To you, distant stranger of life,

I mean not that you are separate from the classification of life, but are of another. I almost hope this letter finds you unwell, as to read this while sane of mind would only take away from its meaning. In addition I ask something that may be unbecoming of me, but if you could tally me the retracing of a bearable yet painful memory as I am while reading this I feel it will be more powerful. 

Start simple. A room. Unimpeded darkness blanketing the thought. A screen. Countless connections at my fingertips that are yet worlds apart. A day. A time unimportant to any other but myself. A name. Something that will be forever forgotten, but remembered. A friend. A string between two people observed by no one. A countdown. Invisible, immutable, and infuriating every time. I remember the day clearly, or rather the night, when I lost my friend to the vice grip of untreated and abandoned pain. Although I’m no longer grief-stricken or overwhelmed with regret, those stings of pain still pervade my life. 

I’ve always had trouble expressing myself, my head a constant battle between what I feel and what I know, never settling. Emotional psychology is a field of science that is hard to understand, people don’t realize that no matter what there’s rarely a “correct” answer, and to make sense of emotions in a discrete way would be nearly impossible.

The signs were there to begin with, I just wish I wasn’t the only one who saw them. Sometimes it’s hard to accept that life is short and fickle. The latter being easier to see but seldom connected to the former. If you did decide to remember something painful to you, know that it does not define you. It may hurt, and it may leave scars that will never fade, but it won’t define your future.

Life is a room. You start small, filling it with anything and everything that brings you joy, seemingly never content. You grow. You forget some stuff, and your room grows larger, filling with less but more. You grow. You put thought into what to keep, what to stow away, what needs to be thrown out. You grow. You find that you don’t need to have everything in your room. Your room stops growing. You find that the room was not secluded in space, devoid of others, but rather connected to them, you find that it’s nice to see other people’s rooms, and you may even find someone to room with. Everyone grows. Sometimes, someone moves out, leaving an unlocked room. You stand at their door, you do not know what’s inside. You open the door, you start walking through their room, seeing all of their stuff, their memories, the world you never saw. You leave and sweep the room from outside, understanding that you’re staring back at the life of a stranger, someone who you’ve seen so many times yet knew so little of. You hesitate, wanting to look again, to sit on their bed and wonder why.

It’s ok to close the door.

Sincerely, A distant stranger in a room