Letter from the other side

Dear Mariana,

I hope you don’t cry when you read this, though I can’t demand much of you from where I’m writing. It’s interesting, I find the simple notion of writing to you from here unbelievable. I, who always thought that “here” did not exist.

I want to spy on you when you read this. It’ll be my selfish way of discovering if you really cared about me. I don’t even know why I’m sending this letter to you. What explanations can I give you? I guess you never believed me so scrupulous, or perhaps the right word is cowardly.

The fact is that here I am and, you know what? I don’t regret it. I guess fear took over before I finally blew my brains, as I had fantasized about doing so many times before. So many other times when I didn’t have the backbone to see it through. Or is it cowardice? I’m not sure. When living I always heard that those who committed suicide —what an ugly word— were cowards. That they had given up and that they didn’t want to continue fighting. That they had taken the easiest way out.

Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. And I wasn’t depressed either. Sad, possibly. But, wasn’t it you who said that there was an infinite sadness shining through my eyes? Yes. Sad, probably. A sadness without a cure, chronic, I suppose. Maybe I was depressed. What do I know?

Perhaps I thought I had lived enough. That I had achieved many goals that I never thought I’d accomplish. You are probably thinking how could I be so sure… You are not gonna believe it, but from this side, I can hear people’s thoughts. I can walk among you and listen to what goes through your minds. So, when you think it, I’ll know. Kind of creepy, I realize.

You probably have so many questions. The white light and the memories that strike our conscience the exact moment the last beat departs from our hearts. Heaven or hell. Lost souls, known souls. And why am I still here? Am I in limbo?

I don’t know what to tell you. I wish I could explain that, from this perspective, everything makes more sense. The little things that we worried about in life don’t even exist in this space. I see myself as I was, but I know I am not. I don’t know what I am, I have my memories which are untouched. In fact, I remember them even better than that day, when I turned thirty and I decided I had lived all I wanted to live.

Was I selfish? I don’t know. However, I know it wasn’t a decision I took lightly. It was a decision it took me years to carry out. Perhaps because I always thought there was something else. And, when I met you, I really thought so. ‘The love of my life,’ I told myself. ‘The woman with whom I’d like to have a child’, I assured myself. I was wrong, as we both know.

Perhaps I’m creating this logic to justify this very final act. Irreversible. Maybe I’m afraid to think that thirty years was not enough to achieve my full potential, therefore I justify my actions and tell myself that what I did was the best option for me. It’s interesting how the thoughts won’t be turned off in this place. Perhaps this is hell after all: a constant battle against my thoughts. The theory that roamed my mind when I was sucking the mouth of the shotgun was that, since you didn’t love me, and I loved you more than life itself, it wasn’t worth continuing. I told myself that it would be impossible to love so passionately again. I convinced myself that my love for you was pure and real. I now see it through a clear glass. I think that during my life I looked at everything through one of those thick crystals, like those of the Coca-Cola bottles, where the glass is so thick, with a green hue, that it’s hard to make out what’s on the other side of the bottle. My perspective of what love was could’ve been somewhat corrupted by the glass through which I had decided to observe it.

I don’t want to think about it. Yes, I must’ve loved you so much that life without you made no sense. When you confessed to me that you had fallen in love, I felt as if an invisible hand went into my chest, grasped my heart and gripped it with terrible force, and squeezed it like an old and used sponge, ready for the garbage. Which is exactly where I think my heart ended up. In the garbage of the unusable. From that moment onwards, I believe that everything around me became a black and white blanket. Everything lacked flavor, color, smell, sense. My friends tried to cheer me up, saying that there were plenty of fish in the sea. What the fuck does that mean? Didn’t anyone ever understand that it had nothing to do with quantity, but with quality? I was never one of those guys looking to hook up with as many women as possible. I had friends who had lists for: the prettiest, the blonde ones, the brunettes, the Asian, the black, redheads, fat, thin, those who were good for more than just one night… etc. Not all my friends were like that, but there were some, as there are some things of everything. I, however, fell in love with you. I was never very extroverted and I wasn’t even looking for the love of my life. It just happened. We met casually, through friends. We became friends, we hooked up a couple of times. I got hooked on you, and you quenched your sexual desires with me. I don’t condemn you, just to be clear. This is not what I’m doing with this letter. I’m sorry if it seems that way. I only wish to explain myself, perhaps get you to try on my shoes for a short period of time so that you can see through that fucking glass bottle. It’s true that after you told me about your new lover I felt contempt towards you. I felt like I lost respect for you. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps because paradoxically I felt I was too good for you, or that I could be the best boyfriend you’d ever have. I don’t know. But I despised you for months. I know you noticed my behavior and you left me, not because you couldn’t stand me, but because you didn’t think that being near me was good for me. I despised you for that too. How dared you being more mature than me? To better understand what I needed? Which, let’s be honest, didn’t go hand in hand with what I wanted. Very often, what we need and what we want do not go together.

I continued that way for months. Drowning in my own victim role, forgetting the allure of all that life could give me if I was open to the possibility. I had already locked myself in a dark room, I had taken the key and swallowed it… and there it had remained. I kept on distancing myself more and more from the world, from everyone else. From my family, my friends, or anyone. When I think about it, I don’t actually think it had anything to do with you. I think that there was a dark corner within me. I think that we all have it, though of course, everyone projects it differently. In my case, it took me to an absolute isolation, a sadness, and an overwhelming distressing feeling. A feeling of total disdain for myself, of not being worth anything. I lost my job because I couldn’t focus on what I was doing, which resulted in spending more time within my own mind. Time I really didn’t need to spend that way. Each thought that crossed my mind would stay there. It took hold of me as if it was an absolute truth, and I would cling to it as if my life depended on it.

That the thought told me I was a failure and that you were lucky not to have fallen in love with me? I would hold onto it with strength, I would allow it to convince me a little more, and I would put it in my pocket to take out later when I’d need to convince myself once again of what a walking disaster I was. That an aggressive thought knocked on the door ready to take it down, telling me that my life was shit and that everyone would be better off without me? “Hey,” I told it, “you are absolutely right. Do you want to stay here and develop that notion further so I can better understand how I failed in so many things?” “Gladly,” it responded. And there I had another partner ready to abuse me and hit me when I asked. These thoughts became my best friends in this dark room from which I was unable to escape.

My loyal friends.

I told you earlier that this place seems real —I feel real— but it isn’t. I am alone. At least, since I arrived I haven’t seen anyone else. I am waiting to see all my loved ones, or perhaps those of us who blow our brains with a shotgun don’t have that option. I don’t know what to believe. The only thing I’m sure of is that I left the world I knew and now I’m here. I will explain. I told you that I could see and hear the thoughts of the living. Well, this place is like a parallel to that place, but as if it was covered in a fog, or one of those nets you put around your bed to protect you from mosquitos. I can see, listen, and feel, but I can’t touch, I can’t be heard or felt. Like the mirror/window of an interrogation room. It’s not unpleasant. I know that my words do not do the experience any justice, but I do feel calm. I also told you that the thoughts here don’t seem to have forgotten about me, but they are not the same that kept me company in the dark room. No. These ones are more reflective. I feel like they are the opposite of what they were. As if it was the yin of the yang. Do you get it? They don’t attack me. They appear, they sit in a corner of my mind for a bit, until I recognize their presence, I listen to them and let them go. I don’t hold on to them.

It’s interesting to feel calm when one has decided to leave the scene in such a violent way.

I must confess that I lied to you. I do regret it. When I walk around this parallel of what once was, I see life in a different way. I see that there was a solution to any problem. Nothing was truly futile, even though there were times when it seemed that way. The times when I felt lonely and I had to choose between paying the rent or eat… those times that I felt that there was no solution. I couldn’t see how to get out of that situation. I would drown in my own failures and I would convince myself that that was who I really was: one who never achieved anything, who never amounted to much, and who could never get what he wanted. I couldn’t have you, I lost my job, I never had money… I felt that each problem contributed to the destruction of a new possibility. However, here, surrounded by a different loneliness, I see the world without distractions. I see it, but I don’t live it. I don’t feel it as I did when I was part of those who had a beating heart. No, paradoxically, with this net around me, I see more clearly than I had ever seen before.

How can I manage for you to receive this letter? How will I get it to you? I am certain that there’s a link between this world and yours, in which I can leave this letter so that you can read it. I don’t want you to feel pity for me. Perhaps I started writing it with that intention. I know that my pen was the hatred and its ink the resentment that I brought here with me when I first arrived, but throughout my story, and the more time I spend here, compassion has taken over my bitter heart. Perhaps you thought I wrote this in one go. You’d be mistaken in such an assumption. I started writing as soon as I arrived, but that was thirty years ago. Or, at least, thirty years in my world. I don’t know what’s the equivalent for you.

The truth is that I miss you, of course, I already missed you when I was alive. I missed you because I had alienated myself from the world and I had moved into my dark room. I miss everyone whom I loved; I’m especially ashamed to know of how much suffering I have caused not only with my violent death, but also that my dad had to find me the way he did.

Forgive my impetuous words —or if they appear that way— at the beginning of this letter. Forgive me for pushing you away the way I did. I hope that you are happy and that I am well where I am. Although I know it’s futile to regret that which has already been executed (no pun intended), I want you to know that the main reason to get this letter to you is to help prevent you from receiving one like it from someone else you care about. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t blame you and I don’t think it was your responsibility to save me. Loneliness is that poignant and wretched. It tricks you and traps you in its claws and whispers in your ear that you don’t matter to anyone. I only ask of you that if you ever see someone who slowly pushes you away, extend a hand their way so that loneliness doesn’t trap them first. Perhaps that will help them not to swallow the key to that dark room.

Take care and thank you for your friendship.

Sincerely,

Me.

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If you or anyone you know is suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts, dial 833-456-4566 for the Canada Suicide Prevention Centre or 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the United States.

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