And here I am, once again without any planned script, perhaps without any specific idea or well refined; simply the desire was born in me to sit at my desk, in front of my window while I watch the rain fall, the embracing aroma of coffee permeates, at the same time Ophelia Wilde accompanies me with her compositions, reminding me that, I am not alone, despite the fact that sometimes I may feel…
Dear reader, if you expect the great ideas, the great thoughts, or the most profound talk of your life to come out of here, I honestly tell you that, I can’t promise you anything, because perhaps this writing is nothing more than a parade of ideas that pass through my mind in unison with the fighting cries of thousands of Mexicans who are today in the chambers of Congress demonstrating to be heard, fighting for a country free of any feature that can harm democracy.
I know well that here in this space that unites us today, no matter where we are, I talk very little about politics, and I share my positions and ideas very little; however, the future that is sketched for my country is now blurred and uncertain, and I will take the license to say that, I envision a turbulent, insecure future and with all the pain of my heart, with few alternatives to violence…
But that was not what I wanted to share in this small, or perhaps long, writing. It was something else, as if a voice inside me was whispering in my ear the following words: “Tell them, share what you feel”… And I have to do it here in this small space, where I know that only a few will read and I know that a few will be able to understand the purpose of my work…
One day, while I was working out, I was talking to someone, I was telling her how I felt in the last few days, if not, the last few weeks. A question came out of nowhere and popped into my head like a good old joker: “Have you ridden a bike?” My interlocutor replied, “What does that have to do with what we are talking about?” That response was not foreign to me, because I have been told around the place where I walk that I end up coming up with things that apparently have little or nothing to do with the subject in question. It is not that I ramble on or much less avoid it.
I repeated the question almost imperiously to that person. Her singular answer was “Yes, I have ridden a bicycle.” That was all I needed to hear in order to explain the natural development of what was to follow, preventing several things from being overlooked in its inexorable course.
If you, dear reader, have ridden a bicycle at some point in your life, then you will not be alien, unfamiliar or strange to those little wheels that are usually used when one is still just a little apprentice, much less the falls and scrapes that are natural to learning, however, the smiles born from knowing that you are skilled in the use of the bicycle are capable of erasing every wound and every bruise if there is one; and it is in those smiles where the joys of a challenge overcome lie…
However, what will happen to that little 6-year-old boy who tries with all the joy in the world and innate innocence, but falls or trips? It would take no more than two fingers of forehead to suppose that tears would flow from his eyes, perhaps with a little bad luck a scrape on his arms or knees, but with even more bad luck, a blow lodged on his face. Maybe that child decides to try again, to get on the bike once more, now aware of what can happen, but determined to try. Here is where I must mention that it would be crazy to think that this would be the only possible scenario… Maybe another 6-year-old boy decides not to try again for fear of falling again, for fear of hurting himself once more, with a conflict of thinking that he is not good enough to achieve it, denying himself the opportunity to ride a bike through the streets of his city…
When you are learning to ride a bike, it is also common to find help or support from someone else. Someone who accompanies you, someone who follows your path, guiding you, and sometimes, if necessary, taking control of the handlebars if they think it is appropriate; someone who helps you get up when you fall, perhaps also cleans any wounds you may have… But as that help or assistance “diminishes”, sometimes someone may start to feel insecure… “Will I be able to do it on my own?” “Will I be able to walk alone?” “And if I fall, who will help me get up?” “What if I walk away and never see them again?” “Is it time for me to start walking on my own?” You are terrified of walking alone, however, some of us come to recognize the need to learn to walk on our own, but there is simply a fear of walking alone… And perhaps not even for fear of falling…
And that is more or less how I was able to explain how I felt… Afraid to start pedaling, afraid not only of falling, because I have already fallen enough, but also afraid of loneliness itself… To hell with that romantic idea that loneliness brings us closer to ourselves! When solitude is fully desired, it can be one of the greatest companions; not so when loneliness knocks on the doors of your life and enters without asking for permission, and that is where hell itself can begin to brew…
You know what, dear reader… Dealing with abandonment issues and the feeling of loneliness or emptiness is the most exhausting thing… On the one hand, you recognize the need to learn to walk on your own, to not depend emotionally on how this or that person speaks to you or answers you, on what that person does or doesn’t do, because many times we tend to misinterpret details that may be insignificant or irrelevant; from a full stop in each message, to the tone of voice with which they speak to us, a look, a grimace, or a simple “yes” or “no”… But at the same time that this happens, we become afraid of being alone, of not having anyone to share with, to laugh with, to write or draw with…
And this is where it all comes into play… Let me explain it better… Sometimes in life, we think we’ve given our best, that we’ve been the best we could, and we’ve even given more than we perhaps should have… And despite having given ourselves fully, something happened, what we longed for so much was nothing more and nothing less than a simple dream that we fed with illusions and fantasies… Like when you fall in love, and we only have eyes for that person, and in that person everything is perfect, there’s no room for errors or defects; but when we hit reality, that fairy tale we had created begins to fade, leaving our hearts in pieces, and now when we examine ourselves we realize that we are missing pieces, that heart that beat for us is already incomplete, because a part of it has gone into that person, and this is where it makes sense when I said that as long as you keep remembering me, I will continue to live, and as long as I still have a small space in your heart I will never die…
Fear of getting attached, fear of feeling again, fear that we will feed a dream with fantasies and illusions again and that at the first of changes, those traumas begin to gain strength inside us and begin to annoy us by telling us that we are not enough, that by opening up we will be a burden, that we do not know how to express ourselves and that we are very intense and that’s why people move away from one… Do you realize dear reader the contradictions that are evident here? On the one hand, we want to feel, we want to shout to the whole world “I LOVE YOU”, we want to go to those people who matter most to us and give them a hug, a flower, or just our time, but they matter so much to us that, we are afraid that in the course of this, we will end up being intense, or that they will move away from one … So as a self-protection measure, we create a barrier that prevents us from feeling and wanting to be connected, for fear of being hurt again…
Maybe these last two years have not been the easiest or most jovial years, but they are the years where I have had to learn to be stronger, because that was it, or break down… And maybe I did break down, maybe my heart did end up in a thousand pieces, and I didn’t know where to start… But it was right there where I was able to meet people who, without asking me for anything in return, decided to help me get back on my feet and put a band-aid on the wounds and put back together the broken pieces that were on the floor…
And this is where I will open up a little more, I will thank those people who perhaps without knowing it, helped me or continue to help me to walk, no longer with assistance, but to walk by myself… From the distance on the other side of the world or the northern border, as well as the proximity of a few kilometers, everyone will know who I am referring to… Thank you for giving me a space in your lives, and I apologize if at any time I did something that made you uncomfortable…
I don’t know what the future of “The World of Ideas” will be, nor how many readers I will have, but as long as I’m alive I will continue writing…
Dear reader, if you are going through a difficult time, or suffer from depression, anxiety or some other disorder, let me tell you that you are not alone, and as long as you keep breathing, it is worth trying to live, because outside that cage that our fears have created, there is a life worth living…
September 10 World Suicide Prevention Day.
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