You walked into my life like the little hurricane you are. So active and crazy and smiling. Always with great references, nice books and awesome music. Always ready to sit down and listen to whatever crap I had to say. Or just sit there and watch me cry, holding my hand.

I’m sorry I failed you. I should have protected you and reasoned with you while I had time. I knew what was going to happen and I wasn’t strong enough to stop you. I hope you can forgive me one day.

I met a very lively girl, so grand and smart. I fell in love with you immediately and I knew you would be my friend. More than that, a confident, a partner and a younger guide. I saw your strength and your desire to live your life to the fullest. I saw a little of me in you. That should have been my first warning.

You say you don’t, but you give yourself just as much as I do. You say you don’t, but you like caring just as much as I do. I just got older and learned to not care when people call me tacky. You are one of the biggest hearts I have ever met and you don’t see it. You should look at yourself the way we look at you.

But I saw this lion hearted girl fade away. I saw you become ill and languish right before my eyes. I’m sorry I couldn’t avoid it. I knew everything it was going to happen and I couldn’t stop it and take you out. My biggest desire is to suck the pain out of you – get your anxiety and make it mine. Dry your tears and cry an ocean for you. I know it is hurting and I know you feel this has no end – trust me, there is an end. Even if we have to make one.

I know how much it hurts and how your heart feels it will never go back to what it was. But it will. This was just a blip in your beautiful and incredible life and I promise you one day you will wake up and all of this will be just a blur. I just hope you know how great you are and how brilliant your future will be, because you are, even suffering, living today.

Remember you. Remember the girl I first met. She is there, somewhere. Find her and fight for her, bring her back. I will help you every step of the way – I won’t fail you again.

I love you.

I started thinking about people. Funny how a small and single event can trigger a series of thoughts that lead you to understand the other. It helps you see the bigger picture, the things that are hidden – sometimes out of shame, sometimes because even the person know there was something to hide in the first place. But I started thinking about people…us.

At a time that we talk about liquid love (hey, Bauman), slippery men, delete buttons and lack of connection (hey, Sherry), I realize we are lost, not in translations, but in ourselves. There is no interest in listening, exchanging, living. We are so afraid of what life can bring that we shut ourselves inside this bubble where the sun rotates around our bellybuttons and phrases and conversations and text messages only contains “I, I, I, I – or me, me, me, me”. “Listen to me, look at me, pay attention on my words. See me, dream about me, hold me. I can make you feel good, I can make your most lustful dreams came true, I’m the sexiest, the best looking, the greatest”. What are you so afraid of? A broken heart? Expectations not met? Or are you afraid of the responsibility of sharing? Of holding someone when they are falling apart?

Why emotional contact became such a burden? Why letting someone in and genuinely talk about your fears and regrets and pains and happiness is so hard and painful? Why you became bigger than us?

Everything is so fragile, emotions are so fragile that the delete button became salvation. You didn’t meet the standards, therefore, you are out. You are not as pretty, goodbye. You want to talk about yourself, there is no space for that nonsense . I’m going to hurt you before you do it to me. Would you hurt me? Would you be able to forgive? Delete, block, forget. Out of sight, out of mind. Right?

Where did we lose the ability to share? What happened to taking care, to love, to give, to listen? Why and when did we actually stopped truly caring for someone else? Thanks to you, to therapy, to all the eventful years of my life, I found out I like caring. Listening. Love. To watch you while you are trying to reason with yourself.

So, tell me: how empty can we be? Can we endure this level of loneliness?

 

P.s.: to my therapist and our endless talks.

I’m a junction of very intricate feelings and thoughts. I try to reason with myself but most of the time I fail to understand. Life is a very tricky thing – even more when you deal with a very intricate self. How intricate are you?

I have inhabited myself in many different ways for so many years. I tried to run from who I’m. I’ve hurt myself. I have drank more than I could ever take and a lot less that I ever wanted. I have been to places I never wanted to go. I crossed lines I never imagined I would. I hide the best part of me and have only shown the worst.

I have taken a sabbatical year from myself. I have seen my flaws and mistakes and I still am the same flawed girl – which is somewhat stupid. I never had the guts to storm out of the house – and how many times I wanted to storm out… I used to be careful. Scared. I used to trust. I also used to desperately wish that the machine from Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind actually existed. But what is life without all the emotions and feelings and memories? What is life without the feeling of loneliness, the illusions we create, the love we feel and the sound of laughter?

My mind is a very intricate labyrinth where reality and fantasy tend to mix, leaving me with a strange colored black and white world made of words. It is very interesting how our minds work, telling lies in order to save us from, well, us. Life can become very hectic and not because we want it or cause it, but because the human nature seeks complication. It’s not worthy to go through life and not feel a thing.

I always imagined how it would be to write you something since I never wrote you anything. I never felt like you deserved or needed. You never understood my writing. I guess I never bothered explaining. You never paid attention to it – and I never paid attention to your oddities.

It has been so long. How are you? How life is treating you? Are you happy? I hope you are. I know we never spoke again, but this is your letter.

We were perfectly wrong together. We were sadly happy. So different and so alike. We never really fought – did you notice? We barely had a proper discussion. But we never talked serious about us. It was always fun and games and friends and work. Never “I want to take you to Russia” or “our kids will be pretty cool” nor “let’s have a dog together”. We never made plans and that is what killed us – we always knew, therefore we never made any effort. Plans exists for people to make them and hope and dream and even if you can’t go through with them you had hope. We never had hope. We were doomed before we even started.

You taught me that plans are good. That music can be ruined by someone else. That figuring out life is a lot easier than people think. I hope I had taught you that making plans are fun and I hope you made thousands of plans. I hope I taught you what made me the wrong girl so you know why your wife is the right one. I hope you know now that we must live our presents and not our futures. I hope you know now what it takes to break a heart and what to do to avoid it.

I hope you know I’m thankful for our time together. That I loved and hated and loved you again. That you will forever be my favorite mistakes.

You have to choose a career. You have to decide what will you do for the rest of your life. You must find what you love and let it kill you, as old Buk would say.

I always thought it was wrong to force adolescents to choose what they are supposed to be forever. Feels like you are limiting people.

I want to be an astronaut and a waiter and a barista. I want to be an actor and president and janitor. I want to be a doctor and tourist guide and scientist. I want to be a singer and a stripper and a nurse.

I want to be an author and crazy and addicted. I want to be a monk and zoo keeper and football player. I want to be Telma & Louise and painter and a photographer. I want to be a nerd and a chef and a farmer. I want to be you and me and all our friends.

I want to walk on everyone shoes and feel how everyone feels and deal with life and pain and horror and love.

I want to feel it all.

Did you settle? How does that feel?

I have seen people writing letters or notes to themselves when they were in their 20’s or 30’s. They tell themselves what they should know back then and what they should have done differently.

For you, my darling, I say this: don’t worry about making the right choices and decisions and saying the right things and always being on the right path. You are brave and cheerful and awesome and everything you choose and do will lead you to some great things. Some won’t be as fun or good or happy or incredible. Some will take you down, make you cry your eyes out (or get madly drunk) and you may feel you did the worst possible thing and you will regret forever.

Even those things you thought you chose wrongly – they were the right thing do to at the time. The only advice I can give you is that you will regret only the things you didn’t do. Those you did, at least you tried. Don’t regret.

So, I won’t tell you what you should know or what you are supposed to do. Do your thing. Make mistakes, fall apart, laugh until you pee, break things, get drunk, fall in love everyday – even if the other person never finds out. Scream until you get knocked out of breath, do therapy, tell people that you love them. Or you dislike them. Give up everything and get a sabbatical year. Or be so sure of what you want to do and chase it like a lion focused on its prey. Do whatever you feel like doing because you won’t have a second chance to do it. Don’t hope to grow up too fast and don’t stop living today to keep envisioning the future. You can’t have a future if you don’t live your present.

Do you. Be you. Whatever happens and wherever it leads you, you were always true to yourself. That is what you should worry about.

I never liked perfect things. Especially people. Bright perfect teeth and big eyes with big eyelashes. Straight hair with not a single wave out of its place.

I never liked people who know what to say at the right moment. Or how their life’s are put together so perfectly even at a young age. I never liked those who present themselves so well and know how damn intelligent they are.

I like your separated teeth. Your bad skin, tainted by acne when you were young. Ah, puberty… I like the fact that you limp a little with your left leg.

I like that you spilled water on your white blouse during a funeral. I like that you trip and fall because you are not coordinated. I like that your arms are a bit saggy and your stomach is not negative.

I like the dark circles under your eyes. I like how you are frozen when you don’t know an answer and how you slip in your chair when you know the answer but is too afraid or too shy to say it out loud. The answer is love, isn’t it?

But what I like the most is the junction of all our imperfections. Every flaw that makes us so unique, so incredible. So…us.

As we lay together in bed, my heart falls into peace. My mind wanders and our conversations become senseless. Or I have endless conversations with myself, while you hold me, and I decide about my next day, my week or I plan our next vacations. Where do you want to go next?

We call each other silly names and you start tickling me. Every time you tickle me I get on the verge of peeing my pants. You have this crazy childish smile on your face. My heart falls into peace. I wonder why you like to tickle me so bad.

You say I’m in love with you while I imitate our favorite stupid video. I say I dislike to stay in bed when you are not there with me. You say tomorrow we will go for a run. I can’t barely open my eyes when morning comes. You sing the worst song. I smile because it is our (stupid) song.

We lay together in silence. You kiss my neck and I kiss your fingers. My mind is finally shut and there is no voice, no worries, no mistakes. Sometimes I’m so lost inside my head you think I have a problem that I don’t want to talk about. Sometimes our legs are so tangled I feel like I’m melting.

You say let’s talk about this tomorrow. I say let’s talk about everything forever.

We are the luckiest humans. You don’t see it this way, they tell us we are nothing. But we are.

We give birth. We nurture. We hug, we comfort, we hold them and lift them up, we love and smile and give them confidence to move forward.

But we cry alone.

We say the right words, yet we have no voice. We fall and we get up and we cook and clean and fix things. We teach, we learn, we reason.

But we are invisible.

We are only bodies. They tell us we are nothing, only uterus. They say our lives doesn’t matter – that unwanted baby matters. We are only an envelope.

We are hurt. We make mistakes. We are taught that other women are competition, therefore, enemies. We are sluts, whores, dumb, idiots, crazy, stupid. Woman.

We are the greatest humans, yet we can’t see it.

Why?

I fell in love with books at a very young age. Every character, every plot, every end crawl into my skin and become, some way or another, part of me. I remember reading One Hundred Years of Solitude on my way to university. It was a rainy day, heavy traffic and a crowded bus. And I felt every single emotion Raimunda felt. The yellow butterflies on her stomach. The smell of ocean breeze. I was her, in some way.

My favorite authors wrote letters. I wish I could see all their letters – what did they talk about? Was it only the things that tormented them? Was is about pain, and fear, and love and addictions? Was it about new ideas, new characters, new plots?

García Marquez gave me Raimunda and the Buendía family. Carlos Heitor Cony gave me Francesca (Mona, for those who know her) and Augusto – he gave me intensity and the pain it can bring. Gaiman gave me Black Cats, Gods and boys – he gave name and faces and expressions to all my monsters. Old Buk gave me freedom – just be yourself, girl. Llosa gave me a different approach on love – and its meaning. How could you? Amado – Amado gave me my favorite book. He gave me raw feelings and raw characters. He showed me the value of religion and the beauty of believing. Amado made me cry – not just once. He gave me Guma, made me fall in love with him – and took him away. But “that’s how the men of the sea tell stories”, he would say.

I wish I could write each and every one of my favorite authors a letter. To tell them they thaught me how to live and feel and think and overthink and lose my mind and get it back. To be me and Raimunda and Mona and Lívia and Julia and Sarah and so many others all at once. To write. Even if it’s not as good as them.