The Perfect Wor[l]d - 16
There is a tournament, men throwing a ball, many balls, and women apologising for being in the way.
Lonely man claps.
Emission of guttural sounds of appreciation.
Woollen fluff from trees is flying around. There is a gentle whiff of horseradish in my sandwiches, which is soothing, this Sunday afternoon.
Yellow ball going, black ball following. People sitting on chairs brought from home. Camping chairs.
I don’t have camping chairs anymore, to sit on.
I only have a laptop to write on. Yesterday I did not write anything. I was in Durham pretending everything was fine while marching through the town in dismay, hiding behind a banner which reminded me over and over again to run away from the dogs, to run wild -
[run run, run away, don't turn, don't look, run away, go just go, you go, don't look, never look back, away away away ... breathe];
a reminder to me and my highly critical insolence that I was right, while wearing a T-shirt that shouted HOPE. But I so wanted that journey by coach to last forever, for the sun to warm my face, for the gentle rolling to lull me; while that beautiful soul sitting just a couple of rows ahead of me was leaning again the should of her man she so gently loves. You see, at times it works.
The pain and excruciating guilt I feel at times are too much. But today I have decided that I need to sit here and write. Even if my writing will not take me anywhere. I needed to get out of the house and come here among people I have never met before, with a cutting light in my eyes which barely allows me to type, a sandwich buried in my backpack.
I need to write because this is the reason I am alive. But I also have to admit that there is pain. The choice and decision were mine, and I feel both the killer and the corpse. Sitting there, and telling what I felt I needed to say, was like reeling when you are drowning. And you would like, at the same time, for the other person to drown a little with you. To show a sense of pretended struggle in keeping us both, the couple, the relationship, alive. There was no struggle, no hand, no rope thrown, no buoy. And I could only let go of myself. I spent a couple of days floating. Even yesterday, I just floated. Today I decided to start paddling. Not for long, but just what it feels to sit, straight back, and breathe. Breakups are not easy, never. The love, the passion, the lust, the almost craving for him is still all there. It was what revolved around us that I felt I did not belong to.
We are not, both of us, ordinary people. I think we both deserve extraordinary relationships, extraordinary partners, extraordinary lovers, extraordinary sex. The coincidences and incredible synchronicities that pinpointed our meeting and discovery are so amazing I still look at them, all of them, in wonder.
Still, still, synchronicities are not enough.
What I needed was, unfortunately, to face again my horrendous addiction to melodrama. My inability to stay in a relationship, my fear of commitment, my panicking in the imagining a holiday together, as a family.
I made my decision.
Don’t get me wrong, the reasons behind the choice are still valid. All of them. Each and every single one of them. What I could have done without are the feelings crawling in me now. The desire to speak to him again, to see him again, to walk with him again, to take the train with him again, to celebrate an anniversary together. The intense wish for him to call me and tell me that, maybe, if we sit, quietly, and discuss things, we can work things out. Together.
Instead, all I know now is that I feel pain. There used to be an “I’m happy where I am and now I can be happy where I am with you”, understanding. If it were just for me and him, I know that this moment would have not happened. I would be maybe here, while he would be there. And then tonight we would have all had dinner together. But life gets in the way and there is always one who needs to decide.
The others can argue that they don’t like the decision.
Or they can stay silent, smile, and say ok.
Ok.
I needed to be here today. Because only writing puts things in perspective, for me. Only by sitting here doing this, I can feel that nothing is lost, for me, and that I simply have to hang on in there and things will get better for me. Oh, they are not really bad. This is a breakup. Not death. This is the kind of pain that makes you or breaks you: either you decide to do something with your life, just for you, or you just revert back to simplicity and boringness.
But that’s not me. I am here, today, on a Sunday afternoon, after two days of flowing and personal wallowing and private victimhood, outside, writing. The mystery of where these pages are going to take me; if the ones you are reading now have been amended or not, if there was anything else I wrote here, or if this is it: I broke up, I feel shit, I am writing.
I could have stayed at home, this afternoon. The street is strangely silent, the house comfortable. I have cleaned the kitchen and the bedroom. Something I felt I needed to do as if I washed the grease and the dirt of the pans down the drain together with my pain.
I could have stayed there. Waiting. But I have decided to get dressed, make a sandwich, and leave. I can see my reflex on the monitor, and I notice that some of my hair is unruly everywhere. He would have pointed that out for me. Now I see it and I laugh.
I need a coffee. I need some black stuff, warm, and sugary.
My desire now is for life to surprise me.
I don’t know where this journey of mine is heading, what is going to happen next, where this story is going. But please know, if you are writing like me, that within the space of this sentence, I felt a multitude of different emotions. I felt the sun on my face when the clouds parted, I heard the people next to me talking and laughing, I remembered his voice calling my name, I smelled grass and more horseradish. I played with a green iridescent fly which landed on my second finger, I heard the train in the distance speeding up, there is a bird not far from me, tweeting. And some kids, behind me, in a garden, playing. All of this, in the space of a sentence. If only we were aware, we could connect with everything. Around us and within us. My heart beating, my back needing to stretch, my shoulders needing to be hugged, my skin longing to be touched.
This fluffy white wool is still filling the air and somehow the air smells of early autumn, even if it’s only mid-July. Schools will close from tomorrow and children will run wild.
I will still be here, writing. In this state of expectant alertness for things to happen.
© mtomat 2019 - written on 14.07.19 - no reproduction without permission.
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