You once asked me: "What is the most honest you have ever been?"
The truth is I have no idea. Most of my life, I have have simply allowed it to pull me along with its currents; no feeling but the pull of time, the only feeling that I would know.
Deep down, however, I want to be honest. I want to prove that this thing I have become, the person behind these words can feel and express those feelings. At least here, I can try. I do not find it easy, however. I have spent years I spent rehearsing my silence until it’s all that I know.
You said that you wrote these letters to be honest with yourself; to express the thoughts you had, the feeling and experiences you had lived - even if they were never read. Was it to you, perhaps a catharsis? Or the only way to convince yourself to take the first step of many?
The steps you have taken is something I have always admired. In a sense, I am trying to do the same. Although, it seems I am only a pale imitation. Perhaps I can continue to use you as my inspiration.
I have learned from my darkest thoughts -perhaps the only thing I can truly claim to be mine- that the only way to inflict a wound that lasts is to take someone's fears and insecurities and turn it into a weapon. Even this, I seem to have stolen from you. Read all have written, and mine should be apparent. Use it against me, if it makes us even.
One must inclict such a wound and see someone at their lowest, and then you might gain insight enough to understand them. Their fears define their hopes, and by establishing what they want to run towards and what from, their insecurities would mask what they understand about themselves. This is, after all, how we build the masks we love to wear.
So what do you see if you were to look at me? Would you see what I have always seen, and what I still fear: a shell holding nothing.
Pulling myself apart, I see that I am a void. An empty space that is filled, and for a moment dissapears until it is emptied once more. This is because there is no person there, only what people choose to see in me. Perhaps filling this void creates a kind of distorted mirror, one which allows you to see all you want to see.
I have always allowed this to happen. In this way I can be liked, dealing with people becomes easier and you don't feel nothing for a while. But this is not who I want to be - I do not want to be the proxy for the emotions of others. I want to feel for myself, exist for myself, and be something beyond what I am now.
My attempts have always been to disguise or distract; to take on a few traits that I find admirable and try to create something with meaning that I can leave behind. I do all of this, in the hope that they would not see the emptiness behind it all.
It may be, that my greatest fear is to be seen for this void that I am, and to be turned away. To be left alone again. Perhaps if this were to happen again, I could finally be myself. Would it be worth it, though?
