When The True Arrives On You

Usually we walk around constanally believing ourselves. “I’m okay”, we say. “I’m alright”, but sometimes the true arrives on you and you can’t get it off. That’s when you realize that sometimes it isn’t even an answer, it’s a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

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Evening.

 

She thought of how much people changed you. It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn’t true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.

—Susan Minot, EVENING

 

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Everything comes to an end.

On November 9th of 2004, Stieg Larsson — journalist and author of the posthumously published Millennium series of novels, the first of which was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — passed away after suffering a heart attack. He was 50-years-old. The next month, Stieg’s long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, found the following letter amongst his belongings, marked “To be opened only after my death,” and written prior to a trip to Africa in 1977 when he was just 22.

 

Eva read extracts of the letter at Stieg’s funeral, the day after its discovery.

 

 

 

Stockholm, February 9, 1977 

 

Eva, my love, 

 

It’s over. One way or another, everything comes to an end. It’s all over some day. That’s perhaps one of the most fascinating truths we know about the entire universe. The stars die, the galaxies die, the planets die. And people die too. I’ve never been a believer, but the day I became interested in astronomy, I think I put aside all that was left of my fear of death. I’d realized that in comparison to the universe, a human being, a single human being, me…is infinitely small. Well, I’m not writing this letter to deliver a profound religious or philosophical lecture. I’m writing it to tell you “farewell.” I was just talking to you on the phone. I can still hear the sound of your voice. I imagine you, before my eyes…a beautiful image, a lovely memory I will keep until the end. At this very moment, reading this letter, you know that I am dead.

 

There are things I want you to know. As I leave for Africa, I’m aware of what’s waiting for me. I even have the feeling that this trip could bring about my death, but it’s something that I have to experience, in spite of everything. I wasn’t born to sit in an armchair. I’m not like that. Correction: I wasn’t like that…I’m not going to Africa just as a journalist, I’m going above all on a political mission, and that’s why I think this trip might lead to my death. 

 

This is the first time I’ve written to you knowing exactly what to say: I love you, I love you, love you, love you. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I want you to know I mean that seriously. I want you to remember me but not grieve for me. If I truly mean something to you, and I know that I do, you will probably suffer when you learn I am dead. But if I really mean something to you, don’t suffer, I don’t want that. Don’t forget me, but go on living. Live your life. Pain will fade with time, even if that’s hard to imagine right now. Live in peace, my dearest love; live, love, hate, and keep fighting…

 

I had a lot of faults, I know, but some good qualities as well, I hope. But you, Eva, you inspired such love in me that I was never able to express it to you…

 

Straighten up, square your shoulders, hold your head high. Okay? Take care of yourself, Eva. Go have a cup of coffee. It’s over. Thank you for the beautiful times we had. You made me very happy. Adieu. 

 

I kiss you goodbye, Eva. 

 

From Stieg, with love.

 

 

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I`m in love with you…

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“It’s not life or death, Pudge. It`s the labyrinth.”

“Her hand just above my knee, the palm flat and soft against my jeans and her index finger making slow, lazy circles that crept toward the inside of my thigh, and with one layer between us, God I wanted her. And lying there, amid the tall, still grass and beneath the star-drunk sky, listening to the just-this-side-of-inaudible sound of her rhythmic breathing and the noisy silence of the bullfrogs, the grasshoppers, the distant cars rushing endlessly on 1-65, I thought it might be a fine time to say the Three Little Words. And I steeled myself to say them as I stared up at that starriest night, convinced myself that she felt it, too, that her hand so alive and vivid against my leg was more than playful, and fuck Lara and fuck Jake because I do, Alaska Young, I do love you and what else matters but that and my lips parted to speak and before I could even begin to breathe out the words, she said, “It’s not life or death, the labyrinth. “

“Urn, okay. So what is it?”

“Suffering, ” she said. “Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That’s the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked. And I felt the absence of her hand on me.

“Nothing’s wrong. But there’s always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there’s a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal.

……..

How will you ever get out of this labyrinth?!”

Looking for Alaska, John Green

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