(Sarala-la-la-land) part 1

(Audio at the very end of the letter, scroll down)

audio *may* differ from typed letter

Sarala,

I want to make it very clear up front: I am not mad or angry. I’m not yelling, and this is in no way meant to be an attack on you or meant to harm you. It’s only meant as a way for me to say what I need to say to you, and to have the best chance of it actually reaching you.

I’ve tried many times to talk about this — but have gotten no response. And since all of this happened to me, I do have a right to speak out about it, and to “defend” myself from having to feel worse by keeping it inside, which I should not have to do.

I’ve made every attempt I could to talk to you directly. So this is one of my last options: to write this out and send it, hoping it makes its way to you somehow.

There will be a typed version and an audio version of me saying all of this to you. The audio is there for one specific reason: in the years we’ve known each other, I think most of our issues or arguments have come from misunderstandings — one of us types something, the other takes it the wrong way, gets defensive, and it turns into a fight. I want to minimize that risk as much as possible here, which is why I’m including audio — so you can hear my voice and how I’m saying this, not just read words on a screen.

I know you well enough to know that you simply reading this on it’s own, you’ll assume I’m angry, upset, yelling, screaming, threatening etc. I’d ask you to reconsider those assumptions, and to actually listen as well as read, so you get a clearer and more accurate sense of what I mean and what I’m trying to say. Again — I am not mad, angry, upset, or yelling about any of this.

I went through our entire conversations since we started talking again and I tried my best to just compile a letter with everything that bothered me. And in no way is any of this saying that im perfect or didn’t do anything wrong, I just need to get all this out of me. And if you have anything you’d like to talk about and anything you think I did wrong, I am perfectly happy to listen and talk about it

Actions and words

Actions and words have to match. If they don’t, any logical person has to defer to the actions and discard the words. I told you that you were being hurtful and cruel toward me. You said, “I’m not trying to be cruel or mean.” But if your actions don’t match that, the words don’t matter. I don’t care what anyone is trying to be — I care what they’re actually being. You then acted in the following ways, which led me to discard what you’ve said, based on what you’ve done.

On “victim playing”

You accused me of “victim playing.” Here are two of the clearest examples I’ve witnessed of victim playing, from you:

1. You came back after 10+ years of no contact and almost immediately accused me of being the reason you can’t find a job — because of a couple of poems about you I have online. That’s not true. Whatever is making it hard for you to find work has nothing to do with anything I’ve done. You can’t find a job because YOU can’t find a job. Don’t outsource your responsibilities to me.

2. The first time I offered to send you money, you accused me of “just trying to get a reply from you.” I told you that wasn’t true, and you insisted anyway. Then, a few days or a week later, you messaged asking if I could still send it — so I did, immediately, without hesitation, because I do love you (more on that later, since you said you weren’t sure if you believed it).

You claimed I only offered to send you money to get a reply out of you…but that excuse becomes invalid because I actually DID send you the money I said I was going to, and sent you a lot more as well. I never once said ANYTHING that I didn’t immediately back up with my actions. Nothing I did, or will do, is simply just to “get a reply” from you

That sequence of events tells me something: you did want the money, but you also needed to be the victim in the exchange, because in your mind you have to be the good one and I have to be the bad one — there’s no other way for it to work in your mind. You’ve tried, more than once, to provoke or antagonize me, seemingly to get some kind of reaction out of me so you could point at it as to how “bad” I am to you. Even when it was something you told me I could say or do, you went straight into provoke-and-accuse mode, and that is the very definition of playing the victim.

You gave me permission, one time, to tell you about my day — I did, and then I immediately got accused of complaining. You asked me about a girl I dated years ago — I answered, and got accused of “playing the victim,” for answering a question you asked.

Most of what YOU have done, you’ve tried to deflect onto me — because in your mind if you accuse first, you get to be the one who’s right, the one who’s the victim. So you rush to accusation and provocation before there’s ever a real conversation, hoping for a reaction you can point to and say, “see, I’m the victim.”

So you accused me with one hand while accepting my money from the other — talking down to me, insulting me, treating me poorly, while still accepting my money. That’s not very complicated, that’s the definition of using someone.

On the money

I asked you, two or three times, not to bring up the money I sent you. I asked for that because I knew exactly what it would start — a fight that you’d use to accuse me of trying to “control” or “use” you, which I never did. And that’s exactly what happened. I’ll take some responsibility here: I engaged with it when I should have just reminded you we weren’t going to discuss it, and I didn’t do that. I own that part.

But I did explicitly say, more than once, that you don’t owe me anything in return. You didn’t, and you still don’t, owe me anything — no money, nothing. I never asked you for anything in return, and I never will

Which brings me to the next point.

Not owing me ≠ license to be cruel

You seem to have taken it, when i said “you don’t owe me anything” to mean that “I can treat him however I want.” Those are not the same thing. They’re not even close. Every person — me, you, my family, your family, a neighbor, anyone — has a basic obligation to be decent to others unless given a real reason not to be. That goes double for someone who genuinely wanted to help you, and who was glad to be able to, because he loves you. And in return I got accused and BARELY even a thank you, and the thank you I did get was so fake. Is that who you are now?

Why I gave

I gave to you because I wanted you to have abundance. And abundance doesn’t mean being a multi-millionaire. Abundance means your needs are met when you need them met — when you need food, you can eat; when you need to sleep, you have a warm bed; when you need to shower, you have hot water, etc

Those types of thing

That’s what I wanted for you. And that’s what I still want for you, because I love you

A hard time is not a license

A couple of times you used “I’m just going through a breakup” as an excuse.

I absolutely do not care.

Going through a breakup and having a hard time does not give you the right to treat me, or anyone else, badly or cruelly. That’s true no matter how hard things get for you.

Misplaced embarrassment

You don’t get to be awful to me just because you’re going through a breakup. That’s unacceptable, period.

It is universally unacceptable behavior, and no one would say otherwise

You said you were embarrassed because you had to get money from me. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about that — I don’t mind helping you. What you should actually be embarrassed about is how you acted during and after I gave it to you. You have that backwards, when you shouldn’t. That should probably worry you.

Don’t be embarrassed about needing help. Be embarrassed about using someone, and about your behavior.

Insecurity, misplaced

It’s strange — you’re insecure about your looks, but not about your character. You’ll wake up in the morning and hate how you look and hate your body, but you’re perfectly happy with your behavior. That should be the other way around, and that should worry you

Even then

My friend Jessica was killed. I showed you the news articles and stories and videos. You knew what I was going through. And you still chose to act cruelly, and to make me feel used, even though the whole time I kept telling you that me being able to help you and just talk with you was the best help I could get. 

So you’re going through a breakup and just *had* to be cruel because of it, and my friend was killed and somehow I can still be somewhat decent enough to help and care for you? Maybe that’s a difference between us, i don’t know

Hiding doesn’t fix it

Hiding won’t make things go away. Neither will being cruel. It will only cause more problems — unintended ones, mentally and physically.

You said something like “I’m being mean to you and ignoring you now because maybe it’ll help you stop loving me”

I have some news for you Sarala…that won’t help one bit, it never has

What I found out

The entire time we didn’t talk, I always pictured you doing amazing things— a great photographer, or an illustrator. I told you several times that I’ve always thought you’d have ended up as a photographer for national geographic or something similar. Then I found out you were just having “arrangements” with men for money. I asked what that meant, and then immediately said never mind, because I really didn’t want to know. That broke my heart more than anything else you did. You, giving away, showing off and selling your body like that. I still cry over that

That hurts so bad, still

The “threat” that wasn’t

You promised me we could talk about whatever I needed, to try to feel better, back when my friend Jessica was killed. That was the last thing you said before you started going off and flipping out, saying I was “threatening” you. I wasn’t. All I said was something like, “I bet if I acted the way you act, back toward you, that you’d have a huge problem with it.” I don’t remember the exact wording, but you took real offense to it.

And I have to say, Sarala — if that reads as threatening to you, that says there’s a serious problem with how you act and treat people, and you should genuinely look into getting help with that. 

If someone tells another person, “if I acted like you, I bet you wouldn’t like it,” and that person gets offended by it, that says a lot about them — not about the person who said it.

Again — I do have a right to speak out about all of this, because it happened to me. I shouldn’t have to sit here and stay quiet and suffer in silence while you act like none of it happened. I made every attempt I could to talk to you about these things, over a long period of time, and got no response.

I’m not mad about any of it. It’s just hurtful, and disappointing, what you turned into.

What it changed

Growing up, I didn’t always have all of those things. I never knew that kind of kindness until I met you, and you wanted those things for me. It changed me, and my life, forever. That’s why I do what I do — whether you care or not, whether you accept it or not.

The things I’m going to do, and the plans I have, will all get done — with or without you. I’ll see to that.

When my leg was hurt

You took care of me when my leg was hurt. Even though you weren’t physically here, you showed real concern and love, and it made me feel so comfortable, warm, and safe. I didn’t tell you how bad it actually was, because I didn’t want to seem like I was lying or complaining. But you made it so much better anyway. That’s how powerful your love and energy is.

What I got back, and lost again

When you came back and we started talking again, I was so happy and excited, because I could finally enjoy things that reminded me of you again — movies, shows, books, stories. I was slowly healing. And then you just ripped it all back away from me.

Not what you think

You accused me of “wanting to be with you,” which I never said, never asked, and never acted like. I have bigger things to worry about than being with some girl in Toronto who will have issues over nothing, and whose family will most likely act the same way.

Why would I want to be with you, when all your parents used to do was unplug the router so we couldn’t talk? I’m sure they don’t unplug routers anymore, but that same behavior, that same mindset, is still there, its still inside them, just manifesting in different ways

And not to mention everything I mailed you — you never got a single piece of it. Most likely they took all of that too.

You mentioned that your parents taking what I mailed you, and never giving it to you, was an invasion of your privacy, which is true. But then again you’ve mentioned that you’ve always been treated like a little girl by them, and I’m sorry that happened to you.

But it’s okay — nothing I sent you was that important anyway.

The offer still stands

I want to be clear: my offer to give you $10,000 came from pure love. I didn’t owe you anything, and I didn’t have to send you any money — I did it because I knew it would help you, and because I love you.

That offer will always stand. I have the money set aside in a savings account, and it will stay there for whenever you’re ready to have an open and honest conversation about everything and claim it. But I want a serious and honest discussion — no insulting, no rudeness, no fighting, no arguing. I won’t respond to arguments, fighting, or insults.

A warning about stubbornness

Make sure your stubbornness doesn’t stop you from seeing what’s right in front of you, and doesn’t turn into anger. Excessive stubbornness can lead to anger, and anger can blind you — it can make you act out of emotion instead of reason, and that never leads anywhere good.

Don’t get addicted to hiding

Don’t get addicted to escaping or hiding. It can be hard, but it’s always better to face the issues. Nothing has ever been won by running away.

You gave it to me

You came back and messaged me, then gave me your contact information so we could keep talking. But then you got upset and started being insulting because I actually used the contact information you gave me. That’s not right, and you can’t blame me for that.

I hope to hear from you soon

I really hope to hear from you soon. I’m not looking for an argument or a fight. Believe it or not, we’ll both feel a lot better once we actually talk.

Im not mad or angry or upset. I just want to talk about everything

Also, I have a few gifts for you, that id like to discuss with you when you’re ready

Not an immediate gift, but something over the long term

I also want to say…Ive never treated you like a little girl. You’ve always been strong to me, I’ve always admired you and I know eventually you’ll do great things. You (and everyone else) can laugh all you want but I know that no one understands you better than me. And no one understands me better than you…

Why I have to say all of this

As I’ve said before, I’m not mad — but I need to get all of this out. It isn’t fair for me to have to keep this inside while you live in Sarala-la-la-land, pretending you’re perfect.

And yes, using someone, accepting their money and then insulting them and disappearing IS a form of pretending you’re perfect

But despite all this, I still love you, and I know you’re a good person. I know you don’t feel good about how you acted, which is why you’re hiding. But you don’t have to hide, Sarala. As I said we will BOTH feel better once we talk and discuss all of this, I promise.

I’m not angry, and despite everything, under no circumstance will I stop, or give up on you.

Ever.

Sweet dreams, sweet girl

(Yours, and no one else’s)