A LETTER TO YOU-SILENCE WITHOUT CLOSURE
The year 2025 had come to me like a roller coaster built without a map, without safety belts, without any warning of when to brace myself. It had risen, plunged, thrown me forward, then stopped without mercy. Pleasant and unpleasant feelings had arrived in turns, sometimes at the same time, then disappeared without farewell—as though I had been left to decipher their meaning on my own.
Amid all of this, my mental health had been tested once again. Bipolar disorder had not been merely a diagnosis; it had been an inner climate, capable of shifting within hours. Some days had felt bright, full of plans and courage. Other days had felt dark and heavy, as though each breath had needed to be counted carefully, one by one. Yet what had exhausted me most had not been the rise and fall of emotion, but the losses that had arrived without pause—like waves that had never allowed me time to stand upright again.
The greatest loss had come suddenly: my father had gone. My father—the man who had raised me, whose blood and pulse had truly flowed through my body. His departure had happened while I had been away from my hometown. There had been no final hand to hold as he faced his last breath, no closing conversation. Only distant news—cold, final, and beyond negotiation.
Yes. Painful in a way language had never been able to explain.
That pain had soon turned into regret. While my father had still been alive, I had often resisted his wishes. After he had retired—perhaps weary of solitude—he had always wanted to live with me in the place where I had built my life away from home. He had wanted to be close. To care. To feel that he had still been needed. I had always refused.
I had not felt brave enough.
I had not wanted the responsibility.
I had not wanted the complication.
At the time, those reasons had sounded reasonable—perhaps even necessary for survival. But after my father had gone, they had transformed into voices that had returned endlessly in my head: If only I hadn’t refused. If only I had been braver. If only I had chosen the inconvenience of living with my father. If only… If only… If only…
“Had I been unbearably unfilial?”
The question had haunted me—not in search of an answer, but as a means of punishment.
What I had forgotten was one thing: I, too, had been surviving. I had been struggling with my own mind, my own body, with a world that had often felt unbearably harsh. My refusal had not come from a lack of love, but from fear—fear of not being capable, fear of failing as a good child, fear of disappointing my father if living together had only made everything fall apart.
But death had never listened to context.
It had left only emptiness.
In what remained of 2025, I had learned how to live with that hollow space. I had not tried to close it, nor had I forced myself to heal. I had learned that loss had not always been something to resolve—sometimes it had only been something to carry. I had also come to understand that my love for my father had not disappeared simply because of my refusals in the past.
That love had still existed.
In my effort to keep living, even while limping forward.
Perhaps I had not been a perfect child. But I had been real. I had been human. And in that unplanned year, survival itself had already been a form of courage—one that was rarely recognized.
September arrived without a sound, lengthening loss.
After having broken my own heart—by continually resisting my father’s wish to live with me—midyear had arrived without warning, and my romantic relationship had begun to lose its flavor. The word had come from my partner at the time, who had since become my ex. Xe had ended our relationship without a complete conversation, without reasons I could truly understand, and without a final meeting. Everything had concluded in silence.
It had been painful, of course.
In the days that followed, I had spent my time searching myself, looking for the fault I might have committed. Where had I gone wrong? Or perhaps—what had never been enough in me? Those questions had not demanded answers; they had merely repeated themselves, cold and persistent.
Later, I had learned that he had confided in my close friend that Xe interest had faded. Xe had felt no longer capable of sustaining the relationship with me. Yet I had not truly listened. Our days had still been filled with intense closeness, with routines that appeared tender and whole. I had trusted what was visible, unaware that weariness could hide itself so neatly.
Xe had been skilled at carrying that exhaustion alone. Until, at one point, Xe had chosen the simplest and sharpest honesty: my mental health—bipolar disorder—had made Xem feel unable to remain within the days we shared.
That reason had opened another wound, one that had felt deeper.
For a while, I had pushed aside the reality that we were no longer together. I had treated it as a nightmare—something that would eventually end when I awoke drenched in cold sweat, reached for Xem body, kissed Xem forehead, and apologized for my unawareness of Xem feelings.
But reality had never waited for readiness.
What remained had been the knowledge that we had truly parted. There had been no more messages saying: Good morning, love—don’t forget to eat and take your medicine. No more gentle reminders, delivered in the simplest way, to stay alive and attentive.
And the absence had gone both ways. There had been no one left as the first name I searched for in my WhatsApp contacts, to whom I could type the same messages: Good morning, be careful on your way to the office, sweetheart. Let me know when you arrive. Don’t forget to eat your breaksfat. What does your schedule look like today?
Those small things had never seemed important while they still existed. They had only revealed their weight once they were completely gone—leaving behind a hollow space that was not loud, but enduring.
I had begun to understand that loss did not always arrive as a major event. Sometimes it appeared as habits that could no longer be repeated. As sentences no longer typed. As a name that no longer surfaced on a screen, yet remained lodged in memory.
In the midst of a year that had already lost so much—my father, a relationship, and the illusion of togetherness—I had continued to walk forward. Without certainty. Without support. Learning to accept that some separations offered no closure, only a long pause that never truly ended.
