The Twelve I’m Sorrys

Carla was sitting near the dining room table, staring into nothing, lost in her own thoughts. She barely heard the doorbell begin to ring.

With the slow movements that had recently become typical of her, she got up and went to the window to see who it was… It was the mailman.

Her sigh could be heard in the lonely living room; she couldn’t imagine who might have written to her.

She opened the door and forced a smile for the stranger.

“Good morning, miss,” the man greeted her as the silence grew awkward. “Are you Miss Carla Almarza?”

“Yes,” she answered, with no desire to keep a conversation going.

“Please sign here,” he said, handing her a letter, and then she signed the delivery receipt.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and closed the door behind her.

To her surprise, the envelope said: “For me, Carla.”

When she read those words, her hands began to tremble and she had to sit down because the room started spinning. She was so shaken that the sound of her heart pounded in her ear.

She opened it quickly, careful not to tear the sheet inside. She was so nervous that for a moment the letters looked like mere scribbles on the paper. She had to concentrate to understand what it said, and after one, two, three attempts, she managed to make out the written words:

“My twelve I’m sorrys”:

1. Carla, I want you to know that missing you, loving you and thinking of you was never enough for me; and it’s not because you did the same for me… I know it was mutual, but a relationship needs more than that. Even more so now that we’re no longer together.
2. I know I was always selfish, that I wore you down to the limit with my bad behavior.
3. I want you to understand that the problem was always me, never you. Your love was unconditional, passionate, understanding… Now I understand that I didn’t deserve so much, and you never should have had so little.
4. You deserve a man strong enough to bear the demands of life.
5. It was never fair that someone like you should live and fall in love with someone like me. Find someone who represents you and who always gives more than they receive.
6. I accept that I was too much for you, that I couldn’t be enough, that the intensity of what you felt didn’t match my stupid way of loving or of letting problems overwhelm me. I was always a saboteur of our happiness… or rather, of yours… Damn it, of both of ours! Because I did love you, or at least I thought I did, but I couldn’t move forward, and I let my demons drag me down.
7. If I had loved you, at least enough to return what you gave me, I wouldn’t have done what I did.
8. I suppose I should ask for your forgiveness, but I know you don’t need it to move on… Don’t worry if you haven’t yet; I know you, I know you’ll be able to keep going.
9. I was such a coward that I didn’t say goodbye; it wasn’t the right thing to do. I didn’t want to compromise the circumstances of my departure. Remember, I’m a damn selfish man.
10. Even with three of us, that wasn’t enough either, because it’s never enough when there’s no respectful love for a person’s feelings.
11. You were a great love for me that I couldn’t appreciate until it was too late; and for you I was just one big mistake.
12. You believed I could change and give you more, but no one can give you what they don’t have inside.

I know not everything was bad; from this I learned that you can love in different ways, that every love is unique, even when love is compared only between two people.

I know this letter will hurt you like nothing else, but I needed you to finish breaking, because only when you hit rock bottom do you have just one way… “Rise and move forward”; I know you’ll find the courage to start over. You must go on, so you have to stop crying and stop pretending I’m still in your life… I’m not coming back, I can’t, that will never happen. I was like a cancer in your life. A disease that rotted away part of your time and your feelings.

I know we both tried to make it work, but my being, my decisions, my stupidity and arrogance ruined everything.

That was the reason for this letter… to say goodbye. So you’d know exactly what I thought at the end of everything that happened between us, but none of it managed to be an anchor to keep me here.”

Carla dropped the sheet on the table, not before crumpling it, her hands still trembling; she took a breath, once, twice, trying to calm the sharp pain she felt in her chest. Holding back the tears was impossible.

“How it hurts to love this damn selfish man,” she said, wiping her tears away harder than necessary, as she began to feel anger and frustration. “I was just starting to forget you, and you decided to send me a letter a year after your death!” she shouted into the void, as if he could hear her, remembering for the millionth time how she found him dead, his lifeless body hanging from the ceiling of the room that had so often witnessed their uncontrolled sex. “No, I know it wasn’t only your fault, because I chose, and I chose badly,” she murmured, trying to calm herself.

That day she couldn’t recover, but she read the letter every day until she felt strong enough to choose again.

Kassfinol

A letter… to read what we always wanted them to tell us, but the idiot we loved never did.

Twelve “I’m sorrys” that could ease the hearts of many women. We can be like Carla, read the letter, and somatize… heal our souls, so we can move forward, hoping time will shelter our souls and heal our feelings.

It’s never too late to start, but we need to be healed to love without pain, without fear, and to move forward in a positive way, without looking for culprits or punishing the innocent.