“Letting You Go”

You broke a spell for me. 

It knocked my winds out like a bad soccer game. And the shock somehow short-circuited the script that was programmed into me. 

It was the shock of truth. 

I was acting like Samantha from Sex and the City, a friend told me I reminded him of Cookie Lyon from Empire or some pathetically weak version of Sleeping Beauty in Anne Rice’s The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. 

Thank you for having the courage to tell me the truth of who I had become. 

I’m my own worst enemy. I’m an alcoholic. A self-loathing, judgemental, bitter, alcoholic. When you wanted to run away, I knew it was for self-protection. Even when I read your email and made you wrong for it, somewhere deep inside, I knew that what you said about me is true. 

That one line:

“You are a bad and sick person. I know who you are. Stay away.”

I had turned into a femme fatale.

And you had sniffed it out and called it out.

I was the emperor with no clothing and you were the boy who called it out.

It was like a prick in a bloated blimp that was my ego, my persona, my life-life (as Dr. Jordan Peterson would describe it). I hurt men. Like a siren. Enough is not good enough when they gave me their hearts. The things that may sometimes come out of my mouth are evil–self-righteous, self-centered, self-serving ego. 

You just took that sharp tongue of yours and pierced through my delusional thinking. I was brought back to my senses once again. I had blacked out in Oregon. Another drink, another delusional attempt to fit my life into normalcy when I had just walked away from you. I had told you that I was leaving LA for good, traveling the world, saya -nara. 

I was really escaping you. It would just be easier to scare you away because I knew all the right things to say to scare a man off. It’s my tactic. It’s called Crazy Speak. I knew it like an actor would know it’s lined when playing the serial killer. I knew exactly what to say, how to say it, and push you away. It was the easy thing to do.

The hard thing to do would be to tell you the truth. The truth is I am the wizard on the Oz land of Love Story. That I can build a business, an online persona, and a life-lie of this amazing super woman who has multiple skills of craft, who have survived some hard stuff, and started a philanthropy designed to inspire hope and love, and the shadow side to this truth is also that I am an addict, a love avoidant, a workaholic that is terrified of commitment and intimacy, and a manic depressive who copes with her highs and lows behind a camera, a computer screen clicking away at the keyboard, a cute dress, and with liquid numb numb to chase the next hair of the dog. And when it came to getting intimate with you, I had used the project itself to project my wounds onto you so that I can push you away.

It was just easier to push you than to receive you. I am a true feminine acting like a masculine so I don’t have to see myself so weak, submissive, and obsessed with you. I found myself doing things just so I can please you. What happened to my Nomadic Matt world travel plans?

They say what profits a man to gain the world and lose his soul? 

I say what profits a woman if she gains power and loses love?

I headed back to LA because I realized that I was running away from love. Fear of #13. I was leaving the scene of the two of us working together, laughing together, and making something of our lives. That day my best friend and you were all sitting together in that Korean cafe, it was one of the most blissful moments in my thirties. 

I told you I was leaving LA for good. I told you I needed to see the world before I die. You told me I didn’t play fair. You were just getting your feet grounded here. I’ve been here for 30 years and you’ve been here for less than one. And I acted like I couldn’t wait for you. Well, I can, and I shall. 

When you said stay away, your instincts were right. I was becoming if not already a femme fatale, and I was behaving in ways that acted like one. I had already written the ending of our script before it had even begun. And that was not fair. 

I’m sorry, Rylie. 

I hope one day you can forgive me. I know you felt deeply about me, more than you had cared to admit. 

Thank you for speaking truth and simplifying my life. 

Thank you for treating me like a lady, for taking your sweet time with me, for being thoughtful and careful. 

I love the way you strum on the guitar. You are sensitive, deep, and poetic. 

If I can’t get grounded and get my life together than I would rather leave you alone so that your artistry and sense of self is grounded and will bloom rather than if I were ungrounded and run the risk of ever hurting you. I love you enough to let you go.

This is my way of apologizing and now letting you go (for reals, for reals this time), but I’m keeping my door open should you choose to forgive me and start as friends again. This time, I promise I’ll let you lead and be the man, and I will learn humility, tame my own shrew, and support you in any way I can.

I’m also getting help now.