email to Josh

I listened to all of you, and what you told me about Josh, and I thought about it, and I tried to integrate it into something I could understand and really believe in, and then I emailed Josh explaining it all to him. I really feel like I did the right thing in writing this email. Not the easy thing, no way. But definitely the right one.

hi josh. i'm just going to spill to you everything that i'm thinking and explain the whole situation from my point of view.
first of all, when i couldn't talk to you anymore, i had to really rethink my whole life and my philosophy about life. it had been really centered around you. i thought that if you were gone, i had no reason to live, no reason to grow or subsist or anything. everything i'd ever believed kinda fell apart, including religion. i had start from zero ground.
i read a lot. i read a lot of philosophy, from plato to nietzsche. i searched very diligently for truth, and i prayed for revelation. i didn't really know if i believed in our religion at that point, but like i said i started from the bottom, so i read and thought until i realized that i did believe in God, and everything just started evolving in that fashion.
so i started over, and i did everything i could to try to start developing a life philosophy that didn't center around you. i seriously questioned my spirtuality, and i discovered that i do believe in the doctrine of our church, but i really disapprove of many of the ways that it is humanly organized. i think that people should develop truths and then search for religions that match those truths. i don't think missionaries should shove religious views on people; i think they should explain to them how to develop their own spirituality and then have faith that if these people are really searching for the truth they will end up at mormanism. there are still a few issues i have spiritually, but having read a lot and prayed a lot, i've sort of arrived at a deep integral spirituality that is much more than just a flat religion. (you should read 'a theory of everything' by the way. it really pulled things together for me, especially after reading so much philosophy).
after reading a lot of philosophy, i developed my own personal philosophy that related most of all to existentialism. i really believe the psychological philosophy i developed (based ironically mostly on sartre), which is basically that most people aren't aware of their true motives and they just buy the cultural conscious motives people tell them rather than deeping into their subconsciuos for the real reasons for their actions. i think that existentialist philosophers have really delved into the subconscious and liberated themselves in that way. i don't like what sartre does with trying to make existentialism a philosophy though; i just view it as a method of philosophizing, much like nietzsche and kierkegaard did. i think that people need to arrive upon their own truths if they are to truly develop an integral, comprehensive understanding of life and the world in its entirety. up until this point in my life, i had bought cultural truths and relationship ideals. when i couldn't talk to you and i had a lot of time on my hands, i was forced to really think about all of these things and realize that i really had no conviction in any sort of truth. i'm still working to develop my unique philosophy, but it is definitely emerging.
i had to rethink all of my abuse, and my concepts of blame, and whose fault things are. it is hard for me because i have always had a hard time placing blame on people. for instance i have a hard time blaming my mom for what she did, because i know that people abused my mom, and i know that people abused the people that abused my mom, and i have a hard time finding a primary mover that is entirely culpable. therefore, in my confusion of where to lay the blame, i have blamed myself mostly. now, after reading psychology and thinking about sartre, i have decided that people are entirely accountable for their actions. i know the judicial system wouldn't work if we did the same sort of psychological analyzing that i have been doing. we simply have to assume that people have agency. however, this view of mine is also still under construction, and i am thinking about it a lot.
i have realized that past all of my doubts, my core philosophy is simply that of love. i am opposed of violence in any way, and i believe that God is mainly about love. the only commandment people really need is to love all humanity. the other commandments follow. i think that this should be the core of anyone's spirtuality. i know i want to join the peace corps and help people. i know i want to make a difference in people's lives. i also believe that if we truly loved our neighbors, all of them, we would never abuse them or hurt them in any way. if everyone just observed this main philosophy of love, there wouldn't be much crime. now i'm not sure if humanity is capable of living and operating under such a philosophy, but i do think that it is the core of my every philosophy. i really do love everyone on this earth, no matter what they have done, and therefore i don't think i could ever truly harm them in any significant way.
the main value i have been trying really hard to develop is integrity. i decided it's really, really important to me that i keep my word and live truthfully in every way. no more walls; none of that junk. i want to live honestly and openly. i'm still working on this a lot.
i haven't binged or purged since may. i have been eating a lot, and i have been running 2-4 miles or bikeriding 4-8 miles every single day. i feel healthy and in control. i have become a vegetarian, and that has really helped me feel in control as well. i still feel strong impulses to return to the eating disorder, but i really like this healthy way of life i am living now, way too much to sacrifice it all to going back to misery. it is always easier to be miserable and blame myself and self-injure, but it is worth it, i believe, to do the hard thing, and be healthy.
i haven't self injured since i cut my wrist. my philosophy on this is just like my philosophy on eating. it's time to be healthy.

now the reasons i have been doing all of this- learning to be healthy, developing my own philosophy, fostering a new kind of spirituality- is that i know my life cannot revolve around you. i know that if we are ever to have a healthy relationship, i need to take these actions to be healthy completely independently of you, and for reasons entirely other than our relationship. i am doing these things because i love myself, and it's truly time for me to be healthy in a way i have always been afraid of. it scares me a lot, but i think it's a good way of living, and it's a good change, and i know i can do it. so i'm not doing any of this for you. i am doing it for myself, and so i can live a happy, healthy life no matter what happens to me.

that being said, i still love you incredibly much and think about you 24-7. i care about you and i worry about you. i have gotten angry with you, i have been incredibly sad, i have been worried... i have crossed the emotional spectrum ten times over. i know that i can be happy and healthy without you in my life (and it's extremely important to me that i know that), but i also know i want you in my life, and i want to spend forever with you. i know that what i am doing now could make our relationship a billion times better and healthier. i am actually glad that i was forced to develop this life completely separate from you, because i know i'm a much healthier person now. the fact that re-evaluating myself and my life in this fashion will make our relationship that much stronger is an awesome perk.

i mentioned that integrity is extremely important to me now, and i am working on it a lot. this means that i do want to respect my parents' wishes not to communicate with you. i really do want to communicate you, so my respect for their wishes is entirely separate from my personal desires. i am trying to think if there is any way i can honestly still communicate with you, but i can't think of anything at the moment. actually, i have one idea, but i don't know if it will work. i am surely going to have my dad call yours quite soon. please have your father be completely honest with mine.

i know that what i am doing is also what you need to do in order to eventually have a healthy relationship, what with the developing a life philosophy completely separate from our relationship. i know that you are accountable for your actions. the problems that you were having when we last spoke i think are my most immediate concerns; i don't think it's okay for you to be self-injuring, or abusing your brother (or letting him abuse you), or drinking, or touching girls inappropriately in ways they do not wish to be touched. i think you need to take complete accountability for those actions. and i think that before we can ever be healthy together, you really, really need to undergo the process i have undergone this summer of creating a life that you can live and be happy in whether i'm in it or not. i know that if you do this, and you reach the same point in your life that i have reached, in which you want our relationship back very badly, but you still have a healthy existence without it, then we can begin to have the healthy relationship that we have never had. it's important to me, though, that our relationship move in a healthy direction.

you can reply to this email, and in fact i want you to reply, but keep in mind that i do intend to respect my parents' wishes in the long term, both because i value my integrity, and because i know that if you have time to grow in the ways i have grown (time separate mostly from me), we could have an amazing relationship. that isn't hard for me to say. all i really immediately want right now is to be with you and hold you and tell you that we can do it all together. but we can't, not until we can both exist healthily on our own. and i *know* that.

all of that said, i still love you, yes, to the infinite power. i am doing pretty well. i miss you (also to the infinite power), but i know that who i have become since our communication was cut off is a really healthy person. i'm ready to be healthy. i hope you are too, whatever it takes.