post-modern anxiety

i want to leave you.

i don't really know how to talk about it: how to sit down in front of you to explain myself without completely losing the ability to speak at all. i feel like i'm not heard, or seen, or valued beyond someone who just cooks and cleans. i don't remember the last time i felt valued. most days, it feels like we're only still together out of convenience. there's no romance left, there's no affection. most nights, we don't even sleep in the same room. you fall asleep in the living room so often that when you come to bed, i feel like you're intruding. that's not fair. it was your bed first.

once, i was obsessed with you. visiting your house during all my free time, staying up late to answer your texts. it always starts like that. it always feels like the new love phase will last forever. sometimes i feel like it's me - like i'm incapable of forming a long-term connection with somebody else, like i make it hard to love me somehow. i suppose i do. i'm too grumpy, or sensitive, or forgetful. my brain doesn't work like yours. i've spent so much time trying to pretend it did.

i don't know how to tell you i want to leave you. i want to feel validated; i want to have a single conversation without it becoming an argument. you're opinionated. i feel like i'm constantly trying to prove myself. i feel like everything i say will just be critiqued, and so maybe i should just stick to saying nothing. maybe saying nothing would be easier than being constantly questioned.

it's noisy. it always sounds noisy, even when the only noise is inside my head. living with you is noisy, and i'm always on edge. wanting to leave makes me feel guilty, and hanging around makes me feel guiltier. it's a waste of both our time: and i can't seem to stop myself. i don't know what happened, though. i don't know how i went from wanting to spend every waking hour with you to dreaming of being alone.

if i left, i don't know where i'd go. maybe that's the biggest thing holding me back. i could say i'm afraid of being alone, but i don't think that's true. mostly, i'm afraid of wasting spending my time with people who don't value me the way i deserve to be valued. i don't know if you love me (you don't act like it). i don't know if i mean anything more to you than a housewife who feeds you and cleans up after you. you deserve to be with someone you're not uncertain about: i'm not the girl i was when we met, and you don't like boys.

it's hard to be true to yourself when you spend every waking hour thinking about how others will feel about it. i'm too old to cater to the needs of others before myself. i'm too much of a people pleaser to stand up for myself. i don't want to spoken about by others who know me only from the outside, whose perspectives of me have been based entirely off of what you tell them. i don't mind being disliked by others. i've spent far too much time being disliked by myself.

i want to start fresh.

change my name.

be known to others only as who i am now, and not who i was in the past.

i want to feel like my feelings matter, and not as though they're a burden on others. i feel as though the past three years have gone past in a blur. and i really can't put a finger on the moment i realized i didn't love you anymore. you deserve to be loved. wholly, often, in ways i'm no longer capable of loving you. i deserve to be loved in this way, too.

will you be ashamed of me when i'm a man? will you refuse to acknowledge the possibility of being attracted to me?

i'm tired. tired of hiding. tired of pretending. tired of feeling on edge in my own living space. tired of being the topic of discussion by people who can't mind their business, who are not affected at all by my life. i'm doing my best to make myself at home in my body, and i worry about how this will affect you (when the reality is it has nothing to do with you at all). i feel lost, truthfully. i feel there's nowhere to go outside of here. i don't know how much longer i can stifle parts of myself to appease you.

i'm not who you thought i was. there's a sense of mourning that comes with moving on. maybe to some, there's a sense of mourning that comes with saying goodbye to the old me - though i've never mourned this. i'm not your idea of the perfect partner, and i'm okay with this. years ago, it would have torn me up inside. you used to be my safe space: my comfort, my home. now you make me feel as anxious as anyone else does.

i've come much too far.

too far to let insecurities and gossip get under my skin. and yet, they still get under my skin. i don't know why i care. i've always cared too much.