Letters to a friend: When you encounter an unlit road, take it and shine.

Jalan Sepakat Indah 3, April 19, 2013

Dearest friend, 

I begin my letter with a heavy tug in my heart. As opposed to our last correspondence many years ago, we are now in different junctions of our lives.

Then, I had no idea who you were, but your presence was a comforting anchor for my wayward sail. 

Today, you are no longer in my life. 

I hate to say the word "I lost you". 

I don't think you can ever lose a person once they had been in your life. 

When someone important appears in your life, it is as good as finding a piece of yourself back, and when you lose them, it is as good as losing a part of you - again.

I had doubts about writing today. But I am reaching the point in my life where I have to try everything because nothing seems to be working. 

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes I feel like I am carrying a hole the size of Pennsylvania in my heart.

It's like an itch that never goes away. 

No matter how hard I scream, "for God's sake, I'm fine! I feel freaking fabulously fine!" to myself, no matter how euphoric I feel in my moments of happiness, I can't help but feeling like I'm walking on a glass floor - ready to break and suck me into a vortex of dark and barren void.

Do you remember when I said you were my attempt at healing? 

"It's unfair", I told myself. "It's unfair for you to put a responsibility so heavy on one person's shoulder and expect them not to crumble.". 

"It's dangerous!", concurs a friend.

But I was at my wit's end.

People are always telling us to be adventurous, to take our chances at happiness whenever possible. 

Here's the fine print,

#1, Once you start breaking free, you cannot stop. No small or diamond-studded cage will ever satisfy you. You will always be in constant and flighty need to try something, to go somewhere, to be someone.

#2, No matter how many chances have you tried and adventurously taken - none, I repeat, none of them guarantees you a happily ever after. 

Life is just one big giant mess of randomness.  

You were my random, 

and I am that one flighty bird who broke free from her cage, lost and frantically jumping from stone to stone, finding my way home. 

You proved my hypothesis true, 

but I am not stopping from walking on and soaring high. Because I have no choice, because I believe it's not our fault, because what else can I do but continuing to believe?

Yours truly, 
Ati. A. Aziz