A little less alone

With my arms full of groceries and mail, I slip the key into the lock on the door. With everything else that I'm holding, it's a little precarious to unlock my apartment but, when you live on your own, you learn to manage. Finally, I get my door open and shuffle into my dark home. With my foot, I push the door closed and I bump the light switch with my shoulder to turn it on.

After emptying the contents of my arms onto the counter and then going back to lock the door, I sit at my kitchen island so I can look through my mail. Setting the first two envelopes-which are just bills-aside for now, I open up the one that is from my publishers. In it is a cheque of my earnings for the book that I wrote. Never did I believe that my own words would one day pay my bills, but they are.

My book, which is pretty much just the story of my struggles on the rocky road of depression, is now a best seller. The part of my brain that is overrun with thoughts of self deprecation, always told me that no one would ever care about what I had been through. Told me that I would never be good enough to write anything readable, let alone publishable. But here I am, years after I started writing, getting paid for my story.

Setting the cheque aside, I continue through my stack of mail. Bill. Bill. Another bill, and then I come across a hand written envelope who's return address confesses that it has made a very long journey to make it here to me. This envelope, that most likely contains a letter, is from Saudi Arabia. Very carefully, I open the envelope and pull out the pages that are folded up inside. I unfold them as if they could fall to pieces by me just holding them.

The script on the page is delicately printed in black ink and there are at least a couple pages of it that are completely full of writing. Excited to see what one earth someone from so far away wants to say to me, I start to read.

"Dear Ms. Tate,

My name is Saleema and I'm seventeen years old. I wanted to thank you for your book. It has given me hope that I can one day help myself the same way you did, and that I'm not alone in the emotional struggles that I face every day. We may be two very different women who are from very different walks of life, but for the first time, I feel like someone truly understands me and my situation.

Like you, I have a husband who is abusive, though you are now free of yours. He is twenty-six years my senior and we were married a few years ago when I was thirteen. As any other man would want, my husband wanted and still wants children. My body, though, refuses him this because as it turns out, I cannot conceive. Now, I am glad that this is the case because as soon as my husband learned that I could never give him a son, or any child, he started beating me. I am glad that I will never have to see my child be hurt by their father's rage the same way that I have.

Like many other women that I know, I fell into depression. Apparently, we here in the Middle East have the highest rates of depression in the world and it makes sense because the odds are stacked against us. We are not protected from our abusers, if we try to go elsewhere for the love we are so desperate for we will die, and none of us women here in Saudi Arabia are even allowed to drive. All we can do is wait for our husbands to get home. I live a life that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Hearing your story, though, it helped me to see that I'm not the only one. I used to wake up wishing I could die. I used to want to stay in bed all day because I just saw no point in living my horrid life. And then your book changed all of that. I learned that I'm not alone and that there people out there who are like me. There are people out there who feel the way I do and now I know that I'm not alone anymore. The way sadness works is one of the strangest riddles in the world, and you helped my find a clue to help me figure out mine. I am forever grateful to you for all the help you have given me. You gave me strength and you gave me the courage to maybe one day get out of the situation that I am in.

Thank you,

Saleema Halabi "

Tears drop down and I'm careful for them to avoid the delicate paper. She is only in her teens and for this girl to have been through and to be going through so much... I don't know what to say. As she said, the odds really are all stacked against them. Stacked much higher than they were against me, I can't help but cynically think. I reread the closing words to me from Saleema, which cause another wave of tears to surface. Her story is so heartbreaking and I can't believe that my words could touch her so deeply. I set down the letter and bury my head in my hands. To have been so oppressed by my now ex-husband for so long and then to be able to help someone else, even a little, who is in the same situation feels so amazing. I proved him wrong. I was able to do something with my life and I am not a waste of space like he always told me I was. Now for the first time, I know that what happened to me isn't just going to be an ugly scar called depression. I've started finally unraveling the strange riddle in the world, of the way sadness works.