“A fight is going on inside me,” said an old man to his son. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you.”

The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The old man replied simply, “The one you feed.”

Admittedly, this isn’t much fun in the here and now. But it goes some way to explain why I wasn’t around much in january, my new job was full on and I felt as though I had to work twice as hard to prove myself. In February I had money worries, which is why I refused to put the Fiji holiday you wanted on my credit card and opted for a Valentines buffet instead. In March, it was the house and the decorating and landcsaping that I needed to work on. Then in April and May I Had my fiitness Drive. June to September that was work again. October I basically hibernated, once again trying to save money. November and December were a whirlwind of trouble. mostly the same- work more work, work And in January? I had a brand new entry at the top of my anxiety list

To be precise, that’s you- in tears, on the sofa last night, telling me you want to be with someone who puts you first. Which, to follow your logic would mean someone who isn’t me. This wasn’t a threat. You weren’t angry. It was just a plain, true, mumbled between the mouth and the true statement of fact. Sleeping in the spare room, alone, all my other worries seemed dwarfed by the possibility of losing you. So, after laying awake all night, my head buzzing with worry and my eyes stinging with a lack of sleep, I’ve realised I have been wrong

So i’m writing this letter as a promise that, even if the world begins to crumble to bits around me. I am going to try and put you first. Because without you, the future doesnt mean very much at all.

I’ve thought a lot about you in that time. The more I’ve thought the more I’ve come to feel that I was unfair to you. I probably should have been a better, fairer person when it came to the way I treated you.

This may not be the most normal way to look at things though. Girls my age never use the word “fair”. Ordinary girls such as I are indifferent to whether things are fair or not. The central question for them is not whether something is fair but whether or not it is beautiful and will make them happy. “Fair” is a mans word, finally, but I can’t help feeling that it is exactly the right word for me now.

In any case though, I believe that I have not been fair to you, and that as a result I must have led you around in circles and hurt you deeply. In doing so, however, I have led myself in circles and hurt myself just as deeply. I say this not as an excuse or a means for self-justification but because it is true. If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. So please try not to hate me- I am a flawed human being, a far more flawed human being than you realise. Which is precisely why I do not want you to hate me. Because if you were to do that, I really would go to pieces. I can’t do what you do, I can’t slip inside my shell and wait for things to pass. I don’t know for a fact that you are really like that, but sometimes you give me that impression. I often envy that in you, which may be why I led you in circles so much.

This may be an overly-analytical way of looking at things. Don’t you agree? The way I am here, like it or not, you become more or less analytical. “this was caused by that and this means this, because of which such-and-such”. Like that. I can’t tell whether this kind of analysis is trying to simplify the world or complicate it.