Gigi Engle

I feel so guilty for not feeling guilty.

It doesn’t make me feel better, and it sure as hell doesn’t make you feel better.

Dear you:

I waited a while to do this.

I’m missing from your life not because I couldn’t stand your issues. It wasn’t that I lost patience with your struggles, even though at times it was insanely challenging not to. It’s not that I didn’t listen, even when I thought you were being childish and immature.

It’s because I realized how skewed shit was. It hit a point where it became impossible to ignore, where nobody needed to be paying close attention to notice. Whenever anything happened and you needed me, I was always there for you. To willingly give my time. To support you, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with you.

I didn’t want anything in return, because friendship isn’t about keeping score. But I would be lying if I said you didn’t continuously let me down, that I’m not bothered that you could take so much and give so fucking little. It baffles me that you could be so selfish.

Maybe I was important to you, but actions always have a way of speaking louder than words. Your life isn’t easy, you have a laundry list of issues – but really, who doesn’t? Maybe you don’t realize that the people who don’t complain or externalize do struggle, that they suffer, that they hurt, that they live lives just as goddamn difficult as yours. That the strong aren’t strong because they’re less acutely sensitive to pain, but because of their desire to survive, their will to swim when people like you choose to sink. What you’re going through isn’t unique, it’s only your self-centered puerility that is. Before you make another excuse about your situation being different, don’t bother – because I’m done pretending to believe them. 

I’m lucky enough to have people in my life who love and care about me – good friends, real friends. Beautiful people whom I treasure and am honored to be called a friend by. People who are more than just their words, who understand that friendship isn’t a one-person job. And let’s be honest, they deserve my time a hell of a lot more than you do.

Do yourself a favor and grow the fuck up. Stop your infantile bullshit about how much someone has put you through; it’s not their problem your life sucks, it’s your problem your life sucks. Stop whining that someone doesn’t take you seriously or treat you your age when you don’t act it. I never said this back then, but until you do, you’re not going to have people clamoring for your friendship. You’re going to keep wondering why people lose patience with you, why they all eventually walk out of your life. Why no matter how hard they try, they won’t find it sustainable to go on being friends with you. Why at some point, they just can’t bring themselves to care about you anymore.

Yes, I took the time to write this. You might not end up seeing this, you might think it isn’t about you – but that doesn’t really matter because for once, I’m not doing it just for you. You have every right to be a shitty friend, but I have more than every right to end this shitty relationship. 

So just consider this closure, because once I’m gone I don’t come back. And it’s already been awhile, and I’m already gone.

Even if, to me, he is hardly anything.

Gryffin and Illenium, “Feel Good (feat. Daya)”

Hesiod, “Theogony”