Unsent Letters

There are few greater barriers to closure than words left unspoken. Life has a way of taking the ones who mean the most to us at unexpected times and, human nature being the way it is, too many of us fail to fully express how we feel before it’s too late.

Below, are letters that I’ve written to two people. The effect that one of the recipients had on my life and worldview is fairly obvious, while the other’s mark on my life is only fully known to the people closest to me.

My intent is not that the recipients read these, although, only one of them would be able to. It is not to irresponsibly put my own one-sided account of events into the ether without their input; these pieces are far too short for me to do that anyway. I wrote these simply for the clarity they brought.

These words, particularly those to my first love, were inspired by the beautiful woman whom I hope to be able to spend the rest of my life with. Meiya; a piece of you is in every word I write. The pain I describe here, while harrowing, was incredibly formative. It informed many of my later decisions. It’s the reason why I told you that I loved you so early on in our relationship. Not because I wanted or expected you to say them back to me – less than a month into our relationship – but because that was I how I felt. It hurt to hold the words in, and I knew that even if you left me because it was too soon, it would be easier to express myself than to suppress it. Thank you for inspiring me every day.

---

To an Ex-Girlfriend

When I remember how quickly you became my everything, I still can’t believe it. Even six years on. It all feels like a dream, but the impact it had is undeniable. You were all I thought about: a refuge from my home life, and the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak existence.

Melodramatic?

Probably.

True?

Definitely.

But, when I choked on the words that would have shown you what it all meant, you just stared.

And waited.

More than anything, I wanted to say them, but I physically couldn’t. Watching my parents’ marriage implode made me incapable of doing so. Instead of asking what was wrong, or saying the words I know you felt too, you left.

And you took a part of me with you.

Looking back, I don’t know how I should think of you. How permanently should you be etched into my memory? You were my first, after all.

Now that I think about it, I want to say, “Thank you.” That ordeal taught me to say what I feel, no matter what. Because of your inability to understand, I found someone better.

---

To My Father

You used to talk about getting your hair cut when you were a kid. Just you and your twin brother. Out on the front porch with your father.

And an electric trimmer locked onto the shortest setting.

You’d cry in protest every time, but he’d still go through with it.

Damn near put you two in headlocks doing it. Laughing all the while.

And I thought our relationship was fucked up.

It makes sense now; your obsession with appearance. Why you always had to have the most expensive clothes. Hickey Freeman shirts, Armani suits, Ferragamo loafers. I only know the brand names because of how often you’d casually drop them into everyday conversation. It annoyed the hell out of me, but I honestly think some of it rubbed off.

I know I’m a little vain myself.

Okay, more than a little. I enjoy the way I look in a suit a little too much, although I’d never break the bank to buy one.

Funny. All that work you put into your appearance and now you’re just – gone. And that toxic asshole you had for a father is still alive in Coventry, Connecticut.

And I only know that from my weekly reading of the obituaries.

---

No matter how regrettable our past may be, it’s important to realize and accept the effect that it has on who we are as individuals. My father and I spent more time fighting than we did getting along, yet I see some of him in me when I reflect on who I really am as a man. Were I to resist the more innate traits that I received from him, I’d risk doing far more harm than good to my own mental health. I wouldn’t be able to love or even like myself if I did that. Dysfunctional father does not equal a dysfunctional me. Likewise, the most painful romantic experience I’ve been through does not mean that my entire love life afterward will be tainted by a sense of foreboding. Past mistakes can and should inform who we are, but they should not be allowed to define us.

~Sean Donnelly

All That We Are

This may be the last memoir chapter I share publicly for a little while. Like all of the ones I’ve posted here and the two I put on my other blog, Puncher’s Chance, this one is intensely personal. It deals with my own struggle with depression which, again, is a growing problem in society at large, and must be spoken of openly. Sweeping it under the rug and treating it like some disease that you’ll catch if you so much as acknowledge its existence only makes those who are dealing with it feel more alienated than they already are. Thank you for reading.

---

There’s nothing romantic about being the best fighter no one has ever heard of. Or about being a good writer whose material not enough people have read. I have hundreds of pages written that I’m scared to publish, and have yet to perform up to my potential in the ring. I don’t know what the hell I’m afraid of. The best explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that I’m subconsciously holding back. If I don’t give one hundred percent, then I’ll still have an excuse if I fail. Or, maybe, I’ve trained myself to shut down – at least partially – during moments when action is most required of me. On the few occasions that I’ve read, or been required to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I always felt some kinship with the play’s protagonist. After all, Hamlet’s inability to act was his tragic flaw.

My life must look amazing from the outside. I’m blessed with talent in areas that I enjoy and have been lucky enough to discover them at a young age. My sparring partners, from the lowest amateur to the several established professionals, have paid me every imaginable compliment. I have everything going for me, but I can never quite put it all together when it counts. I perform maybe at thirty or forty percent of my potential and, even with that, I put on a clinic against UConn’s team captain. He barely hit me clean all fight long, and I couldn’t miss with my counter punches. It was like I was seeing everything in slow motion, and I was still not at my best. But I’ve still lost a lot of fights to guys who, quite frankly, aren’t on my level. Whenever I stop fighting, I don’t want to always wonder, ‘What could have been?’ And when I die, I don’t want my closest of kin to find multiple novels’ worth of unpublished work on my computer because I was too scared to follow through on it. It would be such a waste; I need to stop selling myself short.

Hamlet’s hesitancy to act was infuriating to read about, and yet, I understand it on a very deep level. I wish I could say differently, because that would mean that I’m not dealing with the same problem.

So how must it be for those closest to me to watch? Meiya, my mom, my coach. They’re all so supportive of me, even when I don’t perform to my abilities. But I always imagine them feeling the same. Being as disappointed in me as I am myself. So I allow that fear to fester and grow. It’s not a hole inside, whose existence I can cover up anymore. It’s morphed into a crushing burden that I carry everywhere. It drives me to a knee, then to the floor in a heap. I thought I was too smart for this to happen, but it finally caught up to me.

—

“It’s noon. I really should get out of bed. Be productive. Do something.”

“What’s the point? Why does it matter what you do?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m fresh out of answers. Nothing I do makes a difference. I have class in an hour…”

“Fuck it.”

“But…okay.”

“That’s right.”

“I have work today.”

“Call in sick.”

The idea of lying in bed for yet another day is both repulsive and inviting. I don’t feel anything as I look at the accumulating clutter around my room. I’m normally a clean person, but this is getting to be pretty disgusting. What the fuck is wrong with me… I’m barely eating anymore. Can’t even maintain a consistent train of thought. “I should really clean up this mess.”

“No. Stay in bed.”

“Fuck. You.”

“You’ll just end up like your friend did. Sooner or later…”

“Shut up.”

“You’re not making any compelling arguments as to why I should.”

I roll over and look at one of the Muhammad Ali posters that adorn my walls. Ali is standing defiantly over Sonny Liston. What would he think of this pity party? What was that famous quote of his? ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ I force a chuckle, realizing that I’ve got the suffering part down. I sit up in bed.

“You haven’t been quiet in almost three years.”

“Your father’s suicide really got my attention.”

“Because of you, I’m not whole. I haven’t been since that day. If I could physically reach into my chest and rip you out, I would. Bodily pain is easy. That’s why fighting is easy for me…I should go for a run. I’d have a good reason to shower then.”

“Why?”

“I’m not letting you take me. You took my dad already. You took my friend last month. You’re not driving me down like you did them.”

“So naïve…”

“Maybe. But I have a choice. I always have a choice.” I throw one of the many tissues by my bedside into the garbage.

“We’ll see about that.”

I’m starting to pick up the dirty clothing and scattered papers which have totally obscured the area rug by my bed.

“What’s the point of all this, now?”

Ignore it. All the sleepless nights and listless days because of this motherfucking leach. I lie awake, stressed out about everything and nothing at the same time, then shamble through my days. Even when I try to write, nothing comes out. I’m not letting this thing rob me of my creativity, my vitality, or my figurative and literal will to fight anymore.

“Excuse me. I’m fucking talking to you.”

“Because what we do is all that we are.”

Silence.

“Because ultimately, no one gives a shit that I’m struggling. That I’m fucked up. They only see that I’m not going to class, that I’m calling out of work too often. That I’m not training. So what happens then?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you lie back down? Take a load off…?”

“Then my professors flunk me, and I get fired. My coach pulls me from my next fight. He cares, and would want to help, but his hands would be tied. So I’d be out of work and might not graduate if I don’t do something.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of me. You’ve always been a part of me, but if I have my way, you won’t always be.”

“So that’s it. You’re ‘all better’ now?”

I laugh. It’s the first audible noise I’ve made in I don’t know how long. It seems to echo off the walls. Maybe because I haven’t said a word in days… “No.”

“I don’t follow.”

“No. I’m not all better. Far from it. I still feel lost. I still don’t see how it will get better. I still have no real will to do anything that I used to enjoy. But…I still do want to be happy. I can’t find that hiding under my covers like some sniveling little kid who thinks there are monsters under his bed.”

“We’ll see.”

“I guess we will, but you don’t own me. You owned my father. You owned my grandmother. You do not fucking own me.” My fists are balled. My eyes are boring a hole in the rug in front of me. “You won’t run me into the ground like you’ve done to past generations of my family. I won’t pass you on to my kids, like my father did to me. They won’t even know that you ever existed.”

—

So I shower. I get dressed. I go through the motions. It’s already four o’clock. I’ve missed all of my classes. Again. The day isn’t all lost though. I can take a baby step towards sanity. I can leave my apartment. I put my headphones in my ears and try to tune out some of the inescapable noise in my head. I press play, and Eminem’s “When I’m Gone” resumes, already in the middle. “I look up, it’s just me standin’ in the mirror. These fuckin’ walls must be talkin’, ’cause man I can hear ’em.”

Same, Em.

I stand at the door to my apartment, place my hand on the knob.

And turn.

End

~Sean Donnelly

Echoes

Even though  they rarely have much practical meaning or staying power, dreams can, on occasion, have a real and lasting impact. The recurring dream that I recount in this memoir section had a profound effect on me, and the images from it are still totally clear well over a year after my last experience with it. My sharing this is not meant to illuminate my own depression or other issues. I’m putting this out there to show what it’s like  for those left without any avenue for closure in the wake of suicide. If you’re in need, please get help. If your depression won’t allow you to do so for your own sake, then try to act with consideration for those you will leave behind if you decide to go through with it.

If this impacts you in any meaningful way, please leave feedback, or read the other chapters of my memoir that I’ve published on this page “Coming of Age” and on my other blog, Puncher’s Chance (“My Struggle,” and “Monster.”) Also, please follow here and on my Instagram (seanpatrick623) to stay updated.

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Echoes

July, 2016

It happened again. I’m alone in my room, sitting on my bed leaning against the wall, drenched in a cold sweat. I absent-mindedly look over to my phone to check the time. It’s almost four AM, and I know that I won’t be able to sleep after the night I’ve had. All I can do is stare into the blackness around me and try to calm myself down. After a few minutes, I realize how shallow and quick my breathing has become, and that my heart is beating through my chest. I close my eyes and try to focus on taking slower, deeper breaths and calming down.

The dream is always the same. I’m standing in the kitchen of my father’s one-floor rented house; he’s irate and screaming at me, although I can’t make out what he’s saying. It all comes through to my ears like a distant echo. No words. No clarity. I don’t even try to respond. Even in a dream, this sight is all too familiar. It’s something that I was conditioned over many years to accept. When it suited me, I’d often respond with a passive-aggressive remark designed to piss him off even more, if that were possible. It turned into a game; let’s see if I can give the old man a rage-induced heart attack. With all the cigarettes he smoked, it was nothing short of a miracle that it never happened. I was going to get my licks in if he was committed to yelling at me for some trivial or nonexistent issue. It could have been the result of something as inane as my putting a box of pasta on the wrong shelf in the pantry for all he cared.  I may as well have drunkenly crashed his car into a jersey barrier. Most “offenses” got the same reaction from him. This was different though. As I stood there, I felt none of the usual anger or spite. Only pity. As I got older and stronger, and eventually took up boxing, he was always sure to be outside of my arm’s reach when he would start these arguments.

The man who I had feared for many years shrank in stature before my eyes when I realized this. He became something feeble and gray. I hadn’t respected my father for years, but when that transformation occurred, I began to hate him. Who knows, I may have begun to respect him again if he had the balls to follow through on one of his threats and hit me. At least then, he’d be a man of his word for once. But, no. He never hit me. A few times, he grabbed me by the shirt, shook me, and threatened to “beat the living shit out of me,” but he never hit me. Psychological beatings were where he drew the line.

—

“You’re so fucking lazy.”

“You’ll never amount to shit if you don’t act this way.” You mean if I don’t stick to getting an MBA and become yet another drone working in a cubicle somewhere? I think the fuck not.

“You’re an antisocial loser. Just like your fucking mother.” I’m an introvert and I know it. You’re an introvert masquerading as an extrovert and it’s quite painful and awkward to watch.

Just a few things that were beat into my head over years and years of conditioning that was meant to make me feel inferior. So I would never surpass him. Narcissism and ego can be a motherfucker, can’t they?

—

After all of that, I can’t help but feel sorry for the man I see before me in my dream. The echoes I hear have no shape or form. They couldn’t be called words. They don’t even have a hint of anger in them as they hit my ears. They’re sad, and sound vaguely apologetic. Maybe he’s reaching out from beyond the grave to tell me that he’s sorry. The facial expression remains just how I remember it though. Red, with veins bulging in the center of his forehead and on his right temple. A drop of saliva flies from his mouth as he screams at me. The melancholy behind his words is still coming through, and all I want to do is walk across the space between us and hug him. Just closure. That’s all I want, but his final act robbed me of ever being able to have it. Jesus, it’s been two years since he took his own life, and this still has an inexorable hold on me.

It’s fitting that my dream has delivered an angry version of my father before me. It’s the only emotion of his I can remember clearly enough for my unconscious to recreate with any clarity. Towards the end, all his emotions came out as anger, no matter how he was actually feeling, so what difference does it make? He continues his simultaneously infuriated and depressed tirade, and I still can’t will myself to bridge the widening gap between us. I try, but my legs remain static and unmoving. My inability to help him see what he’s doing to me is indescribably frustrating. I can feel a knot forming in my throat, as a hollow sensation in my chest begins to expand and engulf me.

Suddenly, the echoes change in pitch: rising higher. Something is different. The sadness I was hearing has morphed into full-blown depression. He turns away from me and begins pacing back and forth across the kitchen. He won’t make eye contact. With all the strength that my dream-self can muster, I reach my left hand out to him, but all of my other limbs remain frozen.

Still looking away from me, his pacing slows, and he begins to fumble around in his pocket for something. My hand remains outstretched as he produces that same .38 special revolver from his pocket. The rest all happens in slow motion.

I raise my hand as he raises the .38 to waist level, then to his chest. My hand blocks him out of my field of vision. This is it. I wait an agonizing second for the sound. The ripping of the bullet passing through my hand, then my head.

BANG!!

The sound is deafening, and robs me of my breath. No ripping. No searing pain. As my hand drops, I see a pile of ashes where my father stood. The bullet was never intended for me.

I realize all of this in the half second following the shot, and am jolted awake before I’m able to fully process the scope of it all. I snap straight up in bed, eyes wide, jaw clenched, and fists balled. My ears are ringing from the sound of the imaginary gunshot. The memory of the dream comes back all at once and the lump in my throat overwhelms me. I begin silently sobbing into my hands that still won’t come unclenched.

It is 1:30 AM.

I didn’t think I would fall asleep again that night, but the exhaustion of being so tense for the duration of the dream caused me to slip under again.

BANG!!

It is 2:15 AM.

Same dream again. Those forty-five minutes felt like forty-five hours. The same tension and emotions well up once again

BANG!!

2:55 AM.

Repetition isn’t making this easier.

BANG!!

3:25 AM.

I sat rigidly in my bed for what felt like an eternity. All I could do was think one terrifying thought on loop until my alarm rang, or until I fell asleep.

I remember that he sent me a “happy birthday” text first thing in the morning of August 1^st, 2014. I had just turned twenty. I hadn’t spoken to him in a year and a half, and I didn’t know whether or not to respond. Even if I did, what the hell would I say? What could I say?  How do you even start a conversation with your father after your last interaction ended with a profane declaration of his failings? Even if I really wanted to, I couldn’t think of how to go about it. I deleted the text.

Three days later, he turned sixty-one.

Two days after that, he was gone.

I felt the guilt of my decision to delete the text for the next six months. It was on my mind every second of every day. After all that time, I read a news story from my hometown about a man who had come home from work, shot his sleeping nineteen-year-old son through the chest with a shotgun and then offed himself with the same gun in his garage. Shit. I remembered playing with the kid a couple times when we were both toddlers.

The age similarities between them and my father and I spooked me for a bit, until I really thought about it. What if I had responded to that text on my birthday? Would I have ended up going over there? Expecting a reunion and…? Jesus, that ending is hard enough to think about, much less write.

I kept telling myself that he wouldn’t have done it, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. No one is ever in their right mind when they take their own life. I did the right thing. His path was already headed to a tragic ending. There was nothing you could have done. No action of yours brought this on. You didn’t put the gun in his hand. Didn’t raise it to his temple. Didn’t…

I push the last image out of my head as quickly as I can. I did the right thing.

But, what if you had gone over there? This plays on a loop in my head until…

BANG!!!!!

3:55 AM.

I’m still tense, but I have no more tears. I’m empty. The years’ worth of tension that was made real again for me in my dream have gutted me. Regardless of how disparate we were as individuals, and of how we never quite saw eye to eye, it would have been nice to have been able to say goodbye the right way.

“But you robbed me of that,” I say aloud, to no one.

There I sat, for the next two hours. I was unable and unwilling to move. I just wanted the alarm to ring so I could go through the motions of my day and at least appear normal. Even if I was anything but.  Run a few miles, shower, eat, go to work. Just pretend that I wasn’t losing my grip.

It took a while for me to feel right after that. The irrational fear of my father randomly stepping out at me from around the next corner or from behind a random wall stayed with me for the better part of the next week. Just have to shake it off, I guess.

That wasn’t the first night I’ve had that was lost to my recurring nightmare, but I pray that it’s my last. I can only throw myself into training for my next fight or into writing and hope that it works. I’m still looking for the day when I can sit completely still and be at peace. When I won’t need to occupy myself with constant work and training for the voices from my past to finally fall silent. Then, I can move forward.

End

~Sean Donnelly