What do people write in their notebooks? Maybe they write about dreams, adventures, or even secret crushes. There's nothing abnormal about it, not at all. However, for some, the notebook is the safekeeper of tears. The guardian of strange sketches that have no sensible meaning. But only the pen and paper recognize those patterns. The patterns that somehow always find a way into the writer's works. And before the writer knows it, the thought of the next day fills their entire form with elephantine and unforgiving dread. It's as if another stack of bricks has been placed squarely on their shoulders. It's routine. As soon as sleep leaves their bodies and light reflects on their face, they feel it. It's heavier.
Their walk has this distinct slump; their eyes void of sparkle and their face lacking those lines and dimples that appear with unadulterated, genuine joy. Everyone assumes they have poor posture. How can they not? No one except the reflection in the mirror can see those darn bricks. Life is a debt, living being the act of each day piling on and on while somehow, people encourage increasing the burden. Because they can't see those bricks. Those bricks etched with those patterns of hurt and the past that our brains try to lock away to protect what's left of our human. We can't exactly see them, they aren't in front of us, but they're never behind us. They take their place and bear their weight as if it's their right and when it's quiet enough, they whisper back to us the words that keep us buried where we are. And they show themselves on filled pages.
What else do we have? Alongside that unbearable heft, we have guilt mercilessly pulling from both sides. The guilt of ending this seemingly unending and completely valueless suffering, the selfishness of it all. What would happen to our parents? our friends? Who will brush my little sister's-someone's little sister's hair? You must stay. Stay for them, they need you. But do they really? Won't they move on? No, of course not. How could they ever? But, you're not sure.
The other side doesn't spare you. How much longer will you allow yourself to do this? What have you done to deserve this? To live as if your death is in the next step you take? Why can't you free yourself? Just be selfish for once, have you not given enough? To everyone else, maybe you have. To yourself, obviously not. How could you ever give enough. You've never let yourself receive any of what you give.
It's too much. So after you finish writing your new set of goodbyes to your loved ones, you take a little peek at the set you wrote for them last time. You sit down on the floor, the cold tile making you flinch. You think back to that day. How heavy it was, how unbearable it felt. The tears still stain the page. You go back to the set prior to that one. And all the ones that came before it. You don't remember writing this many– I don't remember writing this many. I can't even recognize the object of my pain on the older pages. I've forgotten the smiles and scents of some recipients of the letters. I wonder how such a young version of myself could even think of such a fate. And when I close the notebook, I think of something, something that stays trapped in the cage I built for it with my own two hands to protect myself from the disaster it brings.
The future. What about me with slightly longer hair with a couple more centimeters to my name. It's a bit unfair that she'll never get to look back at today's writings isn't it? Yes, yes it is. Quite the injustice, if I so myself. So as I do every other time, I put the notebook back in its little hiding place– my mom can never find it, it would break her. My shoulders feel less slumped than usual. And the next day, my friends compliment me on my slightly improved posture. The weight of yesterday stays with my notebook in its hiding place, so for now, I can walk a little easier.
