Letter number 27: Put down the magnifying glass!
Dear Alexandra,
Sherlock Bert is still being a bit relentless. His focus seems to be less about agonising about what happened before, though — he’s more idly investigating clues that you are okay. I am worried about you — I think that you have possibly started to introspect more than you’ve been able to before after our last messages, where I was a little more open than I have been, removing a layer of what I thought of as protection.
Maybe it’s what you needed to hear, I’m not sure. Your response in implying you deserved punishment was predictable, it’s the main reason I’ve been withholding things from you. You don’t need punishment, you just need to lift your head out of fantasy world and face reality, the decisions you made, the impact they had, take responsibility to some extent, but then move on — and realise that if your solution is to disappear into fantasy world again then you’ll find it even more difficult to find happiness.
After I got paranoid that you might have blocked me on Facebook you’ve resurfaced, so you clearly didn’t — you’d just deactivated your account. I did notice before you liked the picture I posted of Frankie’s casket which Mum collected for me this week. It’s massive despite being the smallest one on offer — I think Frankie would approve towering over the other birdy caskets. She was definitely the boss of the birds! I found a nice picture of her to put in the photo section today.
I wonder if you’re still doing the picture you started of her after she died, Before I discovered what else you were up to in your spare time? I hope so — you’re really talented doing art on your iPad — it’s a good way of focusing on something creative, especially if you turn off notifications from your myriad of social media/streaming stuff whilst you do it. It would be a lovely tribute to her.
The mystery mail order puzzle thing I ordered shipped this week, they obviously didn’t get my email or do anything with it so it’s heading to you — it’s shipping from America so I’m not sure when it will arrive. I think you’ll really enjoy it though, and maybe subscribe to further ones in the series. It’s good to keep the mind busy, exercised. Since my black out I’ve been consciously trying to limit how much I’m taking in, I’m supposed to be resting. Maybe that’s why Sherlock Bert jumped at the chance to get involved.
He had a look at Twitter — you’ve been very quiet on there. He has changed his username, no more sun on there, no more references to moonlight. He’s not tweeted anything about you, although his earlier retweets and saccharine ones haven’t been deleted. He’s kept the quote in his bio, the one that oddly implies that you shouldn’t waste time with moonlight — but that was there whilst he was still openly and publicly smitten. Maybe he read it and actually realised what it meant, haha!
Maybe you’ve levelled with him, it’s not really any of my business in truth — but I won’t deny that I’m curious. Partly because it’s ultimately the thing that ended what I thought was our happy ever after, partly because it’s a symptom of you not thinking even slightly straight. It’s part of your denial of reality, a ‘relationship’ with no real responsibilities beyond sharing game playing time, sending each other silly toys and trinkets. I kind of get the appeal in truth, as much as it hurts that this is what was worth casting me aside for.
Sherlock Bert did look to see if you were streaming tonight too, but you’re not. He’s not watched back any of your old streams, which is something. Even when we were together I used to feel like some kind of weird voyeur when I tuned in to them. My motivation was to be supportive of what you’re doing, understand this thing that consumed so much of your time — on a more pathetic level — to actually get to see you and hear your voice, which seemed to be such a challenge.
I’m still in that ‘reading everything into everything’ mode which I know you will be too. Was the like on my post an olive branch of some kind? I’m not sure — you’ve not posted anything on Facebook to give me an opportunity to reciprocate if appropriate. The last message between us is back to the default setting of being from me, the long reassuring one, where I told you that I loved you, that I didn’t want you to punish yourself, that you needed to help yourself to get better.
Bert of a couple of weeks ago would have caved and asked if you were okay by now, but I’m now mindful that I need to stop trying to fix things for you. If I can help you I will, of course. Clearly you’re on my mind a lot because I’m still writing regularly to you, despite everything I hate the thought of you feeling alone and suffering. I hope that you can begin to stop closing off from real people, I know you have been — not replying to them telling your Mum nobody cares.
It’s not true. Only a handful of people know the truth, and I trust each of them, indeed both A. and S. showed you care and support on your last ‘poor me’ Facebook post. In truth, given your limited posts that are pleas for sympathy, it’s probable that those that don’t know, if they are in speculative mode, probably assume that it is me who’s in the wrong. Possibly not, I guess, given some of my posts. To be fair, I’d think for the majority of people it’s not that much of a blip on their radar. People would be kind to you though, if you reached out to them.
You don’t have to tell them what happened, but you could tell them how you feel without going into details. One thing I’ve learned in all this is that of course nobody can fix what has happened, how I’m feeling — but if they show they care, if they listen (whether I’m opening up fully for the unlucky few, or whether I’m being vague but clearly down) then it does help. I’ve taken that learning, I didn’t used reach out when I know people are suffering because I didn’t think I could help.
I’ve found out that I can. Just checking in with J. earlier today really helped her to feel like somebody cared. Of course I can’t fix whatever it is that is making her feel down, and I don’t even know the details. But I can be there, I can listen, I can offer advice on positive things to do outside of whatever struggles she is having elsewhere in her life. People would do that for you too if you let them in. They can’t make everything better, but they can remind you you’re loved and cared for, that there are other things in life that are positive.
That links in to why I’ve struggled so much with you — I can’t fix you, I would love to be able to — and I’ve spent the last few years trying too hard to either do that, or gloss over problems and adjust to them or normalise them. It’s not really fair on you, and definitely not me. My intentions were good, but I’ve inadvertently reinforced your reluctance to focus on self-awareness, self-care — without sounding harsh, you’ve got quite used to getting your own way. It must bite a lot to have come to the realisation that life is a bit more about compromise than that.
Your Mum has similar issues to me — she’s actually scared to confront you, imagine that! I feel so much sympathy for her. I confided in her because she’s the one person you wouldn’t shut out, that wouldn’t give up on you, and has the emotional maturity to help you. But she’s terrified of activating the darker side of you that damaged your relationship with her when you were younger. But maybe if you’re starting to come out of self-denial you will start to consider talking to her more candidly.
I’m resisting messaging her too, because I can’t decide whether it’s the right thing to do or not. Again, it’s that urge to fix — ‘I’m worried about your daughter, please go and make everything better’ is the basic motivation, but of course she can’t. How could she? I just hoped you’d feel able to talk to her honestly, even if not revealing everything about the things you’ve done. It’s one of the weirdest transitions you make when you realise your parents are just people who can’t wave a magic wand too.
I know that on some level I should be taking several steps back from this, you need time to process, to introspect a little and hopefully then start to let go of mistakes and think more in the present. Me mithering you won’t help with that, because I’m a big anchor (ha, I’m proud of that wordplay and only you’d understand it) for you in that past, loaded now with associations of guilt and self-loathing.
A lot of this regression has been due to the fact I’ve been off work after my health scare, I’m definitely resolved to get back to it next week. It’s good to have things outside of my more personal woes to focus on, and with the safety net of them knowing that I might not be at my absolute best. I am feeling okay physically, I’ve been out walking and had no problems, I do sometimes get light-headed when getting up but that’s normal. I’ve been eating meals properly at the table, not getting straight up. It helps.
Of course my confidence has taken a knock, I activated the ‘fall detect’ feature on my watch, so if it happens again it’ll text Mum and R., I think it might even contact Emergency Services if it doesn’t detect me get up again within a minute or so. So going out for a walk on my own earlier felt like quite a big step, it was fine. I’m determined not to lose the fitness I’ve built up, so am planning on going back to football on Sunday. That’ll be nearly a full week of restfulness.
I do, on reflection, regret being petty about not replying to your messages when that happened. Part of me wanted to be mean, I liked on some level you were worrying about me when you didn’t seem to when we were together latterly — but it was cruel and childish. I did apologise in our last message exchanges for it, and I mean it. You caught me in a dark mood, one I’m not proud of. But then it did precipitate an opportunity to be a little more open, a little more honest — and that does seem to have helped to kickstart you into something, I’m not sure what, but the signs Sherlock Bert found are cautiously optimistic.
I really hope you are facing into things, a bit of introspection and pain and probably self-loathing might be the start — but after that you should hopefully have a much better perspective of how to move forward. How to really identify what will make you happier and more content in the future — and not piss away other sources of love and care in your life, because no matter how isolated you feel right now, there’s a lot of it.
I hope you’re doing okay, Bert
