are "nice".

Nice is not about setting yourself up in someone's life so they can be your punching bag, simply because they never disagree with you - perhaps to disagree was to receive more pain than they wanted to cope with so they simply let you go on. That is a fault of mine, I know. But your inability to accept the person you are, and not just the "nice" side of yourself (and you are nice, sure, I don't disagree), is what prevents us from being friends. It probably always did prevent it. You never really knew all of me. You assumed much of me, that's all. I was always too afraid to let you all the way in, you messed about enough with the parts of myself I did let you in on and only a fool will open their hearts all the way to someone they don't trust with it.

I just want to be with kindred people. And that's why I can't be with you at this time. It's not that I'm not allowing it. I think the universe (or a collective something/someone in it) is protecting me from you. If the doorway ever opens, it is because the time is right for me to move forward with this ongoing lesson you are presenting me with. I can only trust you are learning too so we can cross paths somewhere down the track and say "Yeah, I remember you. So... who are you now?"