Posted by: Alex
I found you 6 and a half years ago. You were young and enthusiastic. A blank canvas, if you will. We started out slowly, just getting to know each other and having some fun. I could tell you were an anxious type from the start, but it was something I thought you would grow out of as we built our confidence together.
Time passed, and we started getting more serious. People started to notice your raw talent. Not typically handsome, you have an elegance about you that is rarely found. Such talent from an unlikely source, we were itching to see how you would mature and grow.
Things ran quite smoothly for a while, but you never did truly settle down. As the going got tougher your anxiety increased. I didn’t know how to help you. Then we had the accident. I take full responsibility for that – I should have known better. I pushed you too far. We both took months to recover from the physical damage: your broken rib, my torn muscles, but those paled in comparison to the mental scars we probably still carry with us. Nursing you back to health helped heal the rift between us, slowly you started to trust me again, weather you have completely forgotten I’ll never know.
People still admired you and noticed how talented you were, but now they also started noticing your issues. You started to get a reputation as difficult. To be fair, there is nothing mean about you, but you just can’t ever relax. Others started to write you off as no good: all the talent in the world means nothing if you can’t realize that potential. I stood by you though. I was determined to help you realize your full potential. I did it as much for you as for me, I needed to prove to myself and the world that I wasn’t a quitter, that I wouldn’t bail out when the going got tough.
Over time I started to lower my expectations of you. I began to realize that whatever goes on in your head would always stand in the way of you being all that you could have been. Still, I was still dedicated to helping you achieve your best within these limitations.
Lately I’m not so sure. I need to start making other plans. I won’t abandon you ever, but there are things I want to achieve too, before I’m too old or life gets in the way. I love you like a child, a frightened and damaged child that I feel compelled to look after. I don’t resent that, but I also realize that things would be so much easier with another. One who is more confident, less afraid of the world around him. I feel like my time with you has earned me that. With you every victory is hard won, and there is joy in that, but nothing is ever easy.
When you are on your supplements life seems more manageable for you, but then there are days like today. Days when you are so wound up that even the air around you seemed to cause you distress, when I can do nothing to soothe you, and I grow frustrated with you, as well as with myself for not being able to help you deal with whatever it is that’s upsetting you.
I wanted to prove to everyone that they were wrong about you. I have spent so much time and energy defending you, I stand up for you because I’m afraid that if I don’t, no-one will. But then I have dreams where you die, and I’m sad, but I’m also relieved that I don’t have to do that anymore, I can stop swimming upstream, stop worrying about you, stop fighting, just relax for a while…
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
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