In the past

I had a relationship with this psychopathic boy (literally, he had problems) that didn’t last for very long but will probably be one time in my life that I truly regret that it happened for many reasons because of the things that I did/didn’t do while we were together.

We eventually stopped talking and I pushed him out of my memory. I still have pictures with him but I don’t have any feelings, positive or negative, when I look at them. They are just photos now.

One of the reasons we stopped talking was because toward the end, things got very volatile. He would be abusive in the way he would talk to me and accuse me of things that I never did. He would threaten to kill himself and would threaten to break up with me on a daily basis. Then he would turn around and apologize profusely telling me he loved me and that he wanted to marry me.

I cut it off and didn’t talk to him for months, I even got my dad to block his number and made the effort to block his different email addresses and screen names because he would come up with new ones every day. But one day after all those months he contacted me and said he bought me a ring and wanted to be with me. I told him off and made it clear that I didn’t want anything to do with him. I think he got the hint at that point.

So, you would think that maybe after almost 10 years I’d be safe from hearing from him again, right?

Like an idiot, a few days ago I had clicked on my Facebook privacy settings and made my profile searchable by mistake and I CAN’T CHANGE IT BACK. Well, this morning, he comes back from the dead an sends me a message.

My first reaction when I saw that he sent me something was “Oh HELL no” and lots of eye rolling and giggling. His message was pretty harmless, but seriously. Why would he even assume that I’d want anything to do with him? I hold no grudges at this point because what’s done was done. But why?

I don’t want to catch up with him. In case he’s still a psychopath I’m not going to voluntarily tell him where I stay (although he could easily search me on google since I take up the whole first page and find out what city I live in).

I ended up writing this but I feel that I was a bit mean.

hey g,

i hope you realize that the way we ended our friendship/relationship and the last few times we communicated with each other so many years ago effectively confirmed the fact that i wouldn’t want any contact with you again.

if things have changed, that’s great, i’m happy for you. but i really have no interest in keeping in touch. if i did, i would have tried to find you a long time ago.

sorry to be so blunt, but i rather let you know than ignore your message and keep you wondering.

be well.

I don’t know what his motives are. Maybe he really does want to catch up. But why should I even entertain that? I would rather just let him know I have absolutely no interest instead of lead him to believe that we could be friends or even acquaintances. And if I ignored his message that would leave me open to receiving another communication from him in the future.

He was so abusive in the past that I really don’t think he could have changed without professional help or medication and that he is just as toxic as he was so long ago. He should have thought about that or realized that I shouldn’t be sought out. He can’t just ignore how fucked up he was before and think that time will wash that away. Well, it has taken away the feeling of resentment and anger I had (and at one point, fear for my physical safety), but that doesn’t mean I have forgotten what he had done and was capable of.

Just stay in the past, man. Stay in the past. Let’s just hope he doesn’t reply with something weird.

Goodbye

A letter to my roommate, who was my “friend” for nearly 10 years. After months of staying with my boyfriend and I with no intentions of improving his situation, he and my boyfriend got into a heated argument. Needless to say, he needs to leave. This is what I’m giving him.

So, it’s taken me a while to get to this, but I think it’s time. Things got a bit tumultuous and I needed some time to really think about what’s been going on these past few months. If my timeline is off, I apologize, but you know what I’m getting at.

(I am not going to bring up your situations with L, J, A, C, C2 or your family because I only know your side of the story and my observations and can’t make much of a judgement on them. You know your right and wrong-doings in those situations and I’ll leave it at that. If I bring them up, it’s only as a reference to a certain point in time.)

You told us the night of the argument that we are the ones that told you to come up here when you said you weren’t ready. Well, we only told you to do so because you kept on expressing how you wanted to be here. Having gone through wanting that ourselves and doing everything possible to get here and survive, we expected you to do the same. You were never forced to come here. In the end the decision is yours and yours alone, as it is with every situation you encounter, and you know exactly what you are capable of accomplishing, so to try and place that on us is just wrong.

To my knowledge, before you moved, you and X had come up with an agreement together that you would work and help us with design tasks in order to ease the burden of having to pay rent and utilities even when we found that rent was being raised $250 from the $1500 we were already paying.

Now you say you didn’t want to do it and that you didn’t enjoy it? Well, it’s not a matter of enjoyment, it’s a matter of following through with an agreement. Who cares if you weren’t good at it, the whole point was for you to learn while waiting for us to have enough work to give you so you could improve and be ready for when we did so you could get paid instead of paying rent. What did you do other than kind-of read a “For Dummies” book and mock it? You hung out. Every day. I never saw you practice with the tutorial sites X gave you the links to and when you finally started working for us you would begin tracing at a time when you had little to no sleep and couldn’t fully comprehend what we were trying to teach you.

That is irresponsible and disrespectful. If we had trusted you with actual client work we would have been screwed.

When X called you out in an email while hanging out with J on not following through and told you not to bring people over because of the distractions that would create, you said it was a wake-up call. Apparently not, because you never completed the tracing that was given to you and you still prioritized hanging out with people over completing a job that was given to you.

Instead of telling your friends that you need to look for a job and that you cannot hang out 24/7, you pushed your plans for employment and stability to hang out. 

Even if the past month or two have been rough for you emotionally, that does not excuse the fact that your first three months here, you hadn’t done anything toward getting stable. If we were taking too long to give you something to work on, you should have gotten up and looked for employment. Never wait on people to do things for you to get moving. If you want something, you have to work for it yourself.

As someone that has known you (in an online sense, I had no idea what you are like as a person, and same goes for you not really knowing me) for nearly 10 years I feel really hurt that you would take advantage of our generosity the way you did. I know X values his privacy, much more than I do, and to ask him to accept you into our home and have it blow up in our faces makes me feel terrible. It’s a big deal and I don’t think you realize how your actions reflect on me to X. I vouched for you and convinced him that it would be cool for you to stay with us and that it would be great to help someone out that really wants to be in this city. I asked him to compromise his comfort, and my comfort, in order to lend you a helping hand.

You’ve been on unemployment for nearly a year—if you’re not there already—and you haven’t made a serious effort to get off it. The only time you kind-of made a move was late November/early December when it got temporarily cut off, when all your shit started to hit the fan. We warned you not to get comfortable yet you decided to do what you wanted. Even the last time you extended your unemployment, X and I specifically told you that you would be tempted to take it easy. You insisted you wouldn’t, but you did.

It doesn’t matter that J, C and your family came here in quick succession or that you got sick in between. If you have a job, especially here, nobody cares that you’re sick. Would an employer have been sympathetic to your physical state? No. You either suck it up, take two days and really work towards getting better instead of staying up all night and not letting your body rest, or you just get fired. No matter what you do, there are a million other people hungrier than you that will snatch up what you lost out on.

Everything we did for you, advised you to do, was for your own good. I don’t want to sound like a parent or be preachy, I don’t like it when it’s done to me, but it’s true. We looked out for you because we didn’t want you to go through what we did our first year here. We looked past everything that would get on our nerves because we expected that sooner or later you would wake up and realize that you need to conform to a normal schedule and get a job. We also knew that it wouldn’t be easy for us to live with another person in the mix but we did it as long as we could handle. We could have been on your back more but held off because we wanted you to realize on your own that you need to put yourself in motion.

When X finally told you not to worry about the tracings, he did so because you expressed that you wanted to work on your own projects, but that working on tracing his illustrations would get in the way. (Amazing that you finally got the inspiration to work on those things as soon as you are given work from us.) He took your word and let you go so you would be free to work on your music, but you didn’t and those tracks are still unfinished.

You completely took advantage of the unemployment system when there are thousands and thousands of people that are genuinely looking for a job with nothing to fall back on and, whether it was intentional or not, you completely took advantage of us. I hope you realize that.

Every time we tried to point out a shortcoming of yours or your inaction, you would find a way to refute, deflect or excuse your way out of it. A very simple example would be that iced tea lemonade. You went out of your way to buy the lemons but those things stayed in the fridge forever when you found out that the recipe called for more than just boiling water for tea and squeezing lemons. Every time I’d bring that up you’d laugh and shrug your way out of it and say it was complicated. And, in case you forgot, you still have lemons in the fridge.

Food that you bought ages ago is still in the cupboard and fridge and going bad because you would rather waste more of your money on buying stuff that’s already made instead of heating up a pan and cook something fresh and delicious on your own. I know you say you have your whims when you want something and then you’re over it, but in reality all you’re showing is that you’re fickle and cannot make a decision and stick by it.

You were able to stay here rent-free, with us paying an extra $250 from whatever money we get from freelancing meaning we had to work harder than before. $250 might not seem like a lot, but when we have to pull $1500 for rent out of thin air every month by chasing down clients for work and money owed to us, an added $250 is a fortune. I’m not even mentioning how much we have to pay in bills. This is why we don’t have people over, go out to eat or hang out with friends often because we cannot afford to use our time so frivolously. We literally lose time and money.

As for things like cleaning and cooking, we stopped asking you for help because you’d be too distracted by whatever your phone had to offer, be it texts from friends or random links and videos. You couldn’t put your phone down for more than 10 minutes in order to do a proper job with anything that we requested your help on which is very frustrating and disrespectful as well. A chore that should have taken you 5 minutes took you 20 because you couldn’t put that thing down.

You are the architect of your own success or demise and looking at your actions so far, you are not on the road to success.

While I don’t agree with how all these issues got brought up or the screaming match that followed, I do agree with nearly everything X told you. I didn’t say anything that night because it’s pointless to butt in when he’s angry.

I don’t know where you’ve been staying this past week or if you’ve been looking for work or have somehow found a job, but X told me that you said you’d be out by the end of the week. I’d like you to follow through with that, at least, and to please leave your keys the next time you come here because we are both in and out of the house now with client appointments and jobs. We are saving up for equipment and a new place so we’re taking on more work that requires us to leave the house and work on-location. 

To address the email you had written to X…he never read it and I doubt he ever will. I did, but there’s nothing in there that changes how I feel. You brought up things from your past, and while they are truly unfortunate (and shocking since I never knew about the cancer), they are still completely irrelevant to your current situation.

There’s no point in replying, refuting or even apologizing for anything at this point because the damage has already been done. With you, I truly appreciate the quote “actions speak louder than words.” I have been severely hurt and disappointed by your actions/inaction because I really did feel that you were a good friend to have. At this point I am apathetic to anything you have to say and just want your things out of the apartment as quickly as possible because I don’t feel comfortable with you here, especially if X is home at the same time because his mood changes when you are around. I doubt I will speak to you again unless I somehow find that you’ve made some serious life changes and take on responsibilities and handle things like an adult.

I wish you all the best in your life and that you can make it on your own here. You’re here now, please make the most of it. It’s an amazing place, but it is also brutal if you are nonchalant about it, which you have been. Winter is barely kicking in, so if you think it’s tough now, just wait and see what’s in store. If you have friends that are helping you now, please do not take advantage of their kindness the way you did with us.

Good luck.

So you lost your virginity, huh?

There’s no way to go around it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot (not perverted thoughts about people losing their virginity but how people, particularly people that grew up in similar situations as me, have done it or if they have at all.) So, I’d like to explore the subject.

How did it happen? Was it a conscious decision? Did your conscious kill you after? Were you happy? Did it change your life? Did your parents find out? 

If you haven’t had sex, why not? Religious purposes or are you just terrified of getting pregnant before getting a ring on that finger?

My road to adult activities was a fairly slow and boring one until shit hit the fan.

Middle school consisted of me lusting after three guys; leaving “anonymous” notes in my main crush’s locker; writing in my little diary about those crushes, how “fine” they looked and how badly I wanted to marry Ryder Strong. Terrible. (Next time I go home to my parents’ house that little baby is coming out of retirement for some comedic relief!)

My first kiss was horrible. I was forced into a “relationship” by my acquaintance/friends in 11th grade with a senior that was obese, liked questionable music and was just unappealing in every sense of the word. He would hang around outside my classes and try to hold my hand when walking down the hall when all I wanted to do was run in the other direction. 

Anyway… We were hanging around outside after school with some friends and everyone was paired up. I was sitting as far as I could get from this guy and someone just haaaaad to ask if we had kissed each other yet. We said no. That escalated in everyone pressuring us to do it right then and there. I kept refusing but of course this guy wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to lay his wormy, greasy lips on me in front of witnesses. Somehow, while trying to escape the situation he caught me in a giant bear hug and planted his lips on mine for approximately 5 seconds…it felt like 5 days of torture. I squirmed my way out of his arms and promptly excused myself to do some chores at home. I think I ran. I hate running.

I spent the whole next day avoiding him at all costs, crafting a note that would effectively break his heart enough to hate me and never talk to me again for the rest of the year. I consider that a silver lining to the grey cloud of his affection.

My next encounter was in 12th grade with a friend. He was nice and loved the Smashing Pumpkins, (just like me!) and I felt comfortable with him. I just really needed to kiss someone else so that grease-ball wouldn’t be the only one on record. We made out all the time for maybe three days. Then it was over. I got paranoid about my parents somehow finding out so we just needed to end it. Plus he was kind of sloppy.

Then came RH. I didn’t like him at first. He was some guy that started talking to me online and eventually got on my good side. He wrote me poetry, got me into underground hip-hop and really introduced me to Sonic Youth, Jesus and the Mary Chain, Built to Spill and so on. We talked for months and months online and over the phone (which was risky business since I’d call from my parents’ land-line on a phone card). I ended up genuinely loving him and would write swoony things about him on my livejournal.

The opportunity to meet finally came. It wasn’t long at all and it wasn’t easy to make it happen either. (The full story probably won’t make it here but trust me, state lines were crossed and family double crossed.) But I just knew that he was it and that I was going to marry him (I was 19) so it made it really easy for me to say yes when he asked me if I was ready. You know, ready.

He asked me twenty times if I was sure and that we didn’t have to and all that because he knew he would be my first. I just kept saying yes. We made out all damn day and I didn’t know if I would survive after my parents found out so YES. We did it. It was uh, not exciting, but I didn’t care. I don’t think I ever really got a good look at his penis either so that area of a man’s anatomy was still a mystery to me when it came to seeing things in person. He was the one and I gave my virginity to him. This all sounds very “moronic teenager” but it was super romantic to me when it happened. After all, I was in love!

My parents never found out. Well, they found out about him two months after we broke it off but they never found out that he took my virginity. No, they found out about that a year later with someone else.

Ah yes, someone else. I refuse to say his name because this guy is a genuine regret. I’m not getting into his story because that would be long and sordid and a waste of time but I will say these few things about the situation. I was living at my university dorms for the semester, he stayed with me for a few weeks and I skipped most of my classes because of him effectively failing nearly every class.

Anyway, my parents found out I wasn’t a virgin any more! Good God Allmighty, I do not wish that experience on anyone.

I was called out of the room I was in, told to sit down and then they barraged me with questions and accusations like:

“Did he take your virginity?”

“Did you let him undress you?”

“Did he sleep in the same bed as you?”

“How long was this going on for?”

“Do you know how heart broken your mother is?” (She was standing right in front of me with tears on her face, yeah, I had an idea.)

“I’m going to call him right now and tell him to marry you, nobody will want you, do you love him? Then you should marry him and never come back here again.”

Things like that. Then I was dragged up to my room, my mom whipped out her Quran and made me swear on it that I would never have sex again until I was married and then I had to take a bath where I was to recite a special du’a with her standing outside and listening to make sure i said it! Apparently it’s some du’a that you’re supposed to say after you lose your virginity? I don’t know. Most of those months were blocked out of my memory.

I was called a slut and many other things. It was hell living at home. They withdrew me from the school I was going to and made me take classes at the community college down the street from where we lived. Things were bad for a very, very long time. Nothing like those Hollywood movies with supportive parents telling you to stick your crotch into freshly baked pies.

Normally I think an experience like that would just permanently fuck someone up for life but I kept going. I was a love sick girl with overbearing parents that would go ape shit at the mention of a boy after that day. I just had really bad luck. Being muslim with a nosy Paki/Indian community didn’t help.

I also think that whole experience made me say fuck what my religion says, it’s not healthy to not know anything about your body and what it likes and have your parents berate you for it. I am responsible when it comes to sex, never unprotected and always sober. Yes, I am terrified of getting pregnant, but I’m also not into repressing something that I know I like. It’s healthy and a fun activity even when you’re in a relationship that spans years.

My experience also makes me wonder how others have gone about it. If they’re muslim, do their parents know? If they do, what was their initial reaction? How has the relationship changed between parent and child? Do they even know about their kids’ relationships? It intrigues me. I don’t want to know about specific sexual encounters, but I do want to know how everyone else deals with this subject because my experience was sufficiently terrifying.

Put yourself before others

Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve written in here. My life is pretty busy as it is so I don’t really have time to reminisce…or whatever it is I’m doing here.

Anyway, I wanted to share this letter I wrote to my father (modified for privacy’s sake). It’s in response to his out of line reaction a few months ago to a Facebook status that listed I was in a relationship with my boyfriend. You know, when it announces it to everyone in the feed when both sides confirm…

He wrote to me after that telling me to delete it to save him from further embarrassment like what he had been dealing with for the past hour. (Our whole extended family is on there and very connected with each other.)

I deleted it, but then realized, what the fuck, why am I doing this? Who the fuck is even giving him grief about this? Who the fuck is giving him grief and not telling me anything to my (virtual) face? I moved out specifically to avoid situations like these. Things have not changed at all if I still succumb to these kinds of demands. So, I wrote back.

I deleted the posting but I am regretting doing that. Why should I hide the relationship that I’ve been in for 3 years? Why should I hide that I’m the happiest I’ve been in my life, right now, and am realizing my goals and dreams with someone that I love very much?

X is not a fling. X is not temporary. Just because we’re not married doesn’t mean that we don’t have any future together or that our relationship means any less. Marriage is just a label. Yes, I DO want to marry him, and he wants to marry me, but in our own time when we are sure of everything. We want to finish school, pay off our debts and not have to worry about the future and if we can support the children that we might have. If you and “the community” can’t handle it, then I can do nothing about it. I can’t hide and lie anymore because it puts a strain on us and is very unfair to X and all that he’s done for me.

X is a big part of my life and the sole reason that I am where I am today. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be repeating the same cycles over and over again back home. I’d be seriously depressed, still on medication, overweight, probably STILL going to community college, not have a real job or plans for the future because when I lived there, I didn’t see myself doing anything of importance. I didn’t have plans for a career or goals that I wanted to meet because I would be held back. You and Mom, although I know in your minds you were doing this to protect me, never let me go out, never let me go for jobs that I wanted, had a problem with me even driving to WB for work, and any boy I talked to was automatically someone that I was in a relationship with or had some sort of inappropriate interaction with. If I wanted to go out with some friend you didn’t hear much of I had to tell you their whole life story. If I wanted to go to some new place, it would be a huge mission to convince you that I wouldn’t do anything wrong. If I wanted to go to a concert I had to convince my brother to take me when he obviously had no interest in the things I liked. Yes, I did do stupid things, but to me it would get to the point of where I would think “if I’m already doing something wrong in their minds, I might as well do it anyway.” I had no interest in partying all the time or having 20 boyfriends, or whatever it is you were worried about… I just wanted a social life and friends to be with and a job I could go to without having to worry about my parents saying something about it.

I was on a leash and it was suffocating. There’s no way I ever imagined I would realistically live anywhere outside of where I was born even though I hoped and dreamed of it because I knew someone would be there to say “no” or “when you’re married”. Why should I have to wait to live out what I want until I get attached to someone else I have to take care of? To me, for you to say “when you’re married” meant “never”. Look at my mom. She wanted to travel and go to places that were probably a lot cheaper to go to back then, but it never happened. She never got the opportunity to work when coming to America and now, when her having a job could help you out tremendously, she can’t. Who will hire a woman her age with no work experience? You say all she does is stay at home or work out or get her hair done, but who made it that way? She wanted to work, you said you’ll take care of her, which is a great gesture, but it doesn’t work that way in America. Even my aunt and all these other people ended up getting jobs at one point. She works out and does her hair to look nice for you, but you complain that she spends too much money. She wants to go see movies in the theater but you rarely want to go. I definitely understand that you’re the one that’s working every day to support us, but you also have to take care of her and the little things she asks for. When I see that happen my whole life, why would I want to be in the same helpless situation? If something happens to you, what will she do? I don’t want to be like that when I’m her age. I want to know that I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and have no sadness or regrets.

The first good thing X did for me was talk to me, when he came to visit, about how I don’t need medication to be happy. I stopped taking my Effexor that weekend and never touched it again. He listened to me, and about what I wanted in life, and said it was all possible. He offered his help, not because he wanted something from me, but because he wanted me to get something out of life. He saw my sadness and offered a way out and I took it. I wish it didn’t have to be something so drastic, but in reality I don’t think it could have been any other way.

He helped me get my first real job doing design work. He made sure I had a place to stay and was comfortable. Someone that wasn’t genuine or was looking for a fling or to do harm to me would never go out of his way to do that for me. He understood that it was very hard for me to leave home, but he helped me anyway. If I cried, he would be there for me and if I threw a tantrum he still stuck by me.

He is the first person that genuinely understands me. If he doesn’t get something, he makes the effort to learn more. He is ready to try new things and add new experiences to our lives together. He loves art and design even more than I do, and I think that’s amazing. He’s someone I can go to for an honest opinion for my work and he understands why I have to be on the computer all day long. He is supportive and caring and tells me he loves me all the time. He appreciates me, he loves the friends of mine that he has met so far and is always energetic and enthusiastic about what we will do together next. Most of the time it’s him that brings up getting married, or moving to a quieter place when we’re ready to settle and building a house of our own and how we’ll introduce our future children to all kinds of things so they will want to grow and explore more when they become adults. He sees how much I love and miss you and my family and tells me I should visit whenever possible. He knows that you don’t like that we’re together yet he still wants me to help you with your business. He’s the one that did the logo and he’s the one that pushed me to make a better design than what I was coming up with originally. He sees that you’re still helping to support me whenever I ask and he respects you a lot.

I wish you could accept X for who and what he is. I don’t think it should matter at all whether he is Muslim or not. It shouldn’t matter to you either. If I married a Muslim man but he still gets drunk and has a corporate job and doesn’t take my wants and needs into consideration, does that make him better than a non-Muslim with good morals that works hard for what he wants, hardly drinks at all and takes good care of me? I don’t think so. Being Muslim doesn’t mean someone is better.

I want to be with X, whether you approve of him or not. It still hurts that my last night at home the last time I visited you gave me an ultimatum to marry him or never talk to you again. Obviously, you didn’t follow through with it, but it still hurts that you would even threaten me with something like that. X makes me happy and I love and appreciate him more than I can put into words. Writing what I did earlier, it actually made me cry, because sometimes I forget how much he really means to me and how much I truly appreciate everything he has ever done and WILL do for me. I don’t want to have to choose between my family and my boyfriend and don’t think I should have to. I will always be your daughter and I will always love you but you need to take into consideration that I am an adult, I’m closer to being 30 than 20, and you can’t make my decisions for me or give me ridiculous ultimatums. I don’t want you to think about accepting X only when we get married, I want you to make a move now. We’ve already sailed through three years together and I don’t see an end any time soon. If you refuse to help me, that’s fine. I’ll even pay you back everything you’ve given me with each check I get. I will work to improve the bad credit I didn’t even make for myself on my own. I will finish your site and let you do what you want with it.

I am not going to give up X because “the community” looks down on me for being with him. I don’t need them if they are going to be that way. I’ve said it a million times before, but I’ll say it again. The “community” will talk trash no matter what and I am not going to twist and turn to make sure that they have nothing to talk about. If you’re embarrassed, then I’m sorry, but everyone will have to deal with it. Don’t they have lives of their own? Isn’t Z off drinking and partying all around the world and twice divorced? Isn’t S bringing his BOYFRIEND to family gatherings? If they can get past that, they can definitely get past me being in a stable and happy relationship with someone I love. A facebook status is trivial. I still regret deleting it because of your request. I can’t hide myself any more.

I am an adult, I have a life of my own, I make my own decisions and will deal with the consequences whether they’re good or bad. If you have people emailing you or calling you about what I’m doing, please direct them to me so I may educate them. I won’t live my life for others and neither should you. Worry about your business and supporting your family. That’s your job. If people are going to look down on you for what I’ve decided to do as an adult then maybe you should think twice about your relationship with them. People need to worry about themselves more instead of gossip and making other people’s lives miserable for what their children do. If you’re so worried about what other people think, you would have stopped drinking or not get drunk in public, like you obviously were at my cousin’s wedding. THAT was terrible.

I love you, but I’m staying with X and will get married in my own sweet time. I will claim him as my boyfriend in person and on facebook and everywhere else because he doesn’t deserve to be hidden away like a bad secret. He is a truly amazing and wonderful person and I can’t wait for everyone to know him and understand why I care about him so much. I think it is very unfair to be forced to make a decision between people that I love so much for so many different things. I think it’s even more unfair that it’s my father that’s forcing me to do it. It breaks my heart that even though I’m stable, in a good relationship and with a good job that you still find the need to tell me what to do because of “embarrassment”. Maybe the reason I never see myself moving back home is because I’ll be put in this kind of situation all the time when it doesn’t even need to happen. I am a good person with good morals and goals. So is X. You raised me very well. We are living our lives as we think we should and will do what makes us happy, not others.

The reason for this long email is because I don’t want to talk on the phone with you about this since it will end as it usually does when it comes to things like this. I want to tell you everything I have built up inside and everything that I feel. On the phone you’ll just say what you have to and I will end up not telling you everything that I wanted. This is the only way I will continue our conversations on these matters because this is the only way I can get a word in edgewise. I hope you understand.

I never got a reply after that. In fact, we had not talked for months since until quite recently, and that was a very awkward sort-of conversation.

I’m actually quite apprehensive that things will get awkward again when I visit next month. I will be back home for a short amount of time for a wedding, but with our history, he always pulls some stunt the night before I leave that pretty much puts a damper on the good time I had my whole visit. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again. Or, if we end up talking about my personal life, hopefully he will actually take the time to listen and consider my side of things instead of pushing his views onto me.