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Scout on Disconnect/Letters

 

I wrote you a letter, but you never responded. I guess I could summarize it here, but you might not be able to get the original sentiment. It’s more of the fact that I can’t remember exactly how I felt when I wrote it, or what I felt that entire year, to be honest. I know who was there and, most importantly, who wasn’t, and that I was absent, at least mentally. Sometimes I look back and wonder what would have happened if I weren’t me, if I did things like all the people around me, who everyone says are more reasonable and level-headed. The truth is that I’m sorry about how I treated you. You never deserved to be ignored or taken for granted, but I can’t say that you didn’t set it up for yourself. Watching those people trample you and waiting so long to leave, it was as if you thought you couldn’t do better. Maybe you couldn’t, and maybe you still can’t, but there has to be more out there. If you weren’t so angry and rash all the time, then- no, I didn’t mean that, not completely. You can’t help it, I know, and you try, sure, but I don’t think it's enough. You’re not soft enough for a woman, at least. Not when you need to make up for your less-than-perfect looks- well, you’re pretty enough, but there are so many more beautiful than you out there- it’s more of needing to be able to compete- well, it isn’t a competition, but you know what I mean. You need to have something people want for them to respect you, and everything they need for them to love you. I think I wrote to you about that, to help you figure out what it was you were missing before they started to forget about you. By the time I finished writing, though, I realized that it was never about everyone else, but about what you thought of yourself. Even if they all lay at your feet, you would find something wrong in yourself, or remember the mistakes that haunt you, no matter how many times you learn from them. Make me proud, is what I want to tell you, but really, I want you to make yourself proud, or the version of yourself that knows what she wants. Sometimes I look at pictures of you from long ago and wish you could go back to that person, blissfully ignorant of the cogs of life and the way they turn out of your control. But I know that it isn’t really you, because all that anger and insecurity is what created you, no matter how hopeless you may be. I am sorry that you can’t be better to yourself, and even more sorry that I still pretend that you are someone else.


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