Lately, MH seemed so distant, I felt that something must be awfully wrong, so I dressed up for our meeting, and went in with the certainty that I’ll be let go, which is what happened after inquiring about her apparent distance. It was good to finally talk about the issues, and I think she felt relieved, we even kissed a little bit… and then tragedy struck.

I’m still in shock, I really felt for her. But I felt like I shouldn’t be around, that she doesn’t want me to be there, which she expressed in no uncertain terms. It’s one thing to know that you don’t count, it’s another to hear it being said, seeing it being acted out. I think it was one of the most humiliating moments in my life. I really wished she cared for me so that I could console her, I could care for her, I could hug her.

She’s away now, and I’m stuck here. I wish I could write her (but I shouldn’t), I wish I could tell her how much I feel for her loss, how I would like to console her, just hold her. But that’s only a fantasy, I could never console her. She would need to feel different about me, about us, and we would need to know each other more. Or maybe if you love the other, superficial things like knowledge of family history don’t matter. Or they do, and it’s all in my dream-world that overflows into reality so I can feel empty and tired yet strangely energetic when she’s on my mind.

It’s 3:30am and I should sleep but can’t. I put her picture in the background, just like that, no planning, no direction, to watch her being playful in the desert, her and her bright blue sweater.

And so here I am again, in the deep shadows of myself. She doesn’t care and I do, she’ll leave in a month and I’ll stay. It’s again a short-lived romance for which  I care more than I should, but it’s so good, just being next to her. She talks little and it drives me crazy, yet when she talks, it’s with such force and clarity I am baffled every time. I feel like a puppy running circles around her, while being helpless and somewhat ashamed of my behaviour. Weird yet familiar.

Here I am, right in the middle of it. Didn’t ask for it, didn’t think of it, just happened, I’m in it again, and it hurts. This time, I’m making it more complicated. Going away on a trip, with a flower I gave MH on my desk — they all leave their flowers here, and I can’t muster the courage to throw them away. The way she ignores and cares for me at the same time relentlessly going through my head. Impossible to untangle.

Last time I saw her, she didn’t even kiss me, but asked me what I did for Christmas last year and I remembered ML, my girlfriend at the time, how she really cared for me, and made last Christmas good despite everything. Yet I left her and didn’t much feel anything. She was good to me, in a soft, unspoken way. Never mentioned me all the stress at work or in her life, tried to be good to me always. Some deep sadness overcomes me at the thought of this. I have missed so much and thought so little of it

Which reminds me of MH. Not saying a word, just softly touching, not looking into the eye, just letting you read between the lines. I always thought I give more than what others gave me, but now I feel that maybe I have been giving the trivial, like flowers or a helping hand, but they gave me something more deep and I have not appreciated it at all. Because I haven’t even seen it.

Not long ago I met someone different. She is not comparable to anyone. Delicate and smooth, soft and passionate. Knows how to say things without talking. The first person I’ve met that said so much without a word. She doesn’t look into my eyes and yet says so much. It feels like I’ve been missing a whole dimension of life. I don’t know how she does this, it’s amazing. I’ve been with many women, but this is very strange and very new. I feel like a regular guy in a strange land. She is holding my hand and I’m following her and wondering how I haven’t seen this before. I feel very insecure with her. She is strong and independent and talks so little, I have trouble knowing what she is thinking. The language she speaks is so new to me, I feel lost. It’s mesmerizing and very dangerous.

I was just re-watching a film, “Now is good”, and one of the characters asks the other, what do you want? The other answers, but the answer seems to only touch the surface, and then the first character asks again… What do you really want? At this point, it came back to me. This is how I felt when she told me about a simple, but somehow important memory of hers. The honesty and non-theatricality of it struck me as somehow making an important moment easy to embrace.

It makes me sad she hasn’t replied to my last mail. I thought I was being good. I think that in these letters everyone can always see the real meaning, the words somehow covey more than the mere thought. The feeling is palpable. I often think of her. It’s interesting how I still care about her, how she is still real for me, even though I am probably nothing but a distant memory of hers. I find this asymmetry interesting, somehow mysterious, kind of like a question mark that permeates my everyday life. How can we mean so different things to each other if feelings are supposed to be common and shared?

I remember the second time we met, we were sitting on the couch, and my friend just left the room. We looked at each other, and started kissing. Until that point, I wasn’t sure what would happen between us the second time… she felt distant. Maybe I should have been more careful. But, why be so protective of oneself? It’s like living in a bubble: if you never try reaching out, you will never know where the walls are. The risks are that you burst the bubble — but at least you now know how that feels. I have to say: it feels really beautiful and sad at the same time.

I wish I could explain her. But there is nothing much I can explain, I’m afraid. She probably knows the feeling, and can’t do much about it. Just like me not being able to do anything about her not feeling the same way. It’s the reality of life, something I have been trying to evade for the past year.

Last Saturday I woke up with a dream of her coming to my city, me calling her up, being really excited and very happy. I wrote her a letter about it, the first in half a year. Maybe she will be happy reading it. That’s all I wish for.

It feels like a dream that I ever had my hand around her.  I have to pinch myself to believe it. It feels unreal, as if it could never happen. On Sunday I was chatting to a friend about what we would do if we had a time machine so we could visit the past for a day. I thought about going back to the Greeks in Athens or seeing Rome, visiting Cairo with the Pyramids being built… and then it occurred to me that I would rather just go back to when she was here and see her again, maybe even hug her or give her a goodbye kiss. So I became speechless in the discussion, as I floated away in the thought.

Today I think I broke my left elbow. It’s hard to type with one hand. I miss her so… I didn’t say that in the letter — maybe I should have.

I look at the faces of the people jumping from the Golden Gate bridge and I see what they mean. I can almost feel their pain, their emptiness. How they embrace death, to deliver them from here. They must have tried hard, and felt that they had failed. Lately, I have failed in many ways, and many times. The woman I have been with, I couldn’t feel the way she felt for me. Others, they didn’t want to be close to me. They liked me, but that’s no consolation. Then I met someone, and now, I feel like all I have is memories of her, even though we only met once. I have bought her a book, I put it at the centre of my table, to make myself suffer. It will pass, I am sure, and I’ll be back to nothing, to emptiness.

I feel like I am drifting, sometimes feeling good, sometimes feeling low. Lately, it’s mostly been low. I put her picture in the background again. Somehow, I am drawn to this picture of her legs crossed, the hand resting on her knees, from up close. It’s full of intimate detail and reminds me of all the small things that mattered about her, all the small things that seemed so right. I wonder if I will ever forget her, I mean, in the sense that I will be old and forget most of the things that happened, but, probably not her. It’s a strange thing, memory. Time moves so slowly sometimes. You feel like you could move mountains in a matter of minutes. Last Friday I met someone I felt something for, it was a strange, fuzzy feeling. But she wasn’t relaxed. She couldn’t let go. With her, I could relax and just be. It seemed to me I could be myself and she would still enjoy me.

I just saw a film called “Now is good”. It’s a film about letting go of someone. How you know that the person will go, but you don’t want it to happen and you pretend that she won’t. And when she really is going, all you can do is say goodbye. I said goodbye, but I wish I could see her again.

Yes, her….

My friend visited Canada, and asked me if I need anything from there. This was my answer. I need her, very much.

I feel like I have lost direction, a ship without rudder, wayward in the endless ocean, running in circles, looking at the bright night sky and wondering where the others are, and how I got here. It feels like and endless story. I am rowing a boat and I don’t know where I am going. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, just falling down, not knowing where the next corner will take me.  No escape, no turning back, no direction, just letting go. I wonder how deep the rabbit hole is. When will it end? I’m like Pinocchio without the strings, alone in this suddenly strange world, where nothing is what it seems, waiting for the fairy to wake me up.

I re-watch some films I have already seen, like Kieslowski’s “Trois Couleurs: Rouge”, and they all look different. Their meaning has changed, they convey something else then they used to. I see these people, being in love and I can feel their pain and excitement and joy and happiness. I somehow relate to their anxiety of telling it to the person it matters the most and I share their worries about how the other person will react. I can feel how soft they really all are, how compassionate we all are and how easily we can be damaged, how fragile sanity is. I am starting to embrace a new kind of insanity where one is emotionally vulnerable. It mostly only goes down, but I have nothing to loose. The rabbit hole deepens, and I am taking it in with open arms, no holding back. Just let it come, I’ll do my best to keep taking it, until I collapse.