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.

I just saw “A short film about love” by Kieslowski… I saw it once already, and I remembered it to be beautiful, truly emotional. Having seen it again, I feel like Tomek, running around in circles with the milk cart, still unaware that I can’t be with the one I want to be with. Somehow, the characters at some point look strange, even alien, such as Tomek when he first approaches Magda.. but then it all feels right, and I start to understand the feelings that drive Tomek. I long to contact her. I have a green towel that she used, and I can’t use it any more. It’s there, in the bathroom, on the top of my drawers, reminding me every day how she said, exiting the shower, that it’s the best shower experience she had because of the warm towel I gave her. It was a small thing of her to say, but it stuck in my mind, and I can’t let go. I know I should let go, but I don’t want to. It was beautiful, and the best time I have had for a very-very long while — I want to savour it as long as I can.

First weekend in a very long while that I have been home, alone. Tried to meet up with some people, but can’t. I don’t exactly remember her any more down to the last detail, but I feel her affecting me right now, how I behave, my moods, my feelings towards others. She was one of the very few who could challenge me, for whom I would really think through things I have done, question my deep-rooted views. I fear I will never be over her in a sense, that she will affect me forever, as few have done before.

On Friday I saw a dead cat on the road. It’s strange how things that didn’t use to affect me hit me so much harder nowadays. I suddenly felt how fragile life is and how I’ll be lying down one day, on the side of the road, and everything still going on, people in their cars with their own fears and dreams and memories, just travelling, oblivious to all the troubles of others. I wonder why we keep on fighting like the boxer in the song by the same title. I finished watching the The Graduate just now, and it reminds me of the boxer, fighting till the very end for what he feels is right.

On the flight today, I was reading the memoires of Kiki de Montparnasse and while she was explaining her quite ordinary but also very poor life in the south of France, Neil, the person from 7 up occurred to me, and then, suddenly, the whole whirlwind started. I remember being on top of her, talking to her straight in the eye, about 7 up, and how Neil was the most interesting and intriguing of them all. How he was so humane and sensitive. It occurred to me that I don’t want to be with anyone, ever, who after seeing 7 up doesn’t feel that Neil is indeed the most interesting of them all. It somehow felt so natural to agree on such a seemingly minor thing.

I now also remember a chat I had with someone just two days ago about the Smurfs and how the evil Gargamel is such a poor creature, with no one to talk to. He probably had a childhood from hell, being so ugly, a misfit, he is taking it out on the Smurfs, but somehow he never manages, or never wants to manage, to succeed. To me it always felt that he never really wanted to hurt them, that it was just a show for himself, though at the same time making others’ life miserable. I probably could have become a Gargamel, but instead of taking it out on others, I take it out on myself.

Today morning I had a very strange dream. I was walking in aquariums, filled with water, many of them in parallel, and I chose one and went underwater. I saw many people coming into the water, one after the other, naked, turning their back to me, and then leaving. And then, I ran a program that intentionally made the system go into an infinite loop, effectively killing myself, as I could no longer take a breath. An interesting thing was that I wasn’t feeling any remorse, I didn’t feel anything, just sort of lapsed into it. Only when I woke up from the dream did I realise what had happened.

It’s interesting to watch how I changed over the past couple of weeks. I remember the old days, when I was feeling terrible, I would laugh very much. And then it occurred to me that the last day I effectively saw her, we had a meeting at my workplace, and I couldn’t stop laughing. So much so that my workmates made a 3-minute video of me laughing non-stop. It’s funny, and at the same time quite sad to watch myself at the low of the low.

PS: I came with a card of hers here. I never liked travelling alone.

She changed me in a ways I am still not aware of. I am back to my old self — being afraid of people, afraid of life, closed up and wondering why I’m here. It’s a strange, and at the same time familiar feeling that I’m not sure I like, but I will have to go through. It’s at times painful, and, what is worse, it isolates me again from the world I live in. I feel estranged from things that happen around me, and feel unable to ride the wave of history. I am tumbling around, not keeping pace at what’s around me.

At one point, I thought, maybe I saw a mirage, that I didn’t in fact feel so strongly for her. With my conscious mind I thought, it’s not possible, in so little time. But our spirits seem much stronger than our conscious thoughts, and I was wrong, very wrong. My conscious mind can only observe what’s happening and then conclude… and what’s been happening is very-very confusing. I have broken up my friendships with every friend of mine, without ever trying to do it. I just couldn’t behave the same way any more. It was in the air, and I couldn’t feel it, but when someone else was there, it was obvious.

I wonder how can love go through oneself so suddenly, without any notice or indication, only leaving behind a trail of happiness,  good memories and a giant void that cannot be filled.