Past. Present. Future.

*TW Language. Depression. Suicidal Ideation. Depression.

To: PAST

Subject: FUCK YOU

Sender: PRESENT

CC: FUTURE

I am writing this letter from a place of anger and disgust. I am enraged when I think about just how much you have robbed from me. I get even more incensed when I realize that you never cared. You never factored me into your decision-making at all. You seemed to just run roughshod over everything in front of you, without any sort of cognitive consideration at all. Who I was to you then, was just fiction. It was clear that you never believed in me, and you certainly never expected that we would someday meet. But now, here I am, as if I were born just to bear the weight of your actions. I'll never forget the day where we first crossed paths. You were at your lowest moment, and together we polished our guns, prepared to end the entanglement we both knew was coming before it even started. I watched as you put that gun barrel into your mouth, feathering your finger on the trigger. I saw your body tense up, your eyes clench shut, and in that moment we were both prepared for what happened next. But you didn't do it. You didn't do it because of me. Because I stepped up and convinced you I could help you find strength and lead you from that darkness. I really hate the exorbitant amount of fucking faith I put in myself. I wish I had just let you die. I have little doubt that things would be far better if I had....mainly because they can't get any worse. Instead, I did the worst possible thing I could for a man who had as many shortcomings as you did. I gave you faith.

Off you went with your newfound faith, determined to conquer the world. But you were new to faith, you weren't strong in its foundation, and so you placed it in all of the wrong things. There was life in you for the first time in a long time, and I watched with bated breath to see what you would do with it. But the world is a cruel place, and you in your stubborn fashion went charging in with no back-up plan. As a result, you ran smack into the wall called reality. The resulting shockwave from the impact broke you. Your faith, your resolve, and your will, were all broken. I pleaded for you to get help, but your pride would not allow for it. Arrogantly, you self diagnosed and self medicated. Your prescriptions were bottles of whiskey, applied directly to your face hole until you could no longer feel the angst, nor hear me pleading for you to stop. Your despair burned bright, and you burned down everything around you. Family, friends, lovers. You burned through jobs and relationships with a vengeance. It became an endless cycle. The hate and self loathing led to the drinking, and the drinking amplified the hate and self loathing. And now, because of your actions, I am the one left here, cold, broken, and alone. Because of you, I am isolated in my misery, surrounded by people who can only see me for who you were. And now you're gone. Like a coward you tucked tail and disappeared while I was left here wishing I had let you pull that trigger...for both of us. I hate you for what you have done to me. You have dragged me to the edge, and now I must be the one to make the decision that you failed to. To end this suffering. It is a choice I never wanted to make, but it is the place I have now found myself, because of you.

Rot in Hell prick.

-Present-

To: PRESENT

Subject: RE: FUCK YOU

Sender: FUTURE

I understand that there are some hard feelings between the two of you. Given your current plight, your anger seems reasonable. What you cannot seem to fathom in your state of maturity and introspection, is that all hope is not lost. There is still a life to be salvaged from the depths of your despair. I find it ironic really, in that the same things that tempted Past, those same things that plague you now Present, are the very things that have made me so strong. The lessons we have all endured have been hard, and there is no doubt that Past took many missteps along the way that make your existence seem overburdened. It is certainly difficult to awake in a moment and realize that if Past had behaved differently, your life might have been much simpler. The "Would be/ Should be" game is a treacherous one. In all the wisdom you have gleaned from watching Past unfold his path with such rash brevity, I find it curious that you seem to have missed the point. Past made those missteps because you were not there to guide him. He could not see what he may one day become. The world around him had devolved into meaningless madness. The social pressures created a mental grindstone which dulled the senses. For whatever reason, mentalities like "YOLO," which stripped down any and all belief in a meaningful future, dominated the culture. The onus had shifted to "living for the moment" forcing people to live under the assumption that if they did not do it now, they would not live long enough to get the chance.

So you see, not believing in you was not a choice that Past made. It was made for him, because of what the world taught him. We know that Past was young, he didn't benefit from the wisdom of hindsight. He was raw, powerful, and impulsive. That is the nature of all young things. They live under the false guise of invincibility. The irony of all of this, is that because Past ran headfirst into all sorts of danger, you became wiser, and more self aware. If not for the mistakes of Past, your paths may well have reversed, and you could have been the one to behave rashly in some sort of "mid-life crisis." We do not get to choose to undo the things that made us, all we are able to do is make the most of what we are in this moment. Before you parse your tongue in anger at Past, it would wise to realize the hypocrisy in your attitude. While you are angry that Past lived his life without consideration of you, you are lamenting your situation, and begging for death, which would erase the very existence of me. The pressure and the pain you and Past have both felt is not unique to just yourselves. The only factor that differentiates it, is how you choose to handle it.

To: FUTURE

Subject: RE:RE: FUCK YOU

Sender: PRESENT

So what you're saying is that I have the power to change our fate? I'm not sure I believe in that. I'm not sure I believe in the idea of fate at all. No matter how sweetly you have whispered the promises of a better tomorrow in my ear, I find myself losing the light amidst the cloudy darkness that has consumed my soul. Fate has no place within the reality of men. there are no woven "threads of destiny." I cannot subscribe to the mentality that "what didn't kill me made me stronger." I want to believe that there is a better path, but I need for you to make it make sense. All the cliche's, and the cut-rate religious and spiritual dribble don't reflect what it means to be real. What I want, what I NEED, is to learn how to deal with all of this feel.

Help me.

To: PRESENT

Subject: RE:RE:RE: FUCK YOU

Sender: FUTURE

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," is an utter crock of bullshit. Sometimes the things that don't kill you come so fucking close that they kill parts of you. Those parts never come back. Life is like that sometimes. We don't have control over the actions of the world. We can only control what we do in the aftermath. I know it probably feels like I'm blaming you for your anger, but there is a clear distinction between blame and accountability. You see, you cannot blame yourself for how the actions of Past, or how the actions of the outside world have affected you. Those things are out of your control, nothing you can do will ever change them. But what you can do, what you MUST do, is hold yourself accountable for what happens next. How do you move forward from this moment? You see, we are all shaped in one way or another by the scars of our past selves. It is important to recognize those moments, and give them the acknowledgement they are due. One way or another, in order to move forward in this life, we must pay the ghosts of our past. I can only hope that you and Past are able to reconcile your differences, because it is the only path forward. Hopefully, in the end, we will all finally meet in a calming ocean of peace. Until then, I will be patiently waiting for you.

All my Love,

Future.