I need to write about what happened, but this isn't for you

So at the end of August, my ex effectively terminated any and all positive feelings I may have had towards him. He send me the nastiest fucking email I've ever read, and the only way I can make sense of it is that he wanted me to hurt like he did (this was out of character and was why I had posted in September that I wasn't going to do this anymore). Accused me of hurting him on purpose. Referenced a whiny Alanis Morisette song. Accused me of "replacing" him (my breakup with him had exactly nothing to do with Redbeard, and that's the last I'll mention of him in this post). And I've been furious about it.

Let me be clear- the fury comes and goes. Seeing him on campus sends me into a rage, especially in the science buildings. It's like- get out, these are my buildings, I am the science one, you need to fucking leave.

The whole thing was extremely childish. He knows I never meant to hurt him, I gave him sincere apologies, and if he didn't want to believe them, there's nothing I could do. I did not owe it to him to help get over the breakup with me, that was not my job as a friend, you did not have the right to learn about the new things happening in my life in regards to relationships because I knew they would hurt you. So you went on here, read that I had found somebody new, and instead of seeing the entry where I had written that the last thing you deserved was to be hurt, you thought that my finding somebody new instantly meant I thought nothing of you. Which is the most selfish, ridiculous thing I've ever heard. That wasn't what was happening, but you had to make it alllll about you, didn't you?

I've been sitting and stewing on this a lot lately, which is how I know I'm probably going to be rid of it soon. I'm so angry that you got to hurt me and have the final word, but I wasn't about to sink to your level, and I'm still not going to. I'm mad at you, and I have every right to be. You lashed out to purposefully hurt me and did not apologize. I tried misguidedly to protect you and apologized for it many times. I am sorry I hurt you, but that wasn't my intention, but your intention with that email was absolutely to hurt me. You wanna think about that for a minute? What that says?

Like, congratulations! You decided to act like a kindergartener with the logic of "you hurt me, so instead of being the bigger person, I'm going to hurt you back." There were a MILLION better ways to burn this bridge. You could have said "I'm sorry, we can't be friends anymore, I can't do this anymore, I don't want to talk about it, don't talk to me again." That would have stung, but it would have stung less than deciding to lodge yourself, in the shape of a knife, firmly between my shoulder blades. I'm still trying to fucking heal and I hate you for that. It seems clear from the time I saw you following that other girl to the class after mine that you've moved on.You took all your pain and inability to heal and dumped it on me instead. How thoughtful of you. I wanted to grab that girl and warn her- stay away from him, you want to hear what he did to me?

Look, I'm sorry we didn't talk much. I didn't know what to say. Maybe I should have explained that to you, but you could also not have jumped to the conclusion that I hated you. I mean, what the fuck? "We don't talk much anymore. Is there a reason for that?" would have been, y'know, the adult thing to do. Like, oh my GOD, dude, what the hell??

You know what's funny? I still wonder what your mom thinks. Whether you told her this entire drawn out story and made her hate me, or whether she saw what was really going on and is disappointed in you for sinking to such a pathetic level as to attempt to hurt me for what I "did" to you. I'll never know. That makes me sad. It's not like I haven't debated sending her your email on facebook, just to see if she knew about it or not. But it's better not to. I don't want you to know that I even exist anymore.

Furthermore, I don't want to know anything else about your life. I don't want to know if you've met some other girl, I don't want to know if you're still miserable, I don't want to know if you still go to our school, if you're still getting a degree, if you're still in this city. I want you out, out, out. It's like sucking out the poison from a snake wound, even if I'm told that's what you're not supposed to do. All my memories of you are poison now, and you did that. Congratulations. You hurt another human being. Are you happy with yourself?

Are you proud of yourself now? Does this make you happy? Is this what you wanted? Is this who you wanted to be?

I've been sitting on this entry for ages. I feel like I can't rant to anyone. Writing about it privately doesn't help. I need to get this OUT, I need to be free of it. I don't want to be bothered by it anymore. I am so done. This is old news. This is annoying. This hurt has no place in my life anymore, and I am trying my very best to be at peace with it.

I know you'll never read this; I don't want you to. This isn't for you. This is just... a public declaration to the world. On this blog, I've always found it comforting that anyone could read this, even if no one did. It's the could that helps me, heals me. I'm hoping this post will allow me to let go, let all this hurt float away into the sky like a balloon until it bursts somewhere high and far away from here, and is no more. I guess posting this feels like revealing evidence. Our relationship got rough near the end, and I made some mistakes, and I'm sorry. I told you that and I meant it. I did not meant to hurt you. I guess you didn't believe me.

Honestly, I could fill this post with a million nasty thoughts. But I don't want to do that. Those thoughts are very obviously private- they're not something you air out in public. Sometimes we don't like other people, sometimes we want to hurt them because they have hurt us. But I'm trying to do what you couldn't-be the bigger person. So I'm sorry I hurt you. I hope the rest of your life is.. I dunno. OKish. Whatever. Just leave me alone.We're not friends anymore, and I'm not going to forgive you and let you back into my life. We're just done. That's it. The End, as your email was so dramatically titled. The end.

-swegan

Letters (a fun 700th post!)

I saw this thing on tumblr. People are supposed to put one in the ask box and then you write a letter, but I thought hey, this would be an interesting blog post. Y'know, if people are interested in reading about my life. And then we reach this conundrum again, and I realize there is no obligation for me to blog about anything else. Besides, I'm between the ages of 15 and 25. These are the years when I'm supposed to be self centered, so why not run with it?

Dear Person I hate,
I hate you.
-Swegan

Dear Person I like,
I'm going to assume this is a person I admire as a person. And okay, so, I don't know how you're this great, I don't know how it's possible for someone to have a heart of gold. You have been there for me always, and I know I haven't fully returned the favour, and that weighs on my heart. You are one of those people I feel eternally lucky to know, and if I can, I'd like to hang on to you for as long as possible, because you are a constant source of light and goodness in my life.
-Swegan

Dear ex boyfriend,
Well, I think we're becoming friends, anyway. Or at least civil, or at least we can hang out and talk about stuff. You are still not the first person I go to when I am bored or sad or lonely and I doubt you ever will be again, but I sincerely hope we can get along and be some kind of friends again, because it seems like underneath you are a decent person, and it seems like you are deciding to bring that out. I wish you the best of luck with your future, and I hope that our friend group becomes stronger now that it's been two years.
-Swegan

Dear ex girlfriend,
Well, you don't actually exist, because I've never dated a girl. Maybe there'll be one of these in the future, I really can't say. But I hope we're at least civil.
-Swegan

Dear ex bestfriend,
I really don't know what motivated you to unfriend two of the people you were closest to on facebook. To me, that seems... rude, almost. I can't say I'm surprised, given how much you blew us off, and I can't say I'll miss your condescension towards me. Everyone treated me like an innocent lamb, but you were definitely one of the worst about it. Good luck with the career you've chosen, and I hope your new friends make you happy. I can't wish bad luck upon you, even though what you did still stings a little.
-Swegan

Dear Santa,
I'd really like to believe you exist because Christmas is one of those times of year that I feel like magic has to exist somewhere.
-Swegan

Dear mom,
I know we have our issues but I still trust you. I know you don't approve of my boyfriend, but I still value your opinion. Your help and advice and support to me all these years has been absolutely invaluable, and I would not be the person you say you are so proud of today if you had not been there to help me along. Here's to many more years and the joy of knowing that you'll probably be alive to meet any children I may have, and hoping that you will affect them as you did me. I love you.
However, I'd really like you to get off my case about my weight. I'm sick and tired of little comments slipped in when I'm eating "too much" or "badly" and how I am growing "out and not up" and how I need to "be careful." These comments are poison and it's really hard to ignore them. I know you think I'm pretty, but those comments make me feel like I am on the cusp of becoming unpretty, unwanted, someone to be ashamed of rather than proud of. Please, for the love of god, stop.
-Swegan

Dear dad,
If there's anything I hope to have inherited from you besides your intelligence, I hope it's your sense of humor. It's one of my favourite things about you. Like I did for mom, I thank you for all you did to help and support me throughout my life. It means a lot. I love you, too.
-Swegan

Dear future me,
I sincerely hope you are more well adjusted. And happy. I hope that you lived whatever life you wanted to, I hope that you loved passionately and never stopped being ridiculous and stayed friends with good people, that you were and are a good person who tries, even if you may not always succeed. I know you are still a feminist and I sincerely hope that the future you live in is better than this one for that reason.
-Swegan

Dear past me,
You made a lot of stupid decisions but you'll come out all right in the end.
-Swegan

Dear person I'm jealous of,
What, only one person? Ha. I have plenty of people to be jealous of. People who do better than me. People who get better grades, who have more natural talent, who float through life effortlessly, doing everything perfectly, having it all work out for you. Because I am competitive, I am jealous that I'm not the best at anything. I have a desperate need to be the best at something and it eats me up sometimes. But overall, I don't want to be any of you. I know that it's foolish to ask for your lives when mine is perfectly fine, even if I never come out at the front anymore.
-Swegan

Dear person I had a crush on,
Wow, you turned out to be kind of a dick. I mean, I still don't know you that well, and you have another girlfriend now, and I don't hate you. You seem to be just doing life. But your idea of life involves a lot of drinking and going out, and yet somehow also a lot of homework. I couldn't keep up with you, no matter how good looking you are. Thankfully, it is difficult to continue pining for you when a) you are an 8 hour drive away, b) you have a girlfriend now, and c) I now have a boyfriend of my own.

Dear significant other,
I know I say it all the time, but you're great. Really. You might bother me sometimes, with your bizarre factual knowledge of things no one cares about that you bring up in dinner conversations, or how you can correct me pretty much all the time, but I know you're not doing it out of malice. You are too kind of a person for that. I am beginning to think that you are another one of those bizarrely good people I meet and try to hang on to because those kind of people bring nothing but light into your life. I only know one other person like that, and the possibility of having found another is thrilling to me. I think people who read this blog know the kind of people I'm talking about. Not the ones who are so good it's impossible to hate them, but those people who seem to radiate goodness and light without trying, and you wonder why they're friends with you of all people.
Anyway... you've been a rock throughout my first year of university, and you're a good match for me. I know we've only been dating five months, but they've seriously been great. You've proven to be an excellent boyfriend and I am very much looking forward to a future with you in it.
I also miss you greatly. And I love you.
-Swegan

yer pal,
swegan :)

But more importantly, today is Remembrance day

And Remembrance day is very important.

This past easter I had the opportunity to go on a school trip with a couple of history teachers. We visited a lot of battle sites in northern France, all with Canadian ties. We saw Vimy Ridge, the battlefield, tunnels, and memorial, and we saw Beaumont-Hamel, where the Battle of the Somme resulted in the Newfoundland regiment being quite wiped out, and we saw Juno beach, the memorial centre, and the cemetery outside of Arromanches. At that cemetery, we were all given a flower to put at whichever grave we wished as a way to show respect.

Visiting that cemetery isn't easy. It's very hard to walk up and down the rows of graves, reading the name and age of each soldier, reading the epitaphs someone wrote for them. I placed my flowers at the grave that finally made me cry.

B.147929 Private
R.J. Neault
The North Nova Scotia
Highlanders
Le 8 Julliet 1944 Age 23
Our son and brother

Never a father to be
Sacrificial child

After being able to see these places, see how the scars of wars are still there even 100 years later, Remembrance day takes on a very different meaning. Those wars were fought so long ago, and although learning about them in school gives them their own kind of significance, I'm very grateful that I had the privilege to be able to go and see where those battles were fought, because it really puts everything in new perspective. It feels more real to me now that I've seen the places where those people fought and died so long ago, so that I enjoy the rights I have today.

After that visit, I think of those people much more often. Because of those wars, because of the people who fought in them, I enjoy the right to obtain an education, to work in whatever field I choose, to live where I want, to freely express myself in words and beliefs, to criticize my government, to protest, to change the world some more. I think a big part of the reason I love my life so much right now is because of all those privileges- I love being able to live away from home in a big city, being able to attend an excellent university to study biology. I love that I'm able to do that freely, that I'm able to be a feminist, to be critical of the world around me as it applies to women and femininity. I'm grateful that I'm allowed to be an atheist, to believe that the world exists as it is due to chance and physics and universal laws. These things shouldn't be taken lightly, these privileges.

Because I live in a free society, I'm allowed to come home for our long weekend, to dance around to whatever kind of music I want as I pack my suitcase to head back up to school tomorrow, after visiting my old teachers who helped me through the IB program- another privilege (though it didn't always feel like it, I'm very grateful that I had the opportunity to pursue my education that way). And because people fought and died in wars a very long time ago, I live in a free society.

So I guess the right thing to say would be thank you. Although I know many of those soldiers are now dead and thus can't hear my thanks, it's still the right thing to say. If they were alive, I have a feeling they'd be happy to know that they were successful, that because they gave their all, fought, served, and died, their countries remained free. That's an incredible accomplishment, and I'm incredibly thankful that I'm allowed to live in one of the societies protected by those soldiers and doctors and officers and pilots and many other people who fought in long-ago wars.

Thank you.

-swegan