Fall

How could I explain it to you

And although I know that you understand me, as few people in this world do, maybe you are even the only one …. it’s hard for me to explain it to you.

You see, I had even thought of calling you, or sending you an audio, a letter, what do I know, but in the end, I have decided for this way, in which, in a given moment I can rectify some expression, maybe give you a more focused vision, more accurate, more sincere… but I know that I cannot write you in any other way.

Throughout my life, there have been many times when my muscles have been on the verge of collapse, each and every one of my muscles trembled when I did the madness, I was 19 years old, of a march in the militia that was called, for something serious, as the crusher, it is not a matter of telling you how many kilometers and in what conditions, but to give you an idea, We left the barracks 120 and arrived only eight, yes, all to get a leave of 10 days, on another occasion, in my time in the Red Cross, I was more than 48 hours without sleep or rest, when Pope John Paul II came and had to enable a whole prevention device, a weekend that still remembers my mother as the day I came home in an ambulance and a horse pneumonia ….

Then there have been others in which I have pushed myself to the limit, some of them alone, with fear struggling to come out in a scream of fear and rage, limits created in putting my feet firmly on the ground and not moving them, no matter what happened, in days and months of accepting situations that scratched the deepest part of me, in believing what I was not, what I never was, but that sometimes I came to believe that it was part of me.

I could tell you a thousand and one moments of fear, of rejection, of frustration, of doubts, of …..

But I always ended up getting up, with pain in my legs, with stiffness in my eyelashes, with anger for not wanting to admit what they even said about me, but without knowing how to defend myself.

Until this trip to my island… my corner… where, when I am asked why, I always say, and it has been prophetic, I have been coming here for a few years, to recharge my batteries.

It was on a path, one of those that I usually walk, alone, when I fell, perhaps because I stumbled, perhaps because I failed this knee that has me lately something discouraged, in short, the truth is that I fell and not being able to get up because I had no strength to do so, sigh and resign myself to rest a little, I turned and looked at the ocean that jumped between the rocks, pushed by that wind that had almost made me close my eyes when it turned in my direction, the same rocks that I had had to leave when I saw how the water rose by the tide, and there, at that moment, I do not know how it arose… I cried, I cried as I did not remember to have done it in a long time, I exclaimed insults to all the gods created or invented, I shouted of rage, I shouted names of those who had been in my life, good, bad, with reason, without it, I did not discriminate, after all, each and every one of them, they were pending issues.

Every part of me ached, and I could not differentiate what was causing me the most pain, if it was a simple and huge stiffness that covered each and every one of my muscles, even those I do not know, or if I was complaining about the opportunities I thought I had lost, for all those moments that, at some point I thought… and yes… in all the decisions I made, thought, meditated, impulsive most of them, dictated by the emotion of the moment I had to decide.

A thousand and one images came to my head, scenes like in a movie, but in which I was the protagonist, the villain in some, the bad guy, the unhappy fool that everyone takes advantage of, the hero in others, and in each image, my crying did not stop, I noticed how my pulse was as fast as the day they announced that I was responsible for a creature that, in time, would give me the greatest satisfactions of my life, my daughter, a part of me.

The night closed over me, the wind did not stop blowing urgently, the waves did not stop jumping and I was still there, sitting or rather, almost lying on a small rock, screaming at times, and I was touching myself, sobbing more quietly.

And there appeared an endless number of faces, gestures, smiles, caresses that still lingered in my memory. I remembered whispers that I dedicated, silences with which I accompanied, I remembered that I had been there, perhaps by a chance of fortune or perhaps because destiny had already placed me in that particular moment.

Don’t ask me what time it was, I only know that at some point, I know that I stopped crying, I know that I looked at the ground without seeing it because of the darkness that surrounded me, I know that I told myself that I had to get up, not for you, not for her, not for anyone else in particular but myself, because there, at that moment, I knew that only I will decide when to surrender.

It hurt, it fucking hurt!!!, every step I took, every stumble I took in a darkness that I could have avoided, but I didn’t want to, not that I didn’t remember that I had something to light the way, but I decided not to, I had taken an irrational decision, illogical and any other consideration you can think of, each and every one of them I took into account, in a little more than… six thousandths of a second?

I ached with every step, I still have pain today in each and every system of my body, but I have allowed myself the luxury of looking at myself, of seeing myself as I never had before.

I think you could call it a hangover, I still have the hangover of a few hours in which I simply fell, exhausted, exhausted, without strength, without the will to live, without believing that I had any reason to take the next step, but as in so many other occasions, never with this strength I have to admit, I got up again.

Maybe that’s why this is the best ending I can tell you.

Because for you…

I am still here.