➤ Content warning: slow emotional start, death mention, suicide mention, hints of depression, trying to portray depression properly, not stereotyped.
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The last day of December, the rumored coldest day by the fans of Christmas movies... The streets and roofs are supposedly filled with snow, romantic and passionate couples walking around hand in hand, and the sweetest happy endings that most people would wish for. December was this month of happiness and celebration—the warmth that only your house can give, cozy blankets ready to be wrapped around you, and a warm drink sitting nearby.
The minutes ticked down; the time between the last day of the year and the start of a new chapter in everyone's life was getting shorter, closer to its end. Despite the few minutes separating you from what could be the best new year of your life—a new start, a sparkle of hope in your life—it wasn't as happy as you wished it would be. Even if you tried as hard as you could, it seemed like fate had chosen to destroy every other alternative route.
This year has been chaotic—perhaps not in the best way possible—and you could be quite tempted to call it one of the worst years of your life. A succession of events left you gasping for air, your hands trembling as you clutch your chest, gripping your heart in the hope that it will continue to beat normally without this weight of guilt and pain dragging you down. Maybe these twelve months were what pushed you to take a crucial decision—one that will change everything, and definitely not for the better. But what is your definition of «better»? I can't tell yet, but it was surely not this.
But who could blame you for making that decision? The pain you feel will never be the same as someone else's; even with similar experiences and lives, your pain will never be understood perfectly. Unfortunately for humankind, understanding someone fully is a dream that won't come true, and it's for the best. If I were able to understand you, it wouldn't make your pain go away, but it could make you feel foreign to yourself because your emotions won't be truly yours and only yours anymore.
Either way, despite this pain being yours, it doesn't mean that you fully understand it either. You are and will remain a mystery to yourself too; your mind keeps dark secrets that will never be unleashed, perhaps for your own good. Memories are memories only because you remember them, not because they were told to you by someone else. In the end, memories or pain are valid because you are and have felt and experienced them, even if they end up being a trick of your imagination. They exist because you do.
But I don't think it's the time for a psychological and reflective moment yet. Maybe later, when the proper time comes. Let's continue, forget what you were thinking about, and let yourself go, even for a short instant.
You know this all too well—this sensation growing inside you as you watch the clock hands moving with a sinister sound, as if counting down the seconds until the final act. Are the theater stage's curtains already going to fall and cover the future? This dryness forming at the back of your throat makes your breathing difficult; your hands shake uncontrollably; the weakness you can feel expands through your body; It paralyzes your fingers and your hands, and it moves up to your arms. You can feel it in your legs, on the sides of your spine—a numbness that almost seems painful. And finally, this last remnant of hope is drowned under a pile of memories that may never heal.
You know those memories? The ones that always come to mind when the word 'trauma' is pronounced are the ones you compare to others' own to either tell yourself your life isn't so difficult, or just to do the opposite and think your life is ten times worse than everyone else. Both are understandable, but the real question is... Have you ever tried to think about those memories you forgot, but still plague your mind and control your actions when you aren't able to think anymore?
Why was this happening to you? This question may come over and over again in your mind, but in the end, you will never get an answer to it. No one is here to answer it. You may blame everyone around you and yourself—the entire world—if you wish to, but it won't heal your past and the memories that haunt your every decision and action. The words you heard countless times, the images you saw so many times they could have been engraved in your eyelids, and the feeling of never being understood linger at the back of your mind as a constant reminder of how happy you will never be able to be.
Perhaps it's the fate every human will face. You can run, but they will always catch up to you.
The past can never be changed.
The words can't be erased.
And time can't be stopped or rewound.
Your childhood was a past that you couldn't fully erase or forget, even if some memories were completely pushed away by your mind until you could never remember them again. Your childhood and the way you were raised made you someone no one could experience—a situation that can't be reproduced in its entirety for the simplest reason that no one like you can exist again—and the same person you were and became.
Your past has left marks that are better not mentioned again, at least not in all contexts. And today was not the day for reminiscence, but the final act of a play you were never the director or master of. Puppets forced by invisible strings, a few lucky ones manage to cut, freeing themselves from the expectations and norms of society of the perfect little model child everyone expects you to be, even when they do not give you the opportunity and resources for it.
Two particular events led you to where you are now: standing in front of the closed red curtains, waiting to expose the culmination of a theater piece no one wished to witness.
The first event that sent your life down a spiral of torment and agony was the loss of your father in the prior year, a respected politician from South Korea. He didn't leave in pain or violence; one night, he fell asleep and never woke up again. Despite anything that could happen in life, he has always been here for you, as he should have as a father, he was loving and supportive, pulling you forward when sometimes you didn't have the energy or motivation to continue. This man was someone you admired and loved, wishing that he lived just a little bit longer so you could have at least the chance to tell him goodbye.
Everyone's grief and coping mechanisms are different; yours has been to isolate yourself. Denial hits you like a ton of bricks, your life momentarily stopping to process everything you lost in just a single night of December.
And so, a year ago, you lost one of the people who were closest to you. Even if your father had never wished for you to lose your will to be happy and ambitious, no one could expect you to be happy on this last day of December while still coping with memories you won't even live again or warmth you won't be able to experience one more time.
The second moment that permitted your downfall to hit even harder was because of your mother, and unlike your father, you couldn't speak so lovingly about her. She was a woman that you could not love and respect for very valid reasons: her close mind towards minorities, her actions towards you, and her words that cut deeper than any knife made you lose the remnants of affection you could hold for her.
She did try to bring you love and money—financial support for your future life—but sometimes parents fail to see that children don't always expect or need this. Perhaps she failed to see that you only wished for psychological support, genuine love that wasn't shown through gifts, and quality time that wasn't always put aside at the last minute because she had to go to work urgently. You couldn't remember any special occasions you had with her, even less any moments when you could have talked to her about something that was troubling you, leaving you and your dad alone to deal with everything.
When you grew older, you understood that it was because she had to bring money into the household, and she wasn't having an easy life either. But it wasn't selfish in the slightest for her child to wish for just an ounce of maternal love. Soon after, when you were a teenager, she ended up leaving this marriage that became loveless and mentally straining for both of your parents.
You only wish that, on her path to finding true love and creating a new family, she could have remembered that she had another child waiting for her.
It may be the past, but memories and feelings can hold a significant weight on anyone for years and years. Perhaps it's what drove you to breaking point, or perhaps it was just because it was too cold this morning when you got up, or you didn't have any idea of what to cook today—the important thing wasn't what made you lose any remaining hope, but how were you feeling at this instant when everything fell apart?
Standing in an empty house on what is supposedly one of the best days of the year, without anyone to celebrate with, was a huge blow. But no one could blame you for not reaching out to anyone, because everyone knows how hard it is to feel alone and misunderstood, feeling like it will be a disturbance to talk to someone, and isolating yourself is much simpler. There are so many reasons why someone reaches this point in their life and can't get back up; some manage to stand back on their own, some are dragged back into the light by someone who wishes them well, and some fall.
It wasn't a sin or crime; neither was it shameful nor weak to realize that you hit a low point in your life, nor to consider the climax of your play to be so sudden and violent.
As the red curtains opened, a flash of fireworks welcomed your eyes with their beautiful colors and lights—your choice was made. And even with insufferable pain in your chest, heavy legs, and a weak body, you still admire those fireworks as if they were the most beautiful thing you ever saw in your entire life, and it brought a smile to your face. The colors flashed in a discord of lights, some brighter than others, reflecting through the clear white clouds. It was quite a beautiful view to see those vapory clouds light up in every shade of color, piercing through the sky like a comet.
The grief came crashing down, your fate meeting its end in a sharp sound that you would only hear once. It was quick, almost completely silent, your mind drowning in a numbness that you had never felt before, as if levitating. Everything was cold around you; the air, your body, and even your breath seemed to turn into a glacial blizzard. Even if there was pain, you didn't feel it.
Because it was already over.
But did you deserve this end? You freed yourself, attempting a final act of ultimate culmination, leaving in a last spectacular way. But perhaps you deserved better. Better than an ending mingled with pain; better than an ending when you weren't able to meet this feeling of being understood and supported even at your lowest point; better than what you were given until now.
And as the fireworks died in the sky, leaving behind trails of smoke and bright colors, maybe you were given another chance at something you missed—a hand held out of your view that only waited.
We all know what the elders say—fate sometimes has surprises for us. And tonight, you were the one who deserved it more than anybody else.
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Take my hand, and may you never give up on this life again.
I'll be by your side, until you find solace.
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