If I could be convincing, I would be.

So, Brian wrote a really long description of the beginning and ending of our relationship.

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I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. I hate knowing that you feel that way. I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but it's true. It's hard living without you and feeling like I don't know who I am or if anything I do is right. But honestly, it's even harder knowing that I made the right decision.

I was terrified of what it would do to you, of being alone, of being a heartless bitch, of losing you, of pulling myself up after knocking both of us down and having to do it alone.

Then I finally did it. I ripped your heart out.

Still, I question if I made the right decision, but then I remember that sickening uncertainty that crippled me every day, feeling like I was lying to you by staying with you, not because I didn't love you, but because I felt like I was pretending to be someone else every time I was with you.

After I emerged from my critical depression, I felt something different. My entire frame of mind had tilted off its axis. It changed the way I view the world, myself, and, in turn, our relationship. All of that change that suddenly heaved onto my life, all of that insanity I experienced, all of that terrifying, mortifying isolation that my soul bore like a wound, all of that swallowing darkness served as a chisel, chipping away at my rough, outer surface. The worse I suffered, the more was shaved away, and when I reemerged into the waking world of consciousness, everything was different. I didn't have that lens through which I'd been viewing my life, wishing I could partake. Underneath the rocky shell I'd been weighing myself down with was something raw, vulnerable, and pure. My natural defenses just turned off the emotion switch whenever something personally vindictive stood before me, and this also served as a block from truly feeling any joy.

Something was growing, scratching, growling inside of me. I tried to suppress it - thus, the pretending - I tried to explain it away and say that it didn't have to overpower me and who I was when I was with you. I really tried. I didn't want to lose you - what we had. Everything was perfect. So, I tried to pretend like nothing had happened - like I reemerged from the depression completely back to normal. I tried to ignore the pressing quest for self that filled every part of me. I thought I already knew who I was as much as I could as this part of my life. It seems that every time I think that, something happens and changes everything.

But I couldn't win. It consumed me like fire. Every day I felt the burning prickling my skin, charring pieces of me to ashy debris. I was emerging as someone completely new, and it was like a freight train. I just couldn't keep it to myself any longer.

But every time I tried to share this with you, it seemed like you were just on the sidelines, and if you weren't on the sidelines, you weren't on the same wavelength at all. There were so many areas where we didn't connect, mainly what we wanted out of life, and I couldn't pretend like I was content with this difference. I want the world. You just wanted me. It was when I saw this that I realized our relationship wouldn't work anymore.

You were so content with just having me in your life that nothing else mattered anywhere near as much. At least, that's what I saw, and that's what everyone else saw, too. And it made me feel like shit, because I want so much more than just the perfect partner. I want to be immersed in everything I love, which is theater, love, fun, other people, music and art in general. So yeah, I felt selfish and like I wasn't being honest with you. I grew restless. I grew discontented. I want everything, and you just want me.

Even if that's not entirely true, it's mostly true, and that's really all I saw, so even if that isn't true at all and I was in the wrong for picking up on it, clearly we weren't connecting at all anymore.

You say you wish you never met me. Well, I'm really sorry you feel that way. Extremely sorry, because I sure as hell thought that the good times we had together were infinitely more intense than the bad times we're going through apart. Maybe that's just me. I can't say I'm sorry again, because you've stressed that it makes you mad when I do. So I guess all I can say is that I don't ever for one second regret meeting you, being with you, giving you my virginity, or anything at all, and I'm extremely hopeful for the future.

I understand that you're angry and heartbroken and you want to hurt me, so it really is okay that you're so hostile and venomous toward me. I accept it. You probably don't want to hear that either, but I'm being honest with you.

I still love you. I need to be on my own. I'm a different person right now, and I'm about to get even more different. I hope we can still have some semblance of a friendship.