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It all started with a letter from me through the auto-match. Usually people send a short answer or don’t even respond, especially when they don’t have so many common topics with you. Anyway, he answered me after a while saying that he never wrote the first letter, he preferred to wait for letters to reach him.
The first letters we exchanged were reasonably short, no big deal. We talked about movies, music, travel … even though we had completely different tastes, I like kpop and he likes heavy metal, I traveled to several countries and he left his country just once…
As time went by, we found more and more topics to talk about, be it his cats, beautiful places in each one’s country, bands with weird concepts … I don’t know how these new conversations started, I just know that the subject flowed naturally, not once was I in doubt how to continue the conversation.
Obviously, with more and more topics to talk about, our letters were getting long, very long. I was in a very busy year in college, I was always busy or out of my house, so it took me a while to answer, in addition to taking days to read the entire letter and write an answer. He also worked a lot, was a nurse in a nursing home, even so, he was quicker to answer than I was.
These days I feel bad for taking so long to answer, I should have started writing the answers on the same day that his letter arrived. Our letters were so long that when we wanted a quick reply or just to inform that we saw something that reminded the other we sent a short letter and always said something like “calm down I’m still writing the answer” or “I am waiting for your huge letter”! Hahahahahhaha
We talked about millions of subjects in one letter, the most recurring subjects were about heavy metal festivals that he was going to this year, about my future tattoos and his random tattoos. He was excited about a certain festival that he went every year, he always sounded interested when I told him about the things I did in the geology major, always interested in me doing treks (even if I didn’t like it) and about anything silly that I wanted to talk to.
It took time to write an answer to his letters, but it was like a cool breeze in the middle of my rushed daily life. Because of college, I was living alone, so things can get a little lonely at times, but when I was reading his letter, that feeling was gone. It is amazing how someone who is physically so far from you feels closer and brings you more comfort than some who are right by your side. That’s how he made me feel every time.
Our last subject was the pandemic, I asked how things were in his country, at the time, there was no cases reported in Brazil. He answered saying he was fine and that things were still quiet. I was answering this letter from him when things started to get out of control in Europe, when I saw the news I sent him a short letter asking how he was and how were the elderly who he took care of, after a while I also sent the long letter answering his last one, but they are still unanswered.
It has been eight months since our last contact and seven months that he does not open the app. I confess that considering his job, I fear for the worst and even today I sometimes enter his profile waiting for a status update, even if he doesn’t answer me, just a sign that he is fine would be relieving. Every time I wait for his profile to open, I pray to read “last online 2 hours ago” or something like this, unfortunately, it’s just an expectation, never a reality.
