A letter from June 22nd, 2020

Dear Future Me, Perhaps you remember the night I wrote this. God it seems so unreal that I will be probably reading this in a few years. I cannot imagine what my life will be then, where I’ll be. I hope my exams went good and I got the diploma but, honestly, who knows. Maybe I failed and am working in a grocery store, barely surviving and barely meeting ends. I hope not but… you’ll never know. If anything I just hope that you’re either happier than I am now or dead. Right now I am not that well, maybe you remember. I’ve felt dumb and empty for so long that I am not sure how happiness could feel. Maybe I’m exaggerating. I honestly have no idea. I only know that I do not want to continue like this, using unhealthy coping mechanism and distancing myself from anyone and anything that could potentially hurt me. Not that I actually have a choice in some matters but I do not want to think about that which is a perfect example of how I cope. Developing an attitude of “who cares” and “it is what it is” does not really help me. In this way I simply create a wall between me and my feelings while refusing to admit even to myself that turning a blind eye does not make the problems go away. I am barely able to admit it in this letter. I would never tell this to another living soul. I wouldn’t risk my security like that. I am only safe when no one knows and no one notices. So I lie to everyone and I tell myself that it does not bother me that I’m spending all my free time at home alone with my cat or my games while watching all my friends go out, having fun and simply enjoying life. That it does not bother me that I am obviously worse than others and not worthy or capable of having normal relationships with other people and having a life like theirs. That it does not bother me that I am nobody’s first choice and that I am completely disposable. That it does not bother me that I do not seem to make anyone feel happier or proud that they know me and I am a part of their life. That it does not bother me that my body is covered in scars and I will be anxious about them for the rest of my life. That it does not bother me that I lost all energy and I do not even want to cry. I’m just tired and done. At the same time I do realize I cannot end my life because the risk of an unsuccessful suicide is too big and the threat of everyone finding out I have problems and going to a mental hospital seems worse than being so miserable. And so I am alive. But I do not feel like it. I want to decompose, to lie in the grass and wait for my *****, to be blown away from the Earth’s surface with the wind and lose all consciousness, to simply fall apart into ashes and stop existing. I do not feel ready and capable of surviving and I am not happy that I am expected to. I was never given a choice, no one asked me if I wanted to be alive so why are we all expected to do that? I wish I had never been alive. I wish I never existed. Perhaps you are not so hopeless. Perhaps you are fine. I do not know if I have any energy and hope in me left to actually imagine my future self as happy. But for all it’s worth, I wish us both, future me and current me, all the best in life. J.