I ran 8 kilometers today

Today, for the first time in years, I ran a long distance again. 8 kilometers of race, and 2 kilometers of walk to cool down afterwards. 

And it is your fault, Red-Oak, if I started running long distance. Because the unfairness you committed against me created in me a deep discouragement, not to use the word depression, as I am too much of a fiery person to be depressed. But, I was discouraged for years, carrying a heavy weight in my chest, having lost my pride, my honor, my happiness because of your inconsiderate acts. 

I am not a person of the street, or a stupid young person without dignity, who can accept such treatments and go on. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who do not respect themselves, and who may accept what you did to me, and just go on, because they are not neat, honest, courageous, fair, intellectual persons as I am. I've seen many of those people, Swiss, Dutch, whatever, on the streets, drinking, drugging themselves, etc. You may reserve the kind of treatment you reserved to me to those people, and they will surely not start a quest to claim their innocence.

But I am a fair, brave and loyal person, and I do not have vices. So I cannot drown the unfairness I've been victim from, as other people may do. I just carried it in my heart for years, too fearful to write you again, or even to write Annelies again, after what you did, because to me, Red-Oak it was madness from you to act in this way. My intentions had always been good and fair, and if I tried to write the entourage of Annelies with so much insistency, it is because your daughter used the word "death" speaking of herself. "I will die in six minutes" she wrote to me, the title of her story, refusing all direct communication. Also, Annelies had clearly told me that nobody in her entourage understood her, listened to her, etc. What was I supposed to do? Stay silent? Or try to reach to you and tell you that Annelies was not doing well, and needed your support and your listening?

This is the tricky part you never understood, Red-Oak. Your daughter was not doing well (and is still not doing well). This is what you refused to see. And in all honesty, I had to do something to help her, as I love her with all my heart, and as I also felt a strong sense of friendship and loyalty toward her. If you take back all the texts I sent back then, you will see only my concern and my care for Annelies in them. And it is her who asked me to express, with her words, from her perspective, what she couldn't express.

Then, she denied it all, out of fear, because she was traumatized by your divorce in her childhood, and feared to get engaged. Introducing me to you all would have meant sort of getting engaged, making my existence official. Seized by panic, she preferred to deny it all. But she lied, and I hope that this is clear to you now. And you trapped her into her lie with what you did, Red-Oak. You did something tremendous and lowly, perhaps without knowing, yet, you are at fault. Gravely at fault. 

Annelies was battling with a mild "depression". In January 2016 already, she wrote me that my words had taken her out from a phase of disinterest in life. Because for several months I did not write her, and on the 8th of January 2016 I wrote her again.

Then, the same happened in January and February 2017. Not only was Annelies losing interest in life, and feeling entirely disconnected from her emotions, but she avowed to me she was on the verge of making a burn-out, because she had too much pressure with her studies and all her side activities, and that none of them fulfilled her, or made her happy. Again, I helped her.

So when Annelies, in February 2018 wrote me of death, after having stopped speaking to me since September 2017, it really scared me and shook me.

But you, Red-Oak, her own father, was not concerned. Because you didn't know. But also because you refused to listen. I did not have your contact back then. I tried to contact your second daughter. But your second daughter illustrated herself with a total lack of courage, refusing to even listen. What could I then do? Write the few friends I could come in touch with. Without success, except in the case of Yna, who once sent me a sign of appreciation. Yna, the oldest friend of Annelies, who encouraged her to write in her teenhood. But that ended there. In despair, I wrote more between August and September 2018, as the behavior of Annelies was really worrying for me, and her words, her mention of death, haunted me. Do you know, Red-Oak, how many persons took away their lives, or lost their lives, because nobody took seriously the fact they were not doing well?

I still remember a bridge in Lausanne, le pont Bessières, not far from where Annelies and I met. There was a commemoration sign in the middle, saying that on the 24th of December, on Christmas' Eve, a young person who felt lonely had decided to jump from the bridge there, falling in the lower part of the city, 50 meters below. From that day, there is a tent on Christmas' Eve there, to welcome anyone who feels lonely. 

It's true Annelies had a family, but it's equally true that she wrote me many times being extremely frustrated with you and her mother, who did not listen to her, who did not understand her. And writing me many times about the terrible weight she compared to a black hole of the lost memories of the divorce. And then, after telling me that she needed me in her life and could not afford to lose me, two weeks passed and she broke all contact, in a terrible way, with no explanation. To six months later send me those two texts speaking of intense pain, and death in six minutes.

What was I supposed to do Red-Oak? What? 

How would you have acted in my place?

All her idiots of "friends" understood nothing, preferring rather to put it on the level of a cultural confrontation, deeming themselves much better than I have. And her sister did not even read my words. And so no word reached to you.

Because, when someone is not doing well, like in the case of Annelies, it is also typical to try to hide it, I think. She opened her heart and her soul to me, and then closed herself entirely, thus losing the only person with whom she could be entirely honest. This is why in her correspondence to me you have in your own hands since February 2019, when I first wrote you, you discovered many things of your daughter that you didn't know, and that nobody knew, not even her sister, who should have been her closest confident. And you cannot doubt the authenticity of these words, as they contain many details, even some crude details about you all. I cannot have invented or figured out those details and family stories and memories. And that correspondence shows a level of connection and trust in me from the side of Annelies that goes much deeper than you would have ever imagined.

You chose to hide your hand in the sand, Red-Oak, but you can't do that anymore. This story is almost public now. You have your role as an Earl to think about. Your ship has a hole in it, and water is coming in from all sides. You have no other option than to change ship, to change conviction, to change mindset, to change attitude. 

You wronged me, in an unfair way, when my intentions were pure. Yes, I went far in my words and insistence, because your daughter spoke of death. I did not have the choice. 

Any loyal, faithful person in my place would have acted in the same way, and on top of that, I am a writer, and so is Annelies, so words, stories, poetry, multiple points of views, is our reason to live and our most valued skill. So if you read our correspondence, of course, you will noticed that. 

And if you read my correspondence to you since September 2023, dear Red-Oak, you will also notice that I never showed myself unforgiving. Yes, my words are hurtful, but you deserved it with your tremendous and shameful acts. But I always offer you my hand, I always offer you to make peace, and am concerned by the welfare and happiness of Annelies, as well as obtaining words of regret from you all. The two are complementary. To make Annelies happy again, to bring joy to her heart, to make her get rid of those dark thoughts and ideas, this sadness and this anger she carries in her, and this fear, you will have Red-Oak to show me appreciation, and more importantly to forgive her mother, as all the knot is there.

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Now, let's go back to me. I ran 8 kilometers today. Over 200 students at school, I was the 3rd in athletism. I was fast, and enduring at the same time. I used to regularly run 6 - 7 - 8 kilometers, and participate to 10 km marathons, and sometimes in Switzerland I ran more than 10 kilometers in slope (hills, valleys, forests, starting from Lausanne toward its heights). 

But because my heart was heavy, I used to run short distances or not to run at all in the last years. I had a lot to do in the garden, a lot of physical activity too, but of a different kind. But just a few runs, and mostly in the last two months. But today for the first time I could overcome this mental block and run again a serious run, and for me, this is called healing, and it means that I am doing what is right, and writing you the right words, that are helping me heal, and helping you understand how deep and tremendous your mistake was, and think of a way to repair it, in mutual peace. 

But I will not lower my tone in the meanwhile, because I waited 1 year and a half since I started writing you regularly. And it's been 6, 7 years I wait for this situation to be corrected and my acts to be seen in their true light. 

And Red-Oak, you know, right, where I discovered your contact. It is in your terrible act and mistake that you revealed and exposed yourself in such a way, showing how little you had thought of consequences, and how lowly was your opinion of me, mistaking me for one of those persons you see in the streets, close to train station, smoking, drinking, or worse. 

And I am not this kind of person and have never been, and will never be, Red-Oak. I am a virtuous person. I am intense, yes, I do not follow conventions when conventions are wrong, yes, I call for fairness and justice in a fearless way, yes, but I am myself a fair, just and enlightened person.

And, I continued this post in private, in a post called "What you did is shameful" to get more into details that I prefer to keep private in order to keep the privacy of Red-Oak: https://amchitdordrecht.wordpress.com/2025/03/03/what-you-did-is-shameful/