Unsent Letters #4: Covent Garden
Hi there,
Firstly, I am so sorry that this is the first letter that I have written to you in the past 1.5 years. I can definitely make hundreds of flowery excuses, but for you, I will just be frank and succumb to the reality that my life didn’t give me the chance to write to you.
How are you? I hope you’re as happy as I think you are. Well, someone told me that you’ve found someone else, and you’re very happy with him and looking to make it a long-term one.
As for me, a lot of things have happened in my life, and a lot of things have changed. But one of the most significant is: that I chose to take the gamble and to embark on the plane — a plane that would take me to a place where the sun sets while it rises at your place.
A year ago, I decided that I would start anew, to put my colors on the white blank paper. I had decided to take the risk, put everything on the line, and embark on a once-in-a-lifetime journey. A journey that might ring a tiny bell amidst your daily routines.
This is the dream that I told you about, and I am living in it. I still remember the lines in the last letter that you sent me: “… I want to see that you made it, all of them”
There is a good chance that by now, you have already forgotten all of it. There is a good chance that it was just a millisecond train of thoughts that you managed to keep a record of while clicking on the button at the bottom right corner of your phone.
But for me, it’s enough to make me work day and night to realize those dreams. While it has always been my North Star, those words fueled a faraway dream, turning it into a life obsession of mine.
The second I read those lines, I made you a promise.
It is no secret that keeping promises is no easy task — even our brilliant politicians always fail. And it had been the same for me.
I wish I had the time to tell you that it has been an arduous journey — a torture that sometimes makes me wish that I didn’t survive the pandemic. All these years, every millisecond of my life feels like I’m in a rush to catch the last train and I kept relying on adrenaline to make ends meet, sighing a short breath of relief whenever I met one and hopping straight onto the next on my list. It has been my mission impossible and a leap of faith which I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth. All these years, it has been a test of personality and mental strength, in which I’ve given everything that my body can give.
Sometimes I wonder whether I’ll survive. Sometimes I wonder whether I’ll make it to the end of the tunnel. Sometimes I wonder: would I be able to keep a promise that I made the 20-year-old version of you? The truth is, there is no way for me to know it right now and not until the next 8 months.
Nevertheless, I kept on hanging on. I kept on striving to give it my best, one day at a time, pretty sure that I was doing it for myself, but somewhere along the lines, the little parts of me were doing it because I wanted to keep my promise to that version of you, one of the most favorite persons in my life.
Throughout these years, I’ve had my fair share of blows, with bruises all around. But I would always get back on my feet again, bracing for the next sequence of blows, because I know that all of this would be worth it in the end. I want to live a life without regret, where even if life got the best out of me, I would happily accept that fact — knowing that I’ve done everything I can, and I’ve faced life eye to eye without backing down.
Dear, I know it has been a lengthy one, and I am sorry for the fact that even if you had waited for years for me to keep my promise to you, please forgive me that you would need to wait a little bit longer.
Please bear with me while I’m dedicating every single muscle in my body to achieve those dreams of mine. Please look at me, and watch closely while I’m giving everything I have in me, trying to survive all the tortures of my life and to keep the last promise I made to you. And maybe, just maybe, I can finally pay my final due to you.
