39 - The Echoes of What If

Back then, 

I used to think

If only I had this, 

life wouldn’t be so hard. 

Or if only I didn’t have that, 

maybe I’d be happier.

It is always circumstantial. 

Always something external. 

Never a real answer. 

Just a placeholder for pain I didn’t know how to name.

Even now, 

I catch myself thinking 

If only I had more money, 

more stability, 

maybe life wouldn’t be this hard. 

And yes, maybe it wouldn’t. 

But would I be happier?

I don’t know anymore. 

It wouldn’t bring my friend back. 

It wouldn’t have stopped him from leaving this world. 

That wasn’t about money. 

That was about presence. 

About care. 

And I wasn’t there.

That was my doing. 

Not the lack of wealth, 

but the absence of emotional presence. 

The absence of showing up when it mattered most.

And sometimes I wonder

Would I have been happier with a partner?

A family? 

But the way I was

the way I still am to some degree 

wouldn’t have allowed it. 

The burden I carry would have crushed it.

It would have fallen apart 

It would have been another thing destroyed by emotional absence.

Some people enter relationships just to escape loneliness. 

And end up trapped

in silence, 

in abuse, 

in rooms where love no longer lives. 

I know that place. 

I’ve been there. 

No door. 

No light.

And sometimes 

I ask myself, 

What if the past had been different? 

If my friend hadn’t left, 

yes, I would have been happier. 

But I can’t change that. 

It already happened.

And even if I could change it 

the way I carried myself, 

I was bound to fall in the end

I was too focused on myself. 

Neglecting family and friends 

Careless. 

Selfish. 

I wasn’t on the right path to begin with.

These are the things I can’t undo. 

So now, 

I try to be here. 

Present. 

Strong enough to be emotionally present.

And not fall again

It’s a struggle I carry. 

But I guess

it’s the only way forward.