There is no need to talk about it because the truth of what one says lies in what one does. You see, I am not frightened. I am not frightened of anything anymore. The more I suffer, the more I love. Danger will only increase my love.
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? It was not that I forgot Brida. But at a certain point, the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Now to escape involves not just running away but arriving somewhere. Is this what sadness is all about? Is it what comes over us when beautiful memories shatter in hindsight because the remembered happiness fed not just on actual circumstances but on a promise that was not kept? Alas, the uncertainty of it all!
Does everyone feel this way? When I was a teenager, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. I thought that if the right time got missed, if one refused or been refused something for too long, it was too late, even if it was finally tackled with energy and received with joy. So I took all the blame. I admitted mistakes I had not made with intentions I had never had...
The tectonic layers of our lives rested so tightly one on top of the other that we always came up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that had been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. Desires, memories, fears, passions form labyrinths in which we lose and find and then lose ourselves again. In the past, I had particularly loved her smell. She always smelled fresh, freshly washed or of fresh laundry or fresh sweat or freshly loved. And then she was not awkward, she was fast-flowing, indifferent, seductive - a seductiveness that had nothing to do with breasts and hips and legs, but was an invitation to forget the world in the recesses of her body. So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of being betrayed by a self-absorbed human, then I was guilty of having loved a self-absorbed human.
...I had to point at Brida. But the finger I pointed at her turned back to me. I had loved her. I tried to tell myself that I had known nothing of what she was when I chose her. I tried to talk myself into the state of innocence in which children love their parents. But love of our parents is the only love for which we are not responsible. ...And perhaps we are responsible even for the love we feel for our parents.
Or is there no such thing as 'too late'? Is there only 'late' and is 'late' always better than 'never'? I do not know...if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel angry, the feelings of anger return a hundred times; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then.
She was struggling, as she always had struggled, not to show what she could do but to hide what she could not do. A life made up of advances that were actually frantic retreats and victories that were concealed defeats. I did not like the way I looked, the way I dressed and moved, what I achieved and what I felt I was worth. But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I would be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such anticipation when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could not satisfactorily fulfill even today? Sometimes I see the same eagerness and belief in the faces of children and teenagers and the sight brings back the same sadness.
But I don't speak about it - to her or to anyone. I can't commit the third mistake of talking to her and letting her mess with my head again. For her, it was never about me. It never will be about me, regardless of my circumstances. She can't listen and she can't miss an opportunity to throw me in agony, even if I am facing a loved one's death or my own. Yes, that's childish. But I can't be childish enough to go on explaining things to someone I know is not ready to understand. And in the same breath, I am not going to bring her up amidst all the newness I encounter - new people, new places, and new conversations. But the same old anger remains.
My teacher told me back in school that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it only transfers from one form to another. That's what keeps me sane. There's nothing called taking a stand for yourself. The Existence gives you only a handful of meaningful battles to fight. And in those battles, you don't stand up for yourself - you fall, instead. Rest are mere shots of a movie that you just sit back and watch....
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