Diary of a dying man

Memories lying in the box

To be completely honest, I remember almost perfectly everything I placed in the box. It's as if every object, photograph, note clipping, poorly done drawing, etc. Everything, triggered my memory just by seeing it

It's funny how a box can be the reflection of a man's life... yes, it sounds ridiculous and even romantic to the point of being nauseating, but that's the way I am... or is that the way I was made?... well... whatever. As I held this box on my lap, an unpleasant shudder ran through me, followed by a warm nostalgia, somewhat contradictory if you think about it carefully.The first thing I found in the box was a photograph of me at the age of 6, at that time, I was just a kid in first grade and I had already had my first "love". Of course, at that time I didn't understand anything about love as a couple, since I barely understood the concept of love as something that adults and children have for their parents, but it was an irresistible sensation. In the photograph she appeared next to me and very smiling... Estefania... the girl for whom I had completely lost my mind at that time....

I placed the box on the armchair and I stared at the photo, it almost seemed to have a life of its own, like one of those mythical Disney moments, where a memory triggers a song and everything around the protagonist starts to change color... At that time (we are talking about 1994) we both studied at the same school and as far as we could tell, we were friends. Moreover, we were on the same school bus that picked us up from home and took us to school (and vice versa). I guess I was not very good at dissimulation, because I tried to disguise the attraction that those charming cinnamon eyes exerted on me, with my most acid contempt. I thought in my fantasy fiction, that it would attract her and it was what any child would do (in fact, I had seen it on TV and therefore I considered it as something right), which of course, did not go unnoticed by other boys and girls who were in the car (especially those who were older than us) and lent themselves to the game of pimping, generating more than one uncomfortable scenario.
I can perfectly remember Estefania's face before this spectacle that was repeated every morning, besides the obvious blush, the discomfort was more than palpable, so as you can imagine, we were not the best of friends, although we didn't get along badly either.

I tried to come to my senses, but my memory was going a mile a minute, so I left the photograph next to the box and leaned back a little on the couch to calm down. I firmly believe that "what ifs" are useless, but this time it was unavoidable..... What if we had remained friends until we were teenagers? What if then, having a better understanding of what it was like to fall in love, I had tried to win her love? What if I had been honest with her at some point? Maybe she would have said yes or maybe she would have unceremoniously kicked me out of her life... although I don't think I said the latter. We were friends until about 3 years ago, when we stopped talking completely and I haven't heard from her again.

Did I tell her? Was I still in love with her? Was there any possibility of a relationship? The answers to that are Yes, No and No.... I did have the courage to tell her... but not in the way someone "normal" would do it... let me explain... when I changed school, back in the year 2000, she continued studying there and we lost contact for a while, however, I managed to locate her when I was 17, in the house in Jiron Dante (Surquillo) where she lived... I tried to visit her often, just because I liked to see her. I'm not saying that I was still in love with her, but I liked talking to her and it was always a good time with her. But I thought that the most sensible thing to do was to leave her a letter where I confessed that I liked her when we were kids and I did it, I waited for no one to be at home and I left it under the door... but I didn't count on a determining factor... her mother... her mother has always been almost a delight to me.

Their mother has always been almost a delight to the satan himself and not to exaggerate, but the lady always managed to make herself hated. At some point, she decided that her children should become Jehovah's Witnesses like her and wham! under a dictatorial command and an extremely toxic environment in which she blamed her daughters for her divorce (I found this out from Estefania herself during a conversation) she even forbade her oldest daughter to go to the birthday parties of the children in our classroom, because "it was a sin"... almost as fanatic as Carrie White's mother in S. King's novel... When we were kids, all the mothers in the classroom, could not stand Estefania's mother because of these behaviors and it was constant to hear of an argument. Things got to the point that Estefania was the only one at the elementary school prom (she attended thanks to her father pushing to the extreme for Estefania to go) who did not have a date, nor was she allowed to dance with any boy... what a "nice" lady, right?

Well, the thing is that I didn't count on my letter where I didn't really say anything of the other world, except that given the friendship that united us, I wanted to confess to her that when we were kids, I was attracted to her, that I thought she had become a very pretty young woman and that I liked her to be part of my life (surprisingly mature for someone who was in his phase of horny asshole) then the hecatomb broke out. .. her mother got my cell phone number and called to scream my life from A to Z, condemning me to all possible hells and stressing that her daughter was not allowed to have a crush.... (considering I hadn't written that letter with the intention of romancing her, I didn't understand the reference) then she hung up on me. A few minutes later, I received an email from Estefania, saying that she was flattered by my letter (she was very diplomatic) but that she did not want to have a boyfriend nor did she think it was right for us to meet again...

And there I was... cold as an iceberg, sent beyond the friendzone, to the iciest places of indifference and without having really tried to start a love relationship. We stopped seeing each other until we were past 24, until we met by chance in a movie theater. We arranged to meet for coffee and when the date finally happened (to call it that) he handed me two pieces of graph paper... what was left of the letter I had left under his door. That afternoon we talked for almost an hour, about totally inconsequential topics... we briefly touched on what we had done with our lives, what we were working on and what we were thinking of doing. At that time I was in a relationship, so we talked as freely as we could (even more so knowing that she had been forced to become independent because she could no longer tolerate her mother) but that was all... we met again in December of that year to participate in a chocolate party for Christmas and we never saw each other again... that day I remembered how beautiful she looked... how captivating her voice was and how much fun I had with her and I could only return to the unpleasant "what if" scenario... "What if she was in love with me? What if I missed the signs and let a lovely woman pass me by? What if she was waiting for me to make the first move?...

Today, almost 9 years after that date... I'm back to being the 6 year old boy who was uncomfortable in her presence and didn't know how to react... today at 33 years old, I can't help but wonder where life must have taken her... will she still remember the scraps of paper left over from my letter? ... I guess I will never know... those pieces, though, are still here... gathering dust inside the box of my memories... I sat down and took them out of the box, looking at them with a mixture of sorrow and curiosity, before putting them next to the photograph, starting the pile that will end up in the garbage.