XII

My Meadow,

I have been struggling so much. Today (right now) is January 1. Naturally my thoughts drift towards letting go of last year, what I want this year to be, nothing original.

The urge to cut all ties from everything is eternally strong. How do you cut someone out of your life? Someone who has been your whole life. For your whole life. I have realised I have no clue the difference between avoidance and preservation. Am I cutting beacuse it is easy? Or in cutting am I removing the obstacle to healing, creating space for the wound to finally close? I am certain something has to be removed.

I have been seething stagnancy since August. I spent 2023 and 2024 smothering our interactions in silver, telling everyone it was divine lining. Sometimes there really was silver. I think. In twenty years there must have been silver. Or gold? When we were girls I was certain you shone golden. Looking back I am certain you never did. We have never been able to break the dynamic of me looking for you and you looking over your shoulder for the friend you prefer. Filling your life with anyone else who looks like they shine gold. Alway, always, always. Twenty years of us both searching for gold, with devastatingly different definitions. Sometimes you think that I shine gold, when no one else is around, or something really bad has happend to you. When you need me.

Once, last year, I really needed you. I never ask you for anything, I don’t even know how. I like our dynamic like this, it isn’t your fault. I really needed you though (i hate myself for needing you), but you were tired, so you didn’t come. And I thought I was going to be assaulted. We never talked about it. You texted me the next morning saying you hoped I got home safe. I spent the whole day in bed, too numb to reply. Succumbing to memories of all the assaults prior. Sick of you, sick of sex, sick of myself. You made me feel so much shame, for the actions of that man, like it was my fault for expecting my date to not assault me.

I will never ask for anything again. To be fair, I appreciate the realisation, reinstating the ingrained self-reliance. Painful but useful.

Bless the driver who picked me up. Strange that this driver was kinder than you (he never swore he was my sister).

I am learning, so slowly. The only thing that was my fault, was relying on you to pick me up. Now you joke about me and my inability to rely on others and I feel my organs set on fire.

I don’t even want to be angry. I just want to disappear. I am tethered to you by plans made in good faith. I will not make it until may. I love you, always, but I cannot stand you right now. I will burst in to flame if I don’t leave now.

I don’t want to forget why I cannot rely on you. I need this lesson to stick. Distance feels like the only thing that will remind me. Distance feels like the only way to keep us both safe. I don’t want to set you on fire. But I am burning.

Our friendship has always been able to survive distance. We will probably die together. I am certain next summer, when everything is warm and shimmering and the ocean beckons to us (the way it always does), you will be back. When I next get on a plane, or you buy a house, or theres a wedding, you will be back. We will reunite, fizzing and gentle, filled with words of undying adoration for each other, for our friendship, for the system, and the season. We will be golden. For those 3 months.

Really the only change I require is to embrace the Autumn, rather than spending the next 9 months wishing for summer. Let you go because with all the certainty of summer, we will return. My absolute favourite, fair-weather friend.

Yours,

Dot