A Mutual Understanding

It’s a funny thing to resign from someone’s life, but here we are. A de facto write-off under the moon, the weight of every instinct of fear drilled into my bones. For my mind is a circuit fuse that prays to be lit, but can’t find the wires. Never once did you accept that perhaps your thumb was chugging the electricity out of the battery. Never once was there a mea culpa. But yet I persist, and continue to against the heat of your will, for I know you hate me.

I shook you off from my everyday and let the vision of you destroy yourself like Carthage, the emperor’s new clothes of your existence was gone from underneath me. And with that my mind clears up and refuses you over and over - you no longer serve a purpose to me. This quasi-perfect rhetoric that disrupted my everyday was no longer around; the fog was lifted.

For years I had been told that you were the one to bring me peace, if only I spoke to you every single day. If only, I repeated the same lines verbatim until they lost all meaning - only I discovered that perhaps they didn’t have any to begin with. Call me what you will: villain, nonbeliever, persona non grata - but know that I will never return to you. My time is wasted, my heart is empty, my life is still yet incomplete.

For years in my childhood I went back and forth from place to place, trying to please you - for I’m sure my parents thought I should. As a child you rarely have a choice, as an adult I chose to dedicate myself to you. But since, I have shaken you off. And now, to explain why…

Something changed in me at the beginning of the year when I realised that my friendship and dedication to you was very much getting me nowhere, I ran around in circles but ended up miserable, loathing and grieving. I began to borrow words ex libris philosophy and criticism, but you wouldn’t understand. To return to the terra firma of reality, I delved into those who had shaken you off and noticed the joy they experienced without the metaphorical monkey on their back. They no longer ran away from the freight train whilst standing on the tracks.

A posteriori: they were free.

Blind to follow, blinder to copy, I didn’t want that either, for through the fog and hail I saw that it didn’t quite fit. I was still bound to a tree. And that is when lightning struck. The tree collapsed and to this day, I have not gone back.

A deluge washed over me, a roar in my mind - new lease for life came over my body. I knew where I stood in this mystical battle in which the only thing I knew was that I had to leave you.

Ad nauseam I was told that this wasn’t the way to go, but you served no purpose to me. We were getting nowhere, I was constantly waiting for a sign. For then I knew you hated me. For then I knew you wanted me gone.

And you didn’t have to say a thing.

So when I moved, I got rid of all of my stuff relating to you. All of my writing, my books, my idols I removed, my necklaces, my earrings, my bags. I stopped seeing you on Sundays or any other time. You’d done me no good so far, what good would you do me now?

I am a woman without a home, a soul without a keeper - but most importantly, your expectations and laws are left behind. But of course you’re going to ask me whether I hate you in return. My answer is no.

By the ways of philosophers, artists and the critical stratosphere I came to understand you.

I wanted to know why you disliked me so much, but I also sought your knowledge without the slings and arrows of my outrageous fortune. The value of your philosophy is still wrapped in my arms, and I cannot describe how much this transition of faith has meant to me, but perhaps you will read this if you have never listened to me before.

I am contented. I’ve read your books, I’ve studied your graces, I’ve allowed your histories to develop as fables into my life to learn from. I know your acts of justice are part of the foundation of all libertarian values. I am the tabula rasa on which learning, insight and personhood are part of the bleeding heart of my existence. Your narratives are historical centrepieces to comprehend the very nature of human beings. Your stories have brightened my younger life, I still today have a deep appreciation for the body of your library. Your literature is amongst the greatest we have ever seen, the most we have experienced as a species.

Oh but I can’t believe in you. Not like the others do. And so this is my letter of resignation and apology. It is clear you do not want me and I cannot have you. I hope this is a mutual understanding. Throughout this letter, my mind has cleared and I know that you’ll probably think me volatile, but I am not.

Some things we just need to get off our chest.

Some things are the weight of the world.