It’s only after that final exhale that I realize how much I’ve sacrificed, and that all those moments when I had felt guilty, prideful even, for having it easier than others suddenly feel like a lie. If only I had been less disingenuous to myself, to how I feel, perhaps I had been more compassionate towards the people around me, and I’d be less envious of their strength to admit their struggles.
To continue walking, even when everything around you seemed to have grown incongruous to your life, is both a blessing and a curse. On one end, there’s the affirmation of the fact that life will go on and on even when you’re not there. On the other, the failure to embrace each passing moment; you have become a spectator, a nobody who passes by to your own self, and hence to the sufferings of others.
Even when it had become less difficult, and maybe even habitual for me to share my vulnerabilities, and that I had written about my struggles in the attempt to confront them, to take hold once and for all of my life, there will always be another, waiting to hit me around the corner when I least expect it. Perhaps this is all what life is. Perhaps this is all what life will ever be.
I had every chance to die before, and I have more now, either by my own volition or by sheer misfortune. But I didn’t. Some days, moments even, simply are better than others that you forget to consider dying for a long, long time.
May I still continue to love. To love. To love.