Dear Aada,
I know what you did and how you did it. I’m not angry, but I do think that the manipulations are fascinating. I got so sick I nearly killed myself twice, and none of that would have happened if I’d had a therapist to bring me back down to earth.
You shattered my heart with your lies, because I know that going to Portland was a lie as well. It only took one mistruth to unravel all of it, with you complaining that I betrayed you instead of you lied and got caught.
I shouldn’t forgive you, but I do. It’s for me and not you, because I know that if I get a response to this e-mail at all, it will be full of all the things I’ve done wrong. I am slowly coming out of the shell we created to be whole again.
I’ll move on and be successful without you, but I also hope that you get healthy and change. I think I’ll always hope that, because people who’ve been manipulated always hope that the person will change. I refuted all other facts, and “sure as shit, you’ll get her side, Dagger,” was because I thought that Jonna lied and not you. Because you would never lie to me and you never had.
How wrong I was.
It pains me that we will never see each other’s faces after all these years, adding new depth and breadth to the laugh lines on the other’s face. I can envision it perfectly if we both get help, but right now I think we’d fight to the death.
I wish you peace, my Finnish baby. I’m angry and hurt in a way that I never thought I would be. But my memories of you are pristine and it was all worth it.
I did love you with an intensity that surprised even me. But now it’s time to stop, because you’ve made it clear that’s not what you want from me. I’m just throwing emotion down a hole and expecting it will come back to me. The chord that runs between us is breaking, because you thought you needed to be bigger than you were.
What would it be like to come clean from all that?
You can stick to your story that Michael knows nothing, or you can admit that looking into you is easier than looking into Mummo.
But I want to be clear about something. My anxiety was tripled when you started fighting me on Michael because I was scared of him. I needed you and you exploded at me. I needed you closer and you just left. The biggest nightmare I could imagine was happening and I warned you it was going to happen and still nothing.
I gave away enough clues over time that Michael finally figured out who you were. It wasn’t that I just decided to say “fuck Aada” one day. I wanted you to say “I’ll be on the first train” but your anxiety won that day.
You didn’t care about any of the consequences you laid out for me.
That’s hard to swallow, but I would if I thought it would do any good.
You won’t come clean with me because you’ll insist that we know nothing. You’ll stick to your story that I nailed you over “one little slip.” The reason no one is interested in you is that you never did anything.
When you steal a story………………………
Maybe one of these days you’ll find it in your heart to confirm or deny everything Michael is saying, because I will never believe anything you say again without it. I want the whole truth, and yes, I CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH.
That was my Jack Nicholson impression, I am not yelling at you.
I find myself too tender to yell at you. That all I am is embarrassed at having to rebuild my life after so many failed relationships. I wonder what would have happened had you decided to meet with me in person, because I don’t think that I would have been open to Michael’s story if we’d actually had a happy relationship. Your overreaction and anger to the simplest things made me realize I was in over my head.
You say that you hate when people get up in your business, but you got up in mine without thinking twice about it. You ruined a relationship for me when it wasn’t necessary, and had a hand in complicating a second. Dana makes three. Was it worth it for you? Was it worth it for me to think you were a superhero all these years?
This is the first time in my life where I have hoped desperately that I’m wrong. That surely the lie cannot be so fine tuned that all our process conversations were based on things you’d overheard. Of course you picked up the lingo and the basics from someone else.
It really worked out for you when you told me that Heytch and Mummo would never speak to me again and I shouldn’t bother making amends. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d really bared my soul and got honest with both of them. I owe them reparative work if they want it.
But I know that no one, if they are in their right minds, in your family is going to have a lick of sympathy for anything I’ve gone through, because they rightfully need to surround you with their love and care. I have my own people, and I think I chose wisely. If there was ever reparative work with you, it would start with why you felt the need to lie.
The people being manipulated by people like you always hope for a change and a reconciliation, and hope for long after the relationship has ended that the person will come clean with them. Meanwhile, the manipulator is usually into the wind and onto another dopamine source.
It makes me wonder if all our people pleasing is love addiction. That perhaps the reason we can’t talk to each other is that we are both “qualifiers” for the other. That we both gave away too much of ourselves hoping that the other would love us. I was so lovesick over you, and it all had to do with the fact that I thought I could lose you at any time. Meanwhile, your safe & comfortable office was a mystery to me.
“It’s the not mostly that would fry people’s hair.”
Aada, I bothered you about being on your “in case ofs” for 12 years, and yelled at you that you didn’t tell me you were out because it led to so much anxiety. Meanwhile, none of that anxiety was real because you were never in.
I cared for you in a way that I will never love anyone else, and that part is clear to me. That while I was being manipulated, we have some very genuine moments in our past and I will take those with me.
It’s time for me to find out who I am without you, because at the very least it will take you months to figure out what you’re going to do in this situation…. Whether it is easier to run from a lie, or whether it is worth it to you to find out why I’m so clearly invested despite all the harm that’s been done to me. I am stunned at Michael’s assessment that some relationships just should not be, because my preacher’s kid mentality says that there’s nothing that cannot be forgiven.
He just does not want me to take the risk that you will be absolutely as harmful to me in the future as you have been in the past, and maybe that’s your fear, too. That you cannot give any more than you’ve already been giving, because telling the truth would be a step down on holy ground. That you would rather hide in the dark rather than coming into the light and receiving me as the friend I always said I would be.
I just won’t go that far for a liar.
That’s why our relationship is a total loss right now. I cannot put any trust in you and all of my trust has been misplaced so far. What I’m searching for is something to write about that is healthy, that does not have this level of drama and intrigue, that genuinely helps me find my directions and not my distractions.
I know that thinking of you will not go away fast. Your birthday and your name day will always be reminders.
I’m dialed in.
Through you, I have found a direction that suits me, which is spending time in Finland with all the other crazy neurodivergents. It will be impossible not to be reminded of you there, but I’m willing to put away my discomfort to enjoy a society built for me. I have built a lot of dreams through trying to impress you, and they are still good ideas whether or not you’re impressed.
I’m lost right now. Truly lost. Even though you don’t want to admit it, you’ve enjoyed all my love and affection. You have admitted that you have taken energy without refilling it, and that has been damaging to me. But that’s what I thought you needed- having your cup filled at the expense of mine because your life was so much more important than mine.
I do love knowing that we’re equals, that I didn’t marry the government.
The fact that you sat through lines like that and didn’t come clean makes me crazy. It’s why I’m better off releasing you from whence you came. That’s because your story is so woven into the fabric of your life that I think you really believe you were telling me the truth.
But I’m always hoping you’ll change. We’ll see whether that’s a flaw in me later in life.
I believe in you, that you have the ability to change. I just don’t think you will.
Yours, an all the way to the river friend, if our relationship is built right from the ground up.
If it has no chance of that, then I don’t want contact. I will always want what is best for me, and this seems to be it.
There’s no apology without changed behavior, and I am no longer willing to hold my breath waiting.
Leslie
Stories That Are All True 