Silence and guilt

   I would be lying if I said that the silence did not hurt me, for it did. It hurt me in quiet, subtle ways. It was not just the thought that I would not get to talk to him again perhaps. It was not just the worry that perhaps something might have happened to him. There was also a small, sneaking suspicion, that perhaps I am being punished. Many people have punished me with silence -  it doesn't have the same effect as yelling. The yelling makes you shut down, it blocks out every other noise. The silence on the other hand has an eroding effect.

  I felt guilty for bringing up that the distance is slowly eating away at me. I did not say it all. I did not say how in spite of it all I feel like we have turned into Penelopes both of us, him waiting for me to arrive and me waiting for him to choose himself, to get better. I did not say how painful it is to sustain it all through a screen and meeting once per year. How lonely I am, how scared out of my wits I am half the time when he's not well. 

  I feel guilty for not knowing how to love better someone who can't choose his mental health when my own has also been collapsing for years. I feel guilty for not being able to sustain this better. I feel guilty for feeling that I have been chasing after a mirage. I feel guilty for seeing and not seeing that maybe we missed our chance or maybe it has not arrived yet. I feel guilty for it all.

  It scares me shitless. It does - I don't see how I can keep hanging on and I don't see how I can stop either. And there is another fear as well: noone will accept me the way that he has. And noone has understood and responded as quickly and openly as he has. Should that not be enough? I always wanted to believe that timing was mostly a myth but it turns out sometimes timing can truly fuck you up.

  I wanted to be more poetic about this. But sometimes there are no poetic words at hand.