I thought of it. How it would be without A. How it would be to leave, all of it, all the pain and misunderstanding and distance behind and just move on to something unknown and uncharted. She is under immense pressure and I seem to be taking it badly. She is rich and I’m poor, the money problem again, as always, the money the money, that everybody expects me to have but I don’t have. Sometimes I feel like no matter how much I earn will not be enough. I live in shitholes, I work hard, I moved away so I can earn more but it’s not good enough, it’s not, I need to earn more and be better, a better person a better lover and most of all be there where she is but she doesn’t want me there because that’s responsibility. No, she needs to be independent but now we are so far away. So, so far away. I can barely see her through all this cloud. I love her, or maybe just loved her, and I’m fading away, into some obscure memory, something that used to shine red hot but is just a normal guy, no future, no money, no nothing. I really need to start thinking about myself, about what I want in life and what I want to spend money on. Because this, chasing the light, the ever-elusive, ever distant speck of sunshine that is perpetually just about in reach — that will not do. I need to find someone who wants to commit, who is willing to truly sacrifice for me. Who will love me for all my stupid things and who won’t back up when I want to be more serious. I want someone who respects that I can’t pay for everything. I want someone who loves me. And is prepared to jump for me, into anything, anywhere. Give her life for me so I can give mine, for her.

I remember, today, riding back in the bus and just wanting to be with you. I have been having rashes of feelings lately, of loneliness, fear, sadness. I am feeling again what I felt last time when I accepted a job: the prospect of being away from you. I know we are far away and I know we are not supposed to change much about that unless it works for the both of us. I know. Yet there are things that are not about knowing. Sanity is a strange thing, comes and goes, seems to make sense at one point and has nothing but question marks at other times. Like when I think: what am I here to do in this world? I have been trying to be good to others, do best at what others ask me to do, enjoy myself, make people happy, yet when I look back, the most fulfilling moments have been moments with you. I’m looking forward to some of these moments…

A few days go I got this message that simply said, without any embellishments, how wonderful I am. It took a while for it to sink. Words are strange. They exist in a context that is inseparable from them yet we try our bests to separate and explain them. But they, like fragile flowers taken from the warm light of day, fade and loose something essential to their being. What makes this message so beautiful is the long, sometimes light and simple, sometimes deep and complicated, but always meaningful history it was produced, interpreted, and understood in. To me it truly signifies that I have something to give. And that makes me so happy that I start to cry.

Comes and passes slowly,
but when it matters,
I can count the seconds,
I can remember the moments,
like a million shining stars,
all the small things that happen,
are etched into my memory,
to come back and haunt me,
I’m a traveller in time,
passenger of my own past,
of good times, crying, laughter,
the joys of love.

I feel disabled. Incapable of doing the smallest things, because I don’t speak the language, I don’t live in a specific country, or I don’t know what to do and how to do it. It’s humiliating and I have nobody to help me. It would be so good if A was here. I would be happy I’m alive, I’d be happy I exist and I’d be sure things would go well. She’d tell me to just forget about the frustration and be happy for what I have. But she’s not here and I miss her and our time. I feel like I have wasted all that time with her by not seeing her more often. I feel like I should have been there, with her more, kissed her lips and hugged her beautiful body. I wish I was a better person who would plan more and so do more. I feel lost and lonely.

We are nothing but nature’s wild dream, raging lunatics who rebel against everything around us only to find that the real limits are what we set ourselves to do. Sometimes I feel like Empreor Norton, a crazy guy who lived in San Francisco and declared himself the Empreor of the US. Everybody thought he was crazy, but he was funny enough for people to tolerate, even revere him. Maybe we are all playing some character or another and the intricate balance of who we are and who we project to be interweaves with one another to give our own version of Empreor Norton. Maybe it’s time to break free of such characters and find one that is more open and cares less about goals and achievements. I would like to be more playful. I remember this moment I realized, looking at the sunny bright sky on a Sunday afternoon, that I missed these truly free moments when I was a child. There, in that park, I felt free. I want to feel like that again.

Like a fly in a room, not finding my place, I’m stuck in a new city and I’m lost. She’s gone, in a far-off place and my life, structure, all those things I cherished have been chucked out of the window for absolutely nothing. It’s a desolate place here with no place to stand, and there are lots of things that I must do before I can say that I have arrived. It’s lonely and hard and I’m tired. I miss her, I miss our lives together, I miss my security, my job and myself.

She gave me a note and I had cried over it. It lists all the beautiful, amazing things we have done together. All those things that hold me so close to her. I miss her touch, her leather backpack she’d always wear, her happy being, holding me dearly, cycling around with her, looking into her eyes and seeing that someone values me. I miss that I could trust her with all of me, that I could be the most vulnerable to her. And I’m missing her vulnerable moments and soft explanations of things I don’t understand, her care and affection, her tender side that I think few see. I see her breaking down at the airport and I want to hold her and tell her that it’s okay to break down and okay to be vulnerable, because that’s what matters in this world, nothing else, just truly being with someone. And I want to tell her that I would never hurt her, and that I will always love her. Always because there is nothing I can think of that could overcome this, not even time. I have never been this close to anyone, ever. Nobody loved me this softly, tenderly, truly, like her. I will miss being open. Now that I have seen the gates of heaven it’s hard to see anything else and see value in it. I feel like everything else is just a facade, a gray version of what I saw in full colours, a poor imitation of the true love I had a glimpse of. It’s hard to put this into words, but I miss her more than I miss my own life that I also left behind. I want spend a day with her. Eat breakfast with her. Roll around in bed with her. Explore my new home city with her. Cycle around with her and talk about art, music, love, friendship, sexism, philosophy or just everyday things that bother us. I want to see her calm me down and make me happy. I want see her happy.

I’m lost as what to do. Leaving this place, leaving my life, my love, behind. I’m leaving yet she is the one who wanted to leave me. I see her disengaging, I see her drifting further and further away and I’m powerless to stop it. I’m just standing here on this side of the tectonic plate and all that seem to have true meaning is drifting away, I can feel it every day. It’s agonizing — sometimes all I can do is look away, look down, and feel sad. These past days have shown me how powerless I am, how I have no control over anything in my life, how it’s all a show where I pretend to play the protagonist but in fact I have no way of changing anything around me. I feel like Rosencrantz from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead — even though I’m the main act, I feel like a side act where everything is decided by others and all I can do is observe. Things make no sense, there is no direction, there is no place to run to. My place is moving and I’m moving along. I don’t know what’s coming and what I had, what I still have, is immensely valuable and I’m not sure I’ll have it again.

As I was looking at my DSL box, it showed all the names of the devices that connected in the past years. Casually looking through the list I was struck. There they were: I saw A, and M, and S and others. All of them, in neat, alphabetical order, as if it was possible to make concrete sense of such intricate, fragile memories. As if it was possible to simply associate a number to and list them in a neatly ordered list.

Suddenly they were all here, and I remembered the moment when I give them my WiFi password, I remembered their phones, I remembered waking up next to them, I remembered it all. Those beautiful mornings, rolling over in bed to kiss them, smelling them, gently caressing them. There is a saying that “Home is where the WiFi connects”. I wish it was true. I wish this place, my place, was home to them all. Alas, that was not to be the case. But I’m glad they were here, and though it was painful to see them on that list, it was a reminder of beautiful times, times when I not only believed, but sensed, magic.