Dear Sir.

(Image by DragonSpark)

Dear Sir,

Emily believes (and I agree with her) that Jane Austen suggests that if you've ever got anything worthwhile to say, you should say it in a letter. I figure that way you will never be misheard, and neither party can feign the opposite.

I wish I would write more often. I used to be able to sort things out in my head when I wrote them down, but somewhere along the line that stopped happening. I think that maybe it's because my life is so full of things I need to consider. I make sure that there's always something happening. I need for there to always be something to talk about. I can't stand the silence.

On nights like these everything seems to stop. There's nothing to do. No – there's nothing that I want to do. I feel like I could be anywhere in the world right now and I still wouldn't feel the desire to move. I am static.

And then there are those times (the ones that seem to occur more and more often lately) when I feel the urge to just do anything. I want something to happen, and I often get half way through making a change before realising how ridiculous I'm being. I can't count how many times in the past few months I've thrown my phone at the pavement, hoping to smash it into pieces, before sheepishly running to retrieve it. I find myself constantly walking out of rooms; picking a direction and continuing to move until it dawns on me that I have nowhere to go. I can't go back, so I will sit in a park, in a primary school, on a street corner, at a bus stop until my fingers are numb and my nose is running and I know I have no choice but to go home. Today I went into a pet shop with every intention of buying a particular animal. They had just sold the last of them, and I walked out asking myself what I was thinking. I can barely take care of myself, let along another living creature.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be okay. Sometimes that's fine. I can live with that. But other times it's not. I feel useless and the weight of my worries seeps out to touch the people around me. I don't know how to stop that from happening – and it really shouldn't. Because you don't have to think about the things that I do. What sense is there in both of us being unhappy, when it's only one of us who really needs to be?

I'm a pusher. I poke and prod at you constantly with no particular intention. I don't know why I do it. Maybe I want proof. Proof that you really do like me and that you're not going to leave. I can tell myself over and over again that you are my friend, that you have no ulterior motives, that I can trust you, but I still feel the need to test. I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. Most of the time you treat me better than I treat myself.

Yes, I'm a pusher, but I've been told that what I need is for someone to push back. Someone who says, “No, I want answers. You will explain this to me,” and who doesn't back down when I'm mad or when I try to shut myself away. Sometimes I need so much just to speak and to cry and to trust that you won't think that this is all that I am. I can't stop the darkness from spilling out, but it is my hope that one day I will exhaust myself. There will be nothing left of that time and I will be able to move on. It's not fair of me to expect so much from someone who owes me so little, but I won't be able to do this alone. I can't wait to be empty.

I know that I'm running out of time. I can feel my grip slipping. If this doesn't happen soon I will leave you behind and it will never be fixed. I can't say that I know what I will do to myself if that happens. Removal has always been the answer, but I still haven't decided what to cut.

Yours always, Elisa.