Pt #4: Adapting and Killing Stereotypes

Dear you,

My hands are in pain, but yet I chose to come here even after going to bed and actually deciding to sleep. What I've been writing to you cannot be left unfinished. In other words, I can no longer escape the miserable reality I've been living inside of me for months.

In these past months, I've been failing to adapt to my new life, a life I no longer have alone but that has someone else, too, in it. It hasn't been easy to let this thought in, and to let other thoughts out to that person when I'm feeling down or not in my best states. I never realised the effort I have to exert and the energy I have to make in a relationship, and to be completely honest it's only fair that such effort should be exerted, because if we want something to last forever, with its ups and downs, we have to be perfectly realistic and strong and make the greatest efforts we can to make things work. I never realised that I have to change the list of priorities to make him on top of it and not feel the slightest bit of guilt because I'm building a life, a new and different life, and I so much want to start it right. Sometimes I think I'm being a perfectionist, and other times I feel too realistic and start to convince myself that I need to enjoy the now and not think too much of what's going to happen next. It makes me sleepless to think of what's going to happen 10 years from now, and I'm so tired of trying to imagine the future, the far future not even the near one. How could you possibly have the energy to exhaust it in such stupid thoughts?

I should kill the stereotypes that such fucked up society imposed upon my thinking without my knowing. Sometimes there are no black and white in life, and other times when there is, you should only listen to yourself, not anyone else. In fact, I'm so tired I have to even listen to people; sometimes I think thoughts of certain types should be said outspokenly, if at all. There has been a tendency in people to just talk, regardless of the impact of their words on the person on the receiving end. It's the most selfish act I've seen recently, and I'd rather not listen at all and not be there instead of having to hear all of these things that leave me with inexplicable feelings. I'd rather disappear than have them tell me this.

Please remember, regardless of anything, I love you.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

Pt #3: The Long Wait for Hope

Dear you,

It's time I confess that I'm doing writing injustice. I'm using writing to vent, not to create something beautiful. But I'd like to think that, in the same way I created beautiful words for the sake of writing, it's time for writing to give me something. Some ease, some inner peace. I need peace, I terribly need peace of mind.

I came here without anything in mind in particular, but I knew that the feelings will come out once I start. A few months ago, I started watching a new series whose main character kept saying "fuck society." And my first trigger for watching the series was this scene where he talked to his therapist about how fucked up our societies are. But that was in the modern states, let alone a country in which I live.
Since June, I've been unable to acknowledge that I've been feeling this way. I know rebels and out-of-the-box people like myself will always resent society, but it's the society I live in, in particular, which I more than hate. I detest. I abhor. Nothing can ever describe the feeling of wanting out. I want out of everything, technically of everything I'm in and I've been doing for the past six months. I need to go back and look at the much bigger picture. I need to see how much I achieve in life to be able to understand and realise that what I've been doing hasn't gone completely in vain.
I have to admit that I left the manuscript of my book ready for over a year until I decided it was time to take a step forward. In reality, it was him who gave me that step forward and all the motivation to keep going, though I had no place, in particular, to go to. But he was there all the way.
I realised that I've been telling the wrong people about my life, and that nobody deserves even the highlights of my life, let alone the details. I've decided to hold back everything for only one person, while the other small, trivial parts of my life would be spared for those who only had the curiosity to know. If you are so curious about someone's life, how can you call yourself a friend, in the first place?

I've always said that I doubted my intentions, until my sheikh told me that whenever I did, I should renew them and start anew, and, at the end of the day, it's what we call jihad of the self, al nafs. It's hard, but the path to Allah is never easy. I believe we live in the societies which the prophet PBUH told about, in which keeping your faith would be like holding live coal. I truly believe that we live in this age. Everyone's being dishonest with themselves, and nobody understands why all these killings in the world take place. It's a messed up world!

Nonetheless, facing the realities of life, as depressing as they are, forces us to come to one realisation: there's only one God that we can turn to when everything is going wrong, not people, not anyone, only the urge to speak to the creator. I've always liked people who  encouraged us to tell God about everything trivial we go through, and I've always loved the idea that God already knows, but He chooses to listen to us, because He loves when we turn to him, and he never turns us down. It's so beautiful.

I've come to let these thoughts out to read them whenever I needed to, because I've always believed that when you rethink and rethink ideas in your head, they become your reality, and I need this reality in my life. Because I'm so drained, consumed, and terrifyingly exhausted. And as much as I feel so, there's comfort in knowing that nothing lasts forever, and there is so, so much comfort in knowing that it only gets worse before it gets better, and it's darkest before dawn.

I love you, or him, more than the words I've written ever since I became a writer.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

The letter Pt #2

Dear you,

Here I write again, on the same thoughts, because hell, they won't leave me.

Today I read a book summary that pretty much told how I felt. Lost, unable to find my way back, feeling too much in the box and not feeling that there is a killing routine that needs to be changed.

Today I was thinking of him, of why I haven't been able to feel this relationship as much as I thought I'd feel. I thought of my therapist, who said that being rational and evoking your mind in the relationship is actually the healthy start for it, meaning that what I feel is in actuality how all people should feel when starting a real commitment. But I don't like how I feel. Maybe I'm rushing things, but I know that he deserves more than this.

Sometimes I drown in the miseries of life and start to believe what everyone says, that this is just the peak of the relationship, these crazy emotions you have for each other, and that these emotions will fade with time, that making love won't feel as exciting as before, and that, once you have kids, it will all turn so boring. I believe them so much that I hate myself when I confess these things to him. And although he doesn't resent me and hw doesn't throw back at me, I feel terrible. I feel like shit. I shouldn't deal with happiness this way.

I also have one killing fear that terrifies me to death. In this generation, so many young people are dying a sudden death, whether in accidents or just deadly heart attacks. I'm afraid. I'm so afraid I'll lose him one day without notice, particularly because I have seen this happen to my sister, who is now a widow with two crazy kids that I cannot stand their presence in the house. I'm so afraid this will happen to me, to him, at a young age that it will hurt like nothing has ever hurt before. Oh, God, I'm so scared. I. am. so. scared.

These feelings are unbearable. And they do not allow me to enjoy the moment. I would kill to enjoy the life I have now, which is the life I had always wanted.

Why? Why do I not feel pleasure in the job I do and the love I give and receive? When did this unfeeling take place in my heart? When did I become so numb?

What is it that happened in the process. I need answers. I need God, so so so much. 

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N. 

A Letter of Everything

Dear you,

I’ve refused to let things out for months now, and it’s been eating at me that I can no longer say it in words but in tears. I don’t know how to begin, but for a starter I should tell you that this is not a literary letter. This is a letter. Period.

I’ve let things in for so much time I forgot how much it felt in the first place. I have had this numbness feeling since maybe May or June of this year. It’s been a rough yet a fun year for me. I’ve made so many decisions that I’m so proud of, the most important of which was choosing my fiancé, the love of my life, and deciding that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. The problem is, even then, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. What I was sure of was that I wanted so much to give him a shot, to take a shot with him, and see how I feel. What I felt, by time, was a feeling of really knowing that I will never find anyone like him, even in the way he gets angry then comes back to me later an hour or two at the maximum, to say he’s sorry and that he didn’t mean for it to hurt me. I felt that I’ll never meet someone with his enthusiasm and excitement, for reading, books, writing, and stories, for history, literature, languages, politics, and the world. 

Then I had to ask myself again, am I choosing to be with him only because I will not find anyone like him, or because I really cannot and do not want to live with anyone but him? This question was the hardest. Until one day he disappeared for hours and hours that I lost count, and started to go crazy. Where is he? Is he safe? I don’t even know any of his friends’ contacts so I can make sure he’s doing fine. I was horribly worried. I started to imagine my life without him, and I couldn’t stand this idea. He’s turning into everything and everyone to me. A friend, a lover, a best friend, a father, a brother, a soulmate, a husband. Everything.

And even though the time I met him was nearly the time I started having these feelings of numbness, it would be utterly unfair to blame anyone but myself, for the misery I’m putting myself into.

I’ve lost interest in so many things that I used to be so excited about. I cannot get rid of the question of “What’s the end of this anyway?” in anything I’ve been doing. And I am starting to realise that I am thinking too far ahead. Too, too far that I am no longer able to enjoy the things of now, of this moment. I am failing to make myself as well as others happy. Maybe I still do make others happy, but even so, I never feel I do. The impact I make on people and myself is no longer defeating numbness. Everything has turned into something I just do, in hopes that I would regain my enthusiasm for it.

I know that the solution to all of this lies within me. I know that there is an attitude I need to get rid of, and a greater part in my brain needs to kill that pessimism and instead focus of the now, to be able to enjoy things the way I used to.

I realise that I have to sit with myself more often, to write you (him) more often, and to let it out to him (you)more than I do now. I realise that I have to write more, to not allow any type of depression or mood to come in the way of my writing. I truly miss writing, and I have been so miserable ever since I almost forgot I have huge potential.

I am sorry. I am sorry for everything I held back. Every feeling I suppressed and every emotion I refused to let go. This is a letter of promises. I promise myself more than anyone to fight more, and to not give up to such moods, for the sake of the people around me more than for myself.

I love you. This is a letter of love and hope. I love you.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N.

The Magic of the Universe of Writing

Dear you,

"We resemble a sky full of stars, depending on the thoughts we fill our minds with, the stars, that is. They defeat us like meteorites sometimes, striping us of every other thought. We become starless, like myself, and like how I came to you now. Sir, are you listening to me? You’re full of stars you don’t notice me. Lend me something. A thought. Just one. I’m hollow. Sir? Hello?"

I believe that writing changes who we are. It makes us so careful with words, that, instead of saying specific adjectives, we use whole expressions. Let me exemplify this; instead of saying someone was alone, writing allows us to say that someone's heart had the company of loneliness. This is how writing changes us. The words the mediocre uses to describe normal daily-life situations, writers throw on the ground and replace with other words, expressions, that is. Writing never leaves us empty of words; it's us that never make enough effort.

I wrote this quoted paragraph 4 years ago when I was, I suppose, practicing how good I was with prose. Reading it now, I never realised the potential I had in descriptions and in imagination. We are indeed infinitesimal beings of the universe, like infinite stars, and we form thoughts for our minds which come and go like how the stars burn and vanish. We are the stars and the universe of stars. But if we think of it that way, we can be anything and everything, if we choose to put our souls and heart to it. And writing makes anything out of us.

It's magic we never truly take a moment to appreciate.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

Forgotten Umbrellas

Dear you,

The first morning for him in the new city was rather a rough one. The city's streets were drenched with rain, and, as he stood under a tree seeking refuge, his chemise was starting to get wet from the drops of rain that fell from the tree. Those drops also carried some mud as the tree's branches were a little dusty before it rained. It was, in its entirety, a gloomy morning, a not-so-hopeful morning without the sun shining.
He loved the sun, and he believed that its rays were the reason we were able to survive all these years, given the nonstop rainy days of winter, for no less than two months in a row. Winter, he believed, was a season for the depressed to get more depressed.
He stood under that tree waiting for the rain to go a little easier on the streets, looking at his replica Swatch watch, which looked exactly like the original Swatch but cost him much less money, and hoping that he could catch the interview on time.
From an instant glare, he looked like someone who wanted so much to fit in, to be a replica of everyone else, who are also not originals. However, he was more miserable than anyone, because he knew this wasn't the life he hoped for, nor the life he always wanted to live. When you look at him from the first instance, you will see a tall man in his late twenties, with black hair and pale white skin. He gave no impression of an extrovert, but rather a loner who wanted to fit in without being noticed at the same time. He was full of flaws, yet everyone seemed to want to open up to him. No wonder, as the people who talk the least are often the ones who end up being the carriers of everyone's secrets. And so was he.
This morning, he woke up and wore what he had set ready in his drawer the night before (the night when he arrived at the city), ironed and perfect, and ate a quick breakfast which consisted of corn flakes with milk and some fruits. He was a healthy eater. When he received a phone call during his breakfast time confirming his interview time, he realised that it was time to go and went hurriedly to the door. Having no one to say goodbye to at the door, he took on his shoes and quickly left, forgetting his umbrellas as he went out.


TBC.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

Throw up Your Heart

Dear you,

I feel like writing feverishly, even though I have nothing to say; but it's the desire to let anything out. Today I was told to let the pen touch the paper and it will flow. And this was the advice I never wanted to hear, because pens don't flow; it's people, writers, who fight a hard battle to bring the words out to life. Nothing in life flows unless you make some effort. Nothing is as easy as it seems. Everything requires effort, strength, willingness, and so, so much hope and enthusiasm to keep on going.
I have not given up, but I find it hard to feel my words; mind you, I've stopped feeling my words so long ago, but it's rather surprising that I find people who still find those words, that I cannot relate to, relatable. Is this what happens when you advance in writing? Because, honestly, I do not know. I just wanted to come here and let my fingers do the talking. I need to pour my heart out.
Once, I was sitting with a friend who has recently had her heart broken. She told me the most heartbreaking words ever.
"It's like I wanted to throw up my heart and couldn't.."

How do you throw up your heart? But I guess pain can do a lot worse than that. These were her words, and I do not think any writer could've described the feeling of a broken heart the way she described it. Throwing up your heart, this is what a heartbreak feels like. The saddest thing in the world, because no one is able to heal you, not even your own soul, because it would also be carried away in that wave.

No one can fix a broken heart. It has to fix itself. Time makes us forget, but we never really kill the memories.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,
N.

Blankness

Dear,

Blankness is one of the feelings one can never describe nor write down in words. A feeling of emptiness, a feeling that, whichever is happening in your life, nothing feels anything, not a single bit, at all. I cannot even begin to describe how painful it is to be unable to speak, to let the words out, the right words, that would ease this burden, this heaviness on the chest, this blankness. 

Nothing feels right; nothing feels, in the first place. You wake up every day with the same thoughts, the same suppressed feelings, and a pile of emotions that are on the ground taking their last breaths, yet trying so, so hard to survive, to make it through another day. Why do you feel like this? What hurts the most is not knowing the reason why, when it started, or for how long it is going to remain with this same intensity.

I’ve been trying to tell you, to cry to you, how much it kills to be speechless when you want so many words out, and worse, more than words: a scream, a way of letting out that has not been resorted to before. Something different, infinitesimally different to save the soul and give the heart a last pump to breathe.

Breathe. I need to breathe and let go, while holding on to the things I value the most. What value is there in life? Tell me.

Yours faithfully and sincerely,

N.