I recently learned that someone I almost married shortly after I graduated high school died last year. It's been a strange thing to digest. I realized I had some unresolved feelings from that relationships that I needed to cope with. When he asked me to marry him I let him down in a pretty ... not very sensitive way. I knew he was serious about the proposal, but I was young and confused and insenstive and awkward... so I didn't ... go about things the right way. Afterwards he ghosted me before "ghosting" was a term (at least to my understanding). This was before smartphones, and just at the cusp before cell phones and social media were ubiquiotous throughout our culture. He ghosted the fuck out of me. Changed his phone number. His email addresses. His MySpace disappeared. He also moved to another state. I know that last bit because he tracked me down and reached out to me years later, at a time when I was in another relationship and he was soon to be wed to someone else, and after a brief chat to catchup he said, "i wanted to tell you... I really wanted marry you, you know...". I hadn't even thought about him much since he ghosted me, after the inital months of confusion and sadness and bitterness wore off. But ever since he reached out and told me that... he stuck in my mind... and I've looked him up online about once a year for the past 10 years, just to see how he's doing... And this last time I looked him up, I found his obituary... And I got high the other night and was thinking about this and something clicked. It clicked how much I probably hurt him. I never realized how much I actually hurt him back then. I was too self-centered and self-absorbed. It was strange and not really right for him to propose to someone who was just out of high school... I was about to turn 19... so young... so I guess maybe in a sense he set himself up for that potential hurt, being serious about someone at that age (he was 3.5 years older than me, we'd been friends for years)... He went to war in Iraq. Got injured really badly. Spent months in a hospital. It was shortly before he was supposed to be leaving the hospital he asked me to marry him. And I'm not reflecting on all this out of like... regret... of course saying no to him was the right thing to do. But... I regret that I never told him I was sorry for how I handled things. For hurting him so calously. By the time he reached out years after the fact, I should have realized how much I'd hurt him, and that was my chance to apologize. But I was still so immature at that time still, I didn't realize... even up till recently... only recently did it click... He carried that shit with him... for years... and felt compelled to find me tell me before he married someone else that he was still carrying that... He was looking for some closure... And I was still so self-centered I didn't realize it even then. I didn't even say sorry for the callous letdown. 

I'm sorry I hurt you. I hope you are at peace now.

He eventually did get married. To a girl who actually looked somewhat like me. He certainly had a type I supose. They had 3 kids together. Now she's a single mother...

I have a feeling he killed himself. He struggled a lot with his mental health, then went to war, got injured... got worse... <3 I hope you are at peace.


Also recently had it really set in how toxic my mother is and how deeply it's affecting my life. I've always "known" this but something like toxic parents can affect your life in an insidious way... You can end up with some major issues in your life, or shitty fucked up relationships, and not really know what the hell is going wrong or why. But again... got high the other night ... and had an epiphany... about how the toxic habits of my mother are something that, as I have been talkign to her more on the phone since the car accident 5 months ago, has started to seep into my own behavior... and even before then... And affect my relationship with my partner... Just in how I talk to him, how I react to things, how I frame issues... so unhealthy... Realizing this on a visceral level instead of just the old "I had a fucked up childhood" story is important, and I can feel I'm arriving at that place, so I can hopefully start to really do something about these toxic behaviors I have inheirited, and save my relationship (so long as he can do the work he needs to do as well) and just... be happier and more well. 


<3