​​An old friend of mine once had a beautiful metaphor about loneliness. People have different reactions to pain, he’d say. There’s a lot of people who get a tattoo and say they didn’t felt anything, while others look like they’re being tortured. (If you feel that way, I don’t know why you’re getting tattoo in the first place . . . but that doesn’t matter.) Even if the first kind of person does not suffer, though, he still gets injured. Both receive a perforation in the skin. Both bleed a little bit. And if they don’t take care of it, both could get infected. Just because you don’t feel it, it doesn’t mean that you didn’t get injured.

Depression is the same thing, my friend would say. Even though some people can be alone during long periods of time, they’re getting injured anyway. They don’t feel it, just like the one who doesn’t feel the needle.

One Christmas Eve, alone in a house full of lousy people, I was thinking about loneliness. I can still vividly recall that cold night, the air heavy with the scent of pine and the warm glow of lights on the tree. It was supposed to be to be the warmest night of the year, a time when families come together, rekindling connections with loved ones they haven't seen in far too long. The whole season was supposed to be one of joy and laughter, a time of shared happiness. But that particular Christmas Eve, I couldn't escape the dread that consumed me as I listened to my father's screams and witnessed my mother's sickness.

In my home, like so many others, my parents were no strangers to arguments. However, they had a peculiar tradition of escalating their fights on Christmas, a fact made all the more bitter because my birthday happened to fall on those very days. But that night, that Christmas Eve, constituted an unforgettable descent into chaos. I found myself alone in the living room, my father barricaded in his room, and my mother holed up in mine. I could hear someone retching, and I instantly recognized the sound as my mother's. She was the only one who would throw up after drinking. As if to confirm my suspicions, she began calling my name.

I remember the sight of her, hunched over and vomiting onto my favorite hat. In that moment, my heart sank with a mixture of compassion and disgust. I rushed to her side, trying to offer some comfort. Just then, my father's deafening scream erupted from his room—technically both of their rooms, but, for the moment, his alone.

But then, as if sent by some benevolent force, an angel descended from the heavens in the form of my brother, Jefferson. 10 years older than me, Jefferson seemingly had nothing in common with me. My sister-in-law once described him as "extremely pleasant to talk to, great with kids, and strangely lucky in getting what he wanted." He was a simple, kind-hearted soul, the type of person who effortlessly made friends wherever he went. Nonetheless, I had a different way of characterizing him from my sister: un pendejo con suerte, a lucky asshole.

Even though some people can be alone during long periods of time, they’re getting injured anyway. They don’t feel it, just like the one who doesn’t feel the needle.

Jefferson had always been the favored child in the eyes of our parents, and my father never even bothered to disguise it. One of my most heart-wrenching memories was the day someone dared to ask my father who his favorite child was. Instead of giving the customary response, denying favoritism, he simply placed his hand on my brother's shoulder and said, "I've got no favorite." Those words were like a dagger through my heart. They fueled a growing jealousy within me because it was evident that, despite what anyone might say, my father did have a favorite, and it wasn't me. The shadow of that revelation cast a pall over our family dynamic, one that I couldn't shake off no matter how hard I tried.

On that horrible Christmas Eve, I still had a lot of resentment towards my brother, but I also really needed some help. I really felt alone. So we ended up talking in the living room of my house, for hours. It was so strange and odd. Suddenly, I started to see the pendejo con suerte as someone other than perfect person I happened to live with, one everybody else loved. That night, we started to act like brothers. Or maybe that’s the way I felt. Isn’t strange how humans feel the same events in so different ways? Just like different people getting a tattoo?

Anyway, we talked, and talked, until midnight, when an alarm started ringing. I looked at my eyes in the mirror. “Happy birthday, mijo,” I told myself. I had totally forgotten my own birthday. I started to cry like there was no tomorrow, knowing that my brother really loved me, really cared about me. Jefferson ceased to be merely an image in my head. Since that moment I have had a brother.

But life, or destiny or wherever, is a bitch. A couple years after this moment, when my family had become trapped in the ass of the world, my brother got enlisted in the army of my motherland. To drop him off at basecamp, we had to drive a day through miles and miles of pure jungles, valleys, fucking rivers. I really felt like the universe was trying to tell us that this was a bad idea. But at the end, at 4 am, we arrived at a paradise in the midst of a horrible jungle.

I don’t know how they could have built such a beautiful city in such a location. At that hour, the whole valley was warm, soaked in a slow and kindful rain. Beneath the whole place ran a floor composed of small stones of different colors. They clicked and chinked as we walked over them. We eventually found an enormous brown door, full of small golden decorations. The moment I saw that door, I looked at my family. My mom had red wet eyes. She’d run out of tears after crying for hours on the road. Then I looked at my father, an old veteran, the most alpha of alpha males. For the first time in my life, I saw him beginning to get weepy. I could write another essay about my shock, about how I felt when I saw the most macho man of all showing himself as a father saying goodbye to his firstborn son.

I hated that moment. I fucking hated it so much—not just because my brother was going to leave me alone right when I finally had him, but also because I was in the middle of a river, unable to to tell him how much I loved him, how much I’d miss him. I knew that that was the last time that I was going to be able to see him, to be with him, for I don’t know how long.

A couple days after that day, my parents and I had to take a flight to the US.

I used to think that not seeing a person you love, not being in the same room with him, would kind of wither the feelings you have for that person. But five years later, as I’m thinking about my brother, I can see that real love never disappears. I still want to see him as much as the first day, I still dream of being with him, of talking and talking until midnight, when the alarm rings, when I tell him how much I love him.