the-nostalgic-sentimentalist - Tumblr blog

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

The Circle of Life and a Fur Hat

My grandmother died on 29 December 2019 and I inherited her fur hat.

Her death came as a shock to no one. She has been dying for what felt like years. And yet. She is the first close relative I helped bury. A few minutes after I learned of her passing, I was sent to summon my sister so my father could inform her, and I was asked by our elderly neighbour – whose inevitable death I dare not ponder – if I had loved my grandmother. I paused before my quiet reply – a shy “No.” – because I never bonded with her in a way required for love to persist. She was a complicated woman and suffered from dementia during the last five years of her life.

Last June we all thought it could happen any day. I went to see her with my father and he read Psalm 23 to her. I sobbed like never before in my life because this circle of life business – it’s so much easier said than done.

My grandmother was a multi-layered woman. Complex. Stubborn. Industrious. Meticulous. Peculiar. Well-dressed. Resourceful. She did not complain. Despite her poverty, she was generous within her means. She could whip up a fulfilling meal out of thin air. But she could also be cruel in an impossibly stubborn and often pointless way.

We all carry parts of her within us. And that has made for volatile family relations. So, when death comes, it’s inconvenient, but I reckon death usually is. But we deal. As one does. We all descend onto our hometown and I brace myself for tension and explosions. But none come. None.

It’s all tears and hugs and occasional laughter. I am given the chance to see her, in the casket my father built – painstakingly over many months. A masterpiece destined to never be seen again. I admire him beyond words for that. She lies there and is unrecognisable. My aunts did an incredible job bestowing upon her corpse the little tokens she was best known for. It’s perfect and touching and I choke up for the first time. We stand around her and it’s as beautiful as a heart-breaking moment like that can be beautiful.

The funeral service commences, and the organist seems to be having a bad day. It’s freezing cold in the chapel. On the dot at half-past ten, my estranged cousin who has cut off contact with the family for almost a decade slips through the door, accompanied by his father. I take notice and think to myself that he will probably slip away when the service is over. He does not.

My dad announces that he, my mother and my sister will sing a rendition of Psalm 23 and elaborates on the reasons why. Due to my grandmother’s dementia, he used to read it to her during every one of his visits and she seemed to feel like she was hearing it for the first time every time. But before their musical contribution, my cousin and I go up to the pulpit and read it.

Psalm 23 is my baptism verse. I feel strongly about it. Fortunately, I know it by heart, so my vocal cords act entirely on muscle memory. This is a moment that will never happen again. A notion true about every moment, but it’s particularly tangible in this moment. Funerals are a brutal reminder of the linearity of life. It rips us from the sheer endless circularity of the seasons and weekly routines we are accustomed to. Their singing is beautiful – as I knew it would be. My sister’s singing voice is my second most favourite sound.

Then my father’s oldest sister gets up to read some remarks and I have to work hard not to burst into tears. She quotes old letters my grandmother had written to her and I recognise her voice. I recognise the woman I knew. Neither the pastor nor my aunt neglect to mention the difficult life and personality my grandmother had. Euphemisms would have been sorely misplaced as everyone in the chapel had encountered my grandmother during her more abrasive moods. When she could be cold and strong-headed beyond reason. But neither one dwells on those parts more than is appropriate. My aunt highlights my grandmother’s sense of the aesthetic, the beautiful, her work ethic and her modesty. She skips the two fake marriages that ruined her because – why bother. There is literally no point. We all know and agonised over those things that no one can change anymore.

At the wake, I tell my aunt how much her words moved me. She tells me she found the letters I wrote to my grandmother and that she knows that they meant a lot to her. That she had them up on her walls until the day she died. Later, as all of us – children and grandchildren – go through her things, I find them and recall the situations in which I wrote them.

The cards always had flowers on them, some impressionist motif because that was what I most strongly associated with her. The wall of the staircase up to her tiny apartment was covered in beautiful flowery posters of which I kept three. I can identify the latest cards not just by the date but because I explain who I am in the greeting. During my penultimate visit, she asked if I was married to my father. But she also told me that I was a beautiful woman. It evened out.

The wake exceeds everyone’s expectations. Mostly because we did not have any. Conversations are deep and varied and everyone is open and vulnerable and friendly. My estranged cousin is welcomed into the fold as if nothing had happened. My generation is terrible at holding grudges. And I love that about us. It is a stark contrast to the generations from which we hail.

Later, it is just the core part of the family and we share stories, not just about the matriarch but also about ourselves. We have missed a lot about each other. It feels healing and wonderful and I am uncertain whether I am dreaming. It becomes clear that I will be the one to keep her famous fur hat that looks like regular attire for a Mongolian shepherd, simply because my head is the only one on which it will fit. I look ridiculous but I still like wearing it.

There is a comfortable atmosphere of openness. It could have been a perfect day and as far as funerals go, it probably was.

During a conversation with my aunt, we ponder the counter-factual of my grandmother’s life. What she could have, would have become if she had had a supportive father who had encouraged and promoted her schooling and development. Instead, he sent her to inform a mother that her son had fallen in WWII – three times. She admitted later that she never recovered from the trauma of being an eleven-year-old girl and having to tell the same woman three times that her worst nightmare had come to pass. I cannot begin to imagine that reality. I just know that I am beyond privileged to stand on the shoulders of my foremothers who were never allowed to grow into giants. Who were instead kept small so as not to overshadow and outshine the men in their lives. Whose dreams and ambitions counted for nothing. And who nevertheless found a way to forge a life they could be proud of. I escaped that fate by virtue of being born nearly a century later. We have our own struggles, for sure, but we do not face the uphill battle of senseless sexism and poverty that they had to contend with.

The day concludes with my sister and I laying in bed next to each other. We do not talk much. And that is okay. Everything has been said.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

My grand-mothers’ smiles

They have no idea who I am. None. But they smile at me most of the time and one of them laughs at my jokes and pretends to understand and like them. It’s delightful and gut-wrenching all wrapped in one.

I have been here for nearly a month now and I am terrified of coming back. Chances are high it’ll be for a funeral. I am no ready to accept that circle-of-life-bullshit. Despite having - and loving - the “WeCroak” app that tells me that we all die at some point five times a day, together with a deep and meaningful quote. 

Their eyes are so eerily similar that I wonder if all old people have the same eyes. Or if it’s just the look people get when they know that their time is up. When they realise that every day is dress-rehearsal for the final performance. I am scared because I will not be able to fix it. There is an emptiness in there, something I can’t grasp, nor do I really want to. Their movements are so excruciatingly slow that I struggle to remain patient. It makes me wonder what kind of life it is, when taking a sip of water is a struggle. I don’t think I would want that kind of existence. I think I would prefer a clean exit. An “This was fun, I am out” kind of death. It’s something I think again and again when I watch my grand-father struggle to care for his wife of over 60 years. An unimaginable number of days. It feels feeble to watch at nearly 30 years old with no notable accomplishments to show for them. 

When they smile, my heart aches. In that strange manner that human hearts can hurt when there is nothing medically wrong with them and yet they threaten to burst through the fibers and muscles and bleed into your chest - for no reason at all. And yet, I hear this completely imaginary voice in my head that says that this moment right there could well be the last time I see this person - who contributed a quarter of my genes, and an intangible amount to everything I am as a person, my values, memories, habits, morals, weakness and down-right character flaws. 

They shaped me - each in their own way. One through her larger-than life presence, her role-modelling, her unconditional, never-ending love. And the other, through a strange absence and occasional interaction that still never left me. I am who I am in no small part due to these two women. They are part of my story much more than I am part of theirs. Not just by sheer virtue of numbers. I have two grandmothers, but my grand-mothers have many grand-children each. And that’s okay. That’s how family works. 

This month, I have spent a remarkable amount of time talking about how much I do not want to have children. And there is a brief moment when the realisation hits me that without children, there will be no grandchildren. It’s a dilemma. 

My father’s mother tells me twice that I am pretty. She was very stingy with compliments when she was still clear-minded. Maybe she is getting kinder. Maybe the Dementia made her forget that personal warmth wasn’t in her arsenal of tools for human interaction. Doesn’t really matter, I’ll take it. 

It’s kind of hard not to become nihilistic when faced with the harsh reality that someone who used to love you does not recognise you. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t get married as early as I would have liked because she doesn’t know either way. It doesn’t matter to her to know that I am okay. She doesn’t know who I am.

I am becoming a radical “in-the-presence” person. I don’t put off anymore. I realised that there is no way of knowing when something is the last of something. 

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” - Pablo Picasso 

Time to begin.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

The things I don’t regret anymore

As I land on the second season of ‘Fleabag’ (10/10 would recommend) while wrestling with insomnia - it’s the Pepsi Maxx I drink too much of - I realise that I am done regretting England. I became a person there. I grew into myself. 

It’s been a year and a half since my return and I have begun being vague about that “gap” in my C.V. I no longer blurt out references to life in England. I don’t reveal this fact about myself unsolicited. I don’t even downright state it when it would be appropriate. I now tend to be vague about “having spent some time abroad” - even during Brexit debates I only announce that I have first-hand knowledge of the lies and misinformation campaign, the propaganda, the insanity when my counterpart is being obnoxious. When I feel the need to crush someone for their ignorance. Having spent the first half of my 20s in England is not something I volunteer. Not anymore. It seemed like I was ashamed of it. Like I regretted it. And I was and I did. 

England. That’s that chapter I don’t read out loud anymore. It’s a room in my soul that’s closely guarded. Not quite a three-headed dog. But the right kind of music unlocks it promptly. I think I was scared of the flood. I was scared of the immensity of everything I wouldn’t be able to contain. So I made a home for those years in my head and my heart. The years I spent as Lilo. The years I became the single-minded Lesbian I have probably always been. 

I am done regretting that. I don’t care about the debt anymore. I don’t care about the counter-factual reality that will never exist. Perhaps ten minutes into episode 1 of Season 2 of Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge leans against the brick wall of a restaurant and deeply inhales the smoke of a cigarette. And it so perfectly encapsulates how I feel about those years of early adulthood. Not just because I smoked too much. I was finding my place in this world and had to come to the conclusion that it wasn’t there. 

My place was there for the time I spent there. On that ugly campus with its atrocious brutalism buildings and the party culture that alienated me and yet perfectly maintained my sense of superiority when I headed to the gym shortly after the last people returned from a night at the club. 

I was foolish. I should have made better use of my time. But I am done regretting that too. I am now in the business of forgiveness. And I will start with myself.

I was so busy trying to live up to an impossible plan I deemed inevitable. i operated from a place of “This is how it has to be and this is what I need to do” - I was foolish and young and I am going to let that go now. This life can be so goddamn short. 

 That YouTube Playlist I built during those four years is currently playing a song of whose existence I was made aware of by the most beautiful woman I have ever met in real life. We attended a theatre after-show discussion of a feminist piece when I kept exchanging looks with a real-life goddess who was sat across from me. 

Afterward - in an attempt to give me a natural reason to still be waiting around - I bought cigarettes I couldn’t afford (still the most idiotic thing I have ever done to get a girl to talk to me). But it worked and we walked home together. She was perfect and probably straight. If she had been French instead of Italian I would have probably proposed that night. That would’ve been something substantial to regret.

I smile when I remember that I did propose. To someone else, of course. And until today, I did regret that. It was stupid and too soon and all too stereotypical lesbian. But I was being my real self and I am proud of that. I just have to work on being a better real self. 

Until today, I measured the value of the English Years in what they cost me. Money, time with my family, people I will never meet. But that ends today. Because I failed to see what it gave me. How it shaped everything. How this is now part of my story. How it has been part of my story for years. It is irrevocable. I am better and stronger and kinder for it. I am richer for it.*

And I am grateful for it. It’s time to let go of all the ways it was imperfect. And it’s time to let go of all the ways that I was, too. 

* (The UK government can choke waiting for my debt payments.)  

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

A love like that.

It takes a turn when the priest comes out and he’s black.

We are down south in the German province of Palatinate. It is deeply Catholic. It is deeply rural. Picturesque to its core.

It’s the church I frequented with my grandparents as a young girl. Its architecture is simple but beautiful in a way that only Catholic Churches can be.

The church service is a celebration of my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary. They have been pillars of this village’s community for more than thirty years. They have volunteered tirelessly for decades until physical and mental ailments got the better of them. My grandmother had a stroke a few years ago. She is wheelchair bound and my grandfather - despite his dwindling strength - dotes on her to the best of his abilities. Once he fell asleep after an outing. My grandmother was still at the top of the stairs. Unable to vocalise her abandonment. They are undeniably in the late stage of their lives.

And their life’s work is annually on display when my family comes together to spend a weekend together. They had six children. Who each got married and most had at least two children. There are even some great grandchildren. One was a premarital mishap who turned out so adorable she awakened my own desire to procreate. Of course, I will not be able to get anyone pregnant accidentally. There is acrimony of course. But we do our best to keep any disagreements hidden from my grandfather. His family is his life’s achievement and it would break his heart to hear that there is discord and infighting.

The church service is classically Catholic. Way too long and laden with an absurd liturgy and a constant oscillating between standing, sitting and kneeling.

My Finnish cousins, sitting left and right of me, and I are pretending to sing the hymns. We spend most of the time just trying to find the songs. It is an exercise in moving our lips and longing for it to end. The sermon and prayers - some of which I and three of my cousins read out loud - are geared toward the incredible achievement of a marriage spanning decades, six children, a bakery, and an active, service-oriented retirement.

As the service comes to a close I am struggling to hold back my tears. It’s a battle I am doomed to lose. They flow and there is no power on earth able to stem them. The raw, unclouded view of a love manifested in 60 years of devotion is so powerful that I cannot help but surrender into a feeling of awe. I am a tiny part of a family whose Patriarch and Matriarch have led by an example none of us appear equipped to emulate. They - despite all the real and serious shortcomings none of us lack - exemplified honesty, service, hard work and generosity.

It is clear that none of us are likely to be able to fill the shoes my grandparents will leave behind.

Those shoes move slowly now. In measured, tired steps. They have reached the end of a long, fulfilled life. They have brought their fruits to bear and now reap the gratitude and admiration they undoubtedly merit.

It is highly unlikely that I will be lucky enough to have a family of my own that mirrors the life my grandparents modelled.

And yet. As my brother - my handsome, gentle, intelligent brother - and I talk about the experience we just shared our tears are a testament to the emotional work we have done to be this in touch with our feelings. We agree in a moment of complete unison understanding that there is value in a commitment that lasts a lifetime and we lament that something like that is hard to find these days. And we shed tears as we realise how elusive such a dream would prove to be.

As I contemplate how I can carry what I have seen and heard this weekend into my real life back up North, I feel my heart growing heavy with sadness and grief. My grandmother doesn’t recognise us. Her stroke happened when I was living abroad and she hasn’t recognise me in years. It is doubly painful because she used to profess in a conspiratorial fashion that I was her favourite, bestowing upon me gifts while no one was looking. We had a special bond and the loss of that is something I have not processed. It is a battle for another day. But I know that this day is approaching.

I try and sit with her frequently throughout the festivities. Helping her take sips of juice because she can barely lift the glass. I joke with her and she laughs a lot. My grandfather is so moved - his happiness radiating palpably. Occasionally, she starts a sentence but then trails off and never completes it. Almost like a very tired, very drunk person who is searching for ways to express feelings that are buried deep inside, desperate to get out. I tell her in the dialect I am no longer fluent in “You’re a good one!” A sentence she used to say to me a lot when I was a young girl who had no idea that a grandmother’s love could one day fade. She smiles as I say it, and I want to believe that she understood what I said. It’s not likely but a human’s ability to give into delusions knows now bound - as long as they are told convincingly enough.

“You’re a good one” I say, again, and she smiles and mumbles “You’re a good one, too.”

I turn away and find a quiet place to cry.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

When she stills wears the engagement ring two years after you’ve broken up and she doesn’t think it’s weird

The temptation to declare her a shitty person is great. Really great. She’s given me so much material to come to that conclusion. So much ammunition to build into bombastic arguments of character assassination. I could probably go on for days. It seems laughable that I ever had every intention to make her my wife and to devote my whole life to our love. It seems laughable because we turned out to be incompatible on a cosmic scale. The type of person she is, is designed to break the type of person I am. And to attribute that to a simple mismatch of nature requires a level of maturity i sometimes cannot muster. I could have never continued to wear the ring that symbolises the promise I held sacred. The hope for a shared life that was nothing short of holy to me.

She is with a woman now who isn’t bothered that she is being touched by a hand decorated with a ring I picked out. A ring I had engraved with my handwriting. A ring that bears a question that encapsulated the most monumental proposition I am capable of speaking into existence. Good for her.

It’s been nearly three years since we fell apart and I am honestly over it. I did all the grieving I needed to do. I did all the reflecting that the break up merited. I took an entire year to conduct the autopsy and the result is a healthy clarity on what I want. And what I seek is light years from what she is. And ever could be.

For a long time I thought that she was the ocean. But I know now that my love for her was. I loved with the immensity of the wild sea and she turned out to have been a little life boat that could have never survived my storms.

I am grateful we parted ways before anyone actually drowned. Of course, that gratitude was painfully won. It came neither easy nor willingly. I am a better person for it. And my desire to live a life of meaning and purpose is my own. I do not need her to share it. She is too insignificant now to shake my comfort even when she confronts me with her carelessness, her indifference, her casualness. It irritates me, sure. Because I am human and we all have a tendency to project our own point of view onto others, reacting with dismay when it is rejected. But when I dig deeper I realise I don’t actually care. It does not actually make a difference to my day or mood.

What happened is part of my story and my biography. It belongs to a chapter you’d need to turn a few pages to get back to and I don’t do much reading of that part of my book these days.

On Friday I will hike up to the place where I asked her and I look forward to conquering that corner of my world. Reclaim it as something that belongs to me. Something I permitted her to touch. But she proved unworthy. She carelessly squandered what I offered her. She chose differently and I owe her gratitude for it. Because she saved both of us by walking out.

I look forward to making that place mine again. To stake my claim in the meaning that existed before she tainted it.

I have an ocean to give and I will find someone willing to brave all the turbulence that entails in the knowledge that it will be glorious, too.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

Leere Hände, volles Herz - Warum der Jessup 2019 für mich ein unfassbare Erfolg war

Vielleicht ist es zu früh für die Niederschrift dieser Reflektionen, aber ich habe gerade nichts anderes zu tun. Zum ersten Mal seit dem 14. September habe ich keine To Do Liste, derer Abarbeitung ich mich annehmen muss. Das kommt morgen. 

Da dies kein Kriminalroman ist, kann ich die Spannung auch gleich vorweg aufheben: Wir sind in der Vorrunde ausgeschieden und haben nichts gewonnen. Nicht mal für den „Spirit of the Jessup“ Award hat es gereicht. Wir kehren nach Kiel mit leeren Händen zurück. Und dennoch hat mich diese Erfahrung, die in den National Rounds kulminierte, unermesslich reich beschenkt.

Ich bin mit einer Mischung aus Unbedarftheit, Ambition und vorsichtiger Neugier an den Jessup herangegangen und gehe aus der Erfahrung reichlich weiser, demütiger und motivierter hervor. Bin ich enttäuscht? Wahrscheinlich. Momentan nimmt meine Erschöpfung den größten Raum ein. Aber selbstverständlich bin ich traurig, dass es nicht gereicht hat. Selbstverständlich bin ich hart mit mir ins Gericht gegangen über meine eigenen Defizite und meinen eigenen Fehlern, die ich zweifellos zahlreich begangen habe. Selbstverständlich werde ich meine Schlüsse daraus ziehen und das „nächste Mal“ noch härter arbeiten. Noch mehr Fälle parat haben. Meine Augen nicht verdrehen. Sowas. Besser geht’s immer, und so ist die Feststellung, dass meine Jessup Teilnahme eine der besten Erfahrungen meines Lebens ist, keine Zelebrierung von Mittelmäßigkeit. Es ist kein Manifest aufs willfährige Versagen oder gleichmütige Ambitionslosigkeit. Ich halte ehrliches Versagen für einen essentiellen Katalysator jeglicher Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, die etwas wert sein soll. Und das geht nur, wenn man nicht ex post facto die Ziele oder Bewertungskriterien ändert, damit das Ergebnis weniger weh tut. Es tut weh, aber genau darin liegt die Magie.

Der wahre, tiefe, überdauernde Wert meiner Jessup Erfahrung geht über alles hinaus was ein Viertelfinaleinzug hätte bestätigen oder erzeugen können. Und dieser Wert spielt sich auf mindestens zwei Ebenen ab – der akademischen und der persönlichen.

Für meine akademische Kompetenzbildung waren die letzten sechs Monate und besonders das letzte Wochenende besonders wertvoll, weil es ein gigantischer „Arenamoment“ war. Ich gehe daraus hervor mit der Gewissheit, dass ich über die Anlagen verfüge, die ich brauche um meine Ziele zu erreichen. Ich habe, wenn auch nicht in einer quantifizierbaren, fassbaren Weise, die Rückmeldung bekommen, dass ich die richtigen Instinkte habe, um in dem Feld erfolgreich zu sein, für das mein Herz seit über 10 Jahren brennt. Etwas Besseres hätte mir nicht passieren können. Und ich habe gesehen welches Handwerkszeug mir fehlt, um erfolgreich und effektiv zu sein. Wenn ich nicht so unermesslich müde wäre würde ich wahrscheinlich vor Glück weinen. Ich stehe mit 27 Jahren mitten im Jurastudium und der Jessup hat wieder ein Feuer entfacht, von dem ich lange, lange zehren werde.

Die wesentlich wichtigere Ebene, die persönliche, ist schwieriger zu beschreiben ohne auf platte Klischees zurückzugreifen. Natürlich wächst man als Team zusammen. Natürlich knüpft man neue Kontakte, vertieft Beziehungen. Aber was es wirklich heißt, ist, dass mein Leben größer geworden ist. Es hat Dimensionen gewonnen. Es hat an Nuancen und Liebe gewonnen. Lieder, die plötzlich eine andere Bedeutung annehmen, weil wir sie zwischen den Jahren im Institut gehört haben, als wir alleine durch die Gänge geisterten und die Memos fertig schrieben. Mein Horizont hat sich erweitert und es gibt jetzt mehr Menschen, deren Glück mir wichtig ist. Deren Wohlbefinden mir am Herzen liegt. In den letzten sechs Monaten habe ich Moment nach Moment nach Moment gesammelt. Momente von gelebter Solidarität, intellektueller Stimulation, Humor, und kameradschaftlichem Spott. Zitat:„Wie willst du eigentlich dein Studium schaffen?“. Ich habe gespürt, wie Menschen mir Zuneigung entgegenbrachten, ein Höhepunkt natürlich die phänomenale Geburtstagsüberraschung. The Indigenious Jack wird für immer eines meiner absoluten Lieblingsgeschenke sein.

Meine erweiterte Welt enthält nun auch Rollenvorbilder, die ich liebe und respektiere und deren Wohlwollen und Stolz mir mehr wert sind, als Plaketten oder Punkte oder Applaus. Nikolaus und Liv haben schier unmenschliches geleistet. Und ich spüre eine tiefsitzende Dankbarkeit den beiden gegenüber. Und mit Dankbarkeit kommt auch Verantwortung. Verantwortung weiterzugeben, was mir unverdient zuteil wurde. Nikolaus’ Vater hat in seiner Rede am Samstag angemahnt, dass wir als Generation vor der Aufgabe stehen, Freiheit, internationale Zusammenarbeit und demokratische Grundwerte immer wieder zu verteidigen. Später konkretisiert er, dass wir nicht jeden Tag die Geschicke der Menschheit verändern, aber dass wir alle an unseren Orten „Zeichen setzen können“. Ich fühle wie mein Herz anschwillt. Ich will diesem Mandat gerecht werden. Würdig sein. Ich will zurückgeben, was man mir gegeben hat. Ich habe Visionen von Student Coach. Bailiff. Mal sehen.

Aber erstmal muss ich mich von diesem Muskelkater erholen. Mein persönliches Highlight der National Rounds war eine Überraschung, die ich mir selbst bescherte: Entgegen meines Naturells entscheide ich mich dem Rodeo eine Chance zu geben. Der jubelnde Applaus, als ich von der Hüpfburg klettere, ist berauschend. Eine neue Erfahrung für mich.

Ich blicke zuversichtlich in die Zukunft, auch wenn die Vorstellung, jetzt erst einmal Sachenrecht und Verwaltungslehre aufzuarbeiten eher ernüchternd ist. Es gibt unbeschreiblich viel, worauf ich mich freuen kann. Der Jessup hat mir viel Input gegeben, über den reflektiert werden will. Da ist Wert im Versagen, weil es Prozesse anstößt, die wirkliche Entwicklungssprünge möglich machen.

Ich hätte gerne etwas greifbares mit zurückgebracht. Ich hätte gerne dem Institut, das ich lieben gelernt habe und das immer mehr zu meiner akademischen Heimat geworden ist, Ruhm und Ehre verschafft. Aber es kam anders und jetzt ist meine neue Aufgabe andere Weg zu finden, dem Institut meine Dankbarkeit zu zeigen.

Ich denke, ich werde es auf die To-Do Liste setzen.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

1813 km down Memory Lane

 Last month, I travelled down south to attend the reunion of people who have received the MRN scholarship since its inception 10 years ago.  I had missed every single one of the reunions ever since because, well, I was living in self-inflicted exile. But this year, this year I was going to attend and so I took my girlfriend up on her insanely kind offer and borrowed her car. 

Travelling down south is not only a huge leap geographically (750km, give or take), it is also always a journey into my past. It’s like slipping inside the cocoon of my own self and inspecting the stages of how I became who I am today.

It’s a trip down Memory Lane of epic proportions because everything feels viscerally familiar while at the same time demanding enormous attention and energy. I don’t speak the language fluently anymore, but I will be damned before I admit it. I don’t really know my way around and need to rely on GoogleMaps so much, my data is used up before I get back home. 

None of the people from my generation are there, I mingle with people who are younger than my sister. It is bizarre. The organisers give little speeches at the opening, including the Head of Corporate Social Responsibility MEE for SAP who instantly remembers me when my name is mentioned. “Bundeskanzlerin” she yells excitedly. Referring to my adolescent desire to become chancellor of Germany once I grew up. I would settle for a job in the Ministry for the Environment, to be honest. Growing up makes you so much more practically minded. I realised that I stepped into a version of this world, where I am 16 and the people I converse with knew me as the tough, idealistic teenager who had big dreams and big plans and endless energy to pursue them.

I am now 26 and tired. I have lived in three countries, obtained two high school diplomas, followed by two academic titles. I was engaged and then not. I was away and now I am back. I envisioned none of the things my life consists of these days back then when I was asked where I want my life to go and yet, when asked how I am I can only pause for a second and say “I am really, really happy.”

In a way, setting foot into my past, and wandering around this still-life like snapshot of what people remember, what I remember, that I was and wanted to be, it’s sobering. It reminds me that I my plans will never be grander than the reality. That no matter what I desire, wish or fear, reality will always find a way to be weirder, happier, sadder, and more magnificent. 

And then there is Ise, the woman who easily reaches the top five of people who have influenced my life. She single handedly saved my year abroad after a bout of fever ruined my chances at obtaining the scholarship I so desperately needed. I found out later that I had led the ranking all weekend, until a sudden onset of misery pulled me into myself and severely diminished my performance. Ise stepped in and suggested I apply for the scholarship I ended up getting an ungodly portion of - maybe that’s why none of my fellow beneficiaries showed up. 

And with Ise’s presence, I am forced to come face to face with an ugly part of my past self. I never thanked her properly. I let years pass by without adequately thanking her for the enormity of a blessing she had bestowed upon me. I seize the moment and notice with relief that my 26 year old self has gratitude down. She smiles and nods and tells me that she knew I would turn out alright. It means so much I choke up.

Later, after dinner, we go round and a few people brought items that remind them of their year abroad. They introduce themselves and the item and explain what it means. Bracelets, an American Football, traditional clothing of their host country, etc. I brought nothing and escape having to address the group. My year abroad lies 10 years in the past and I only have a few items that hold any significance. Mostly because the souvenirs of that time are baked into my DNA. They have imprinted on who I am as a person and I carry them with me wherever I go. And I speak to an official from the organisation that sent me, and explain to her how the year I spend living with the Staats Family in 2008/2009 still bears on how I live my life every day. It ranges from my obsession with US politics, to my breath-takingly strong desire to have a family one day and be as loving and caring as my host parents had been. That year translates into world view and values, it honed my ability to assess a situation and read a room, it shaped my desire to serve my community because I saw that modelled in an unparalleled manner by my host parents. I will forever see the world differently because of that experience.

Once everyone has finished, the organiser addresses the room again, pivots to me and says “I think you should have the last world.” I feel a brief moment of dread, but my age and the accumulation of experiences has prepared me for this. I stand up and look around the room filled with people I have never met before. 

“Hi, my name is Bärbel, I used to want to become Chancellor of Germany. Now I would happily just work for the Ministry for the Environment. I was a member of the first generation of ambassadors and spent my year abroad in Wisconsin, in 2008/2009 - yes, I am that old.”

I feel almost at ease and continue. 

“That year was a ridiculous privilege for me that would not have been possible without the generous help of the people here and my gratitude has not diminished during this past decade, on the contrary, I feel it growing the deeper the impact of that year sinks into my personality. My American family has this family motto “Bloom where you’re planted“ and it’s a challenge to bring our best selves no matter where we go and what we do. It’s an invitation to make the world kinder wherever we are. I cannot purport that I succeed every day, but it is a magical thing to try again every day. We have been given the chance to expand our world, to add corners to our universe that will forever be sacred to us. It is an intense privilege and we should never squander it. Especially in times when the world seems to be on fire, our experience breathing, tasting, sensing a different air than the one we were born in, makes us excellent at bridging gaps, translating misunderstandings and working toward a more understanding world. Wherever we are. And with that I come to a close and just give you one task - go, and bloom where you’re planted.”

I feel slightly numb, but get validation when the organiser exclaims, “I knew I could trust you with this task.”

I drive back to my uncle and aunt’s place that night and feel elated. Like I peered into an unwritten part of my story knowing it will end well. I feel encouraged because the people who remembered me from back then, seemed pleased to see who I had become. They approved. They felt vindicated. Like their high expectations had been met. I shed a few tears of relief. There is peace that washes over me. I feel both at home and ready to leave. It’s time, I have some blooming to do.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

Weekend in June.

I told her that I loved her. We stood naked on her balcony and smoked as we finished off the bottle of midnight beer.

My heart was vibrating in my chest and I tried to remember the last time I said those words to someone for the first time. But I couldn’t because that was roughly four years ago and I have terrible memory.

She made me feel loved well before she whispered those three little words into my ear. I felt adored well before she told me that I was.

It begins with the fact that she makes me feel like I am nothing short of the center of her universe when I am around. I don’t have to compete for her attention with anything or anyone else.

She worships my body whenever she gets a chance and she listens to my rambling about my studies even though I can objectively admit it to be mind-numbingly boring to her.

I can be as greedy as I can possibly be and she never makes me feel like I am asking for too much. She unabashedly spoils me rotten and I am frightened beyond words to give in and enjoy it. This feels a lot like deja-vu, even though I know there is not a cruel bone in that hot body of hers.

I have entreated her to be gentle with me when things come to a close and I have no choice but to trust that she will be.

I told her that this feels like riding a train through breath-taking countryside, knowing full well the tracks lead over a cliff. Doom is pending inevitably, but I am determined to enjoy what we have, even if it is borrowed time and will end with my heart broken clean down the middle.

I should know better but I cannot find it within me to care. Her kisses make me delirious. I am so much myself around her it scares me. And at the same time it is a thrill of ludicrous proportions. She may not be my queen, but while I am between kingdoms, she is the best companion I could I have asked for.

I am having fun. I laugh. I indulge. I let go. She can flip all my switches nearly instantly and she does it with a quiet, steady, matter-of-factness that I have found myself undeniably addicted to.

We spend all of Saturday oscillating between couch, bed and balcony. I cook my favourite meal for her. We binge on Medical Detectives, curtesy of her recording hours upon hours of it in wise foresight how much that would delight me. I rent „Pride“ for us and sob through it.

Something changes that day and I carry that feeling into Sunday unsure what it means. The three words nearly burst out of me in the course of the day, during an innocuous interaction but we are in public and I am not about to waste that moment on a sticky sports hall full of people.

I confess later, while she is inside me, that I am terribly close to telling her I love her. And she confesses it right back. I have known, I think.

I don‘t know where it leaves us and ask tentatively „Does this change anything?“. She replies with her characteristic „Tja“ a gentle sigh that never fails to make me smile.

We decide, again, to ride this out for as long as it lasts. What other choice do we have? I am so attracted to her it makes me borderline crazy. I relax in her presence like nothing and nowhere else. And I, well, apart from mocking her relentlessly for her age, I also leave her apartment smelling like chocolate cake and let‘s be honest, what else could she ask for?

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

She says I smell like cake

She says I smell like cake and I can feel myself falling quickly and deeply. I remember stumbling into her bedroom after 18 months of semi-deliberate celibacy and diving into a calm that feels too good to be true. After months of clawing myself out of a pit of grief and doubt I feel whole enough to come apart safely when I am in her bed. I surrender to her skilled hands as if I have nothing to fear.

I don’t know if I will ever love her because my understanding of love has never been less than eternal. I am a child of a long and semi-happy marriage and I was raised in the judeo Christian tradition of 1. Corinthians 13, 4-8. I don’t know how to love unless it’s for life.

She’s not going to be for life and I don’t know if we can return to friendship after spending countless hours breathlessly affirming our intense attraction to one another. I don’t know how to be friends with someone once I know how their breath hitches right before they come undone. How it feels to swallow their orgasms in hungry kisses. How do you go back to hugging when you could mould their lips from memory?

They say some years pose questions and some years provide answers. Maybe after spending nearly two years asking how anyone could look at me with love in their eyes, I am now learning that it requires less effort than I thought. She makes it look easy and I don’t remember the last time I felt that held, that safe.

I spent two years on the tight rope of grief and hope and it feels as though I have launched myself in the air and was caught in an embrace I can trust.

Maybe this is my lesson in granting myself joy without ethereal purpose. Maybe this is my chance to learn what it feels like to be in the moment without agonising over all 53 ways in which it could find its demise.

She says I smell like cake and not once have I felt like I needed to be anything other than myself. The immensity of that gift may not be lost on me, but it would be a lie of colossal proportions to purport I could fully grasp it yet. Yet. Maybe this will be another thing I only fully appreciate once it’s gone. Maybe. But for now. For now I am all in. In this moment of unadulterated joy and relaxation that anyone who knows me will attest I was in desperate need of, I refuse to prematurely deny myself something that makes me feel good.

I send her a post card every week and she is putting them up in the narrow bath room where we sometimes stand and brush our teeth together. It’s a gesture of appreciation that makes me feel valued.

I am easy to please. In some respects.

And so. Her apartment has become my refuge when everything gets crazy and I can unwind and my worries are muted.

Maybe I will love in more ways than how I will love my wife. Maybe before I am ready to love her, I have to learn to love the ones that come before her. Maybe I need to stop saving my love for someone I haven’t met yet. Maybe it’s time i lived in a sphere that isn’t the future. Maybe it’s time i stopped splitting myself into regret and anxiety for things I can’t change and things that haven’t happened yet.

I don’t know how long we have until our time runs out. I know there is a ticking clock somewhere but it’s like an hourglass shrouded in fog. I likened her to a Harry Potter marathon - epic, but finite. My need to find metaphors for everything that matters in my life found fulfilment when I realised that she is my first encounter with a body of water after I nearly drowned in the ocean. I picture her like a tranquil forest lake, peaceful, steady, non-threatening. I know I cannot drown and it gives me the freedom to just enjoy this. 

And maybe that is what I will love her for. Helping me come back to life after I was dormant for so long. And in return I hope to give her the attention and care she deserves. And to always leave her apartment smelling of cake. 

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

Seventy-two hours of favourite moments

The trip was planned in October when March felt lifetimes away. But March came and with it the holiday I was so desperately in need of.

I have never been to Spain and my Spanish is so non-existent that I was confused when the first person greeted me with “Hola”.

Upon my arrival at Barcelona-Prat I marvel at how little thought I had given to getting from the airport into the city and where the train station was from which my train would leave three hours later. Apparently I can be spontaneous and carefree once in a while, who would have thought.

I step into Spanish air and instantly like how it feels warm on my skin. I get on a bus that serves as some type of Transport into the city, I have no idea about the stops it makes on the way and which one is the most convenient for me. I have hours to kill before I need to be someplace, so why not be a bit adventurous? I befriend a mother and son who are there to explore the city. When we part ways we wish each other well.

My first encounter is with Elia who appears to be homeless living in a tent on plaza de Catalunya. He asks me for a cigarette, so I kneel down in front of his tent and roll him one. He gives me some advice on how not to get mugged. Marvellous what can be possible through non verbal communication. I ask him if I can take a picture and by that I mean I raise my camera and point at it with a quizzical look on my face. He agrees.

I can sense getting stressed. Plaza de Catalunya is packed with people and the little space that isn’t, is covered by pigeons. 

I consult a map and flee into a little winding side alley and instantly feel better. I know the rough direction of the train station and get going. It’s hotter than any day I have had so far this year.

Barcelona feels ordered in its immensity and loudness. The city is laid out in a grid - except of course it’s historic core. It makes it easier to avoid getting lost. I still do. Not badly but enough that a 3km Walk takes nearly two hours (in my defence, I was carrying a back pack with almost 2kg of chocolate). Seeing the, admittedly unsightly, station of Barcelona Sants, is like seeing a well in the desert. By that point the novelty and intrigue of the city has been replaced by sheer exhaustion and discomfort. A kingdom for a cold coke.

And then the waiting begins. After procuring sustenance and getting an idea of the station I grant myself the first cigarette in Spanish soil. It’s underwhelming but much appreciated.

All the while I am eagerly soaking up the visuals surrounding me. Slowly, my brain discovers the remote chamber where my 9th grade Spanish lessons are stored and I can cobble together “no hablo espaniol” and “muchas gracias”, with unsurpringly atrocious pronunciation. Oh well.

And then I find myself on a train across the north of Spain to reach Pamplona and when the Mediterranean comes into view through dirt dry hills my breath hikes a little. Trains have always been my favourite mode of transport and I feel instantly at home (the available plug socket helps).

It’s a long journey though and I get bored easily of reading. Eventually we reach Pamplona and my friends await. It’s seamless. There is not a shred of awkwardness, instead there is an instant burst of joy that doesn’t go away until Monday night when I bid her farewell and the unpleasant part of the trip begins. 

Fittingly, Spain plays Germany in a football friendly that night and we watch with an air of friendly competition. It ends in a draw and the trip is off to an amicable start.

There is not a minute of small talk or trivialities. We launch into nuanced discussions of our feelings about the political situation rocking Spain at the moment. I get to ask all the questions I never knew I had because I find myself in an environment that continually inspires new enquiries.

I am flabbergasted to learn about the sheer extent of the nonsensical way Spain torments it’s young people, roughly 25% of which are unemployed. The only real chance is to be the offspring of a rich family or to get one of the cushy jobs that allow for a decent life. But the process to get them is so corrupted and insane that an entire generation wastes years of their lives studying for exams they will never pass.

I struggle to comprehend this because it is so blatantly inefficient that I insist someone must see how that is not a way to run a country. I receive exasperated shrugs if agreement in response. And so day in and day out their lives are dominated by preparing themselves for tests that prove nothing and determine everything and I feel an unease Settling into my stomach that doesn’t go away - cautiously I ask about their plan B, not because I don’t think they are perfectly capable but because this system feels cruel, a psychological hunger games where to the victor go all the spoils and the rest are left wanting.

Pamplona fulfils essentially all my expectations. Narrow streets in its historic center, gorgeous buildings, a slow pace and people who look content in their corner of the universe.

We visit a local cafe and my friend explains the connections with Bask resistance/terrorism. And we have decent coffee and I ask about my friends’ girlfriends. As we continue our walk my friend asks if i am aware that Pamplona is the location of the tradition of bulls chasing men through the streets. No, I was not aware. That still happens? Yes, yes it does. Of course we visit the street famous for this spectacle and I am astonished.

The conversation never stops. There is a pleasant rhythm to it and I feel at home in the company. My request to try something distinctly Spanish is fulfilled when we have something whose name I have no hope of pronouncing. One of them is a black crispy bun that has been coloured with squid ink. It’s strange in a refreshing way. Due to its colours, one expects it to taste charred and inedible. But it is undeniably pleasant.

Later that night we run late to meet another friend who turns out has lived in Bristol at the same time as I have. I am glad the topic doesn’t come up much since Bristol still has the ability to make me burst into tears. Instead I find myself quickly engulfed in a conversation about independence with two extreme views argued passionately but politely across the table. I walk outside for a cigarette break and to allow them to discuss this in Spanish and speed up the process.

There is a frankness that surprises me. When the discussion after dinner shifts to medical problems and allergies I am taken aback by the openness. Alcohol adds a new dimension and we find ourselves later playing “Never have I ever” in a gay bar and reveal that apparently lesbians don’t mind anal sex.

It is there that I spot my future wife - a brunette Spanish girl dancing exuberantly with her hopefully gay male friend. I am mesmerised. The confidence and joy are so palpable I want to talk to her. But I don’t get the chance and go home crestfallen. 

We conduct comfortable slumber party talk when we get home and sleep in the next day. I make us lunch and feel instantly better because I was useful for the first time in days. Receiving so much care and kindness is almost unsettling and I am 100% neither used to it nor mad about it.

I stare out the window during the Majority of the train ride back to Barcelona and take some of my favourite photographs while Andrea Gibson’s voice is blessing me with spoken word poetry that makes my heart heavy.

Finally, I meet my friend’s lady, her person, and I don’t have any doubt that one day, I’ll get on a plane to attend their wedding. We eat at a Japanese restaurant and I get the chance to try Wagyu beef. It’s delicious but not crazy over the top. My fried noodles with vegetables and seafood can easily compete. We get lost in a discussion on what constitutes a good person and the opinions diverge wildly. It’s invigorating. I don’t remember the last time I was that present, that engaged, that stimulated by a conversation. It may have helped that my phone was dead at that point. Not that I would have been seriously tempted to use it. The minutes are too precious. Plus, I told everyone I was going to drop off the scene for a bit. And for most that is indeed what I did. Except the woman whose bed I will find myself in tonight and whose souvenirs received the most thought.

We move to a different location to grab another drink and take a table in a medium sized square in one of Barcelona’s key independence neighbourhoods. It is late but the helicopters are still circling above us. After the arrest of Charles Puigdemont in Germany (not far from where I live) protests have shaken the city. On the way to our sleeping quarters for the night my friend and I steal one of the yellow pieces of plastic that are tied around trees everywhere to signal support for the independence movement.

Were this North Korea, I’d be arrested and sentenced to labour camp like Otto Warmbier. I am struck by my own privilege because nothing like that will happen. And I am right. It is safely stored in my backpack and I have yet to decide what to do with it. 

Monday begins semi early with breakfast at one of my friend’s favourite places. The waitress Ari speaks wonderful English and when my friend goes to the loo I get revenge for her having paid essentially for every meal. I tell the waitress that I need to win this round and she delights in the chance to help me. I tip her enough, I think. Throughout breakfast I am giddy at the thought of my friends face when she realises that I have bested her on this occasion. And I am not disappointed. When we approach the till she says “are we going to fight about it” and I just grin as Ari informs my friend that “eres tardes”. Victory is mine.

We take the bus up to a beautiful park and I sit next to an American ginger girl who rejects me hard. Despite her mum’s insistence that her daughter is usually talkative with strangers my attempts at making conversation are shut down resolutely. Despite wearing an Alex Morgan jersey the six year old pretends she isn’t sure who her favourite player is. Right. Okay. We learn that they are from Los Angeles and will be staying in Spain for ten days. Well, fair enough, enjoy, I think, still sulking a bit about my apparent lack of game with elementary schoolers. Oh well. The weather and company make it hard to dwell on that long. She wasn’t exactly my type - two decades too young and wrong hair colour.

The view is completely breathtaking but the abundance of other tourists annoys me. We talk about politics and climate change and education. 

I vibrate with joy that I have a friend like that. That this is my life. We get lost on our way to the cathedral and find a t shirt store. At the beginning of the trip I had expressed a desire to purchase something I could still use in my every day life, like a t shirt. But it wasn’t allowed to be overtly tourist-y. If I had been asked to dream up the perfect tut shirt place to accomplish this task, I would have fallen short of the one we stumbled upon.

A bus ride later we grab lunch, change into our new garments and I discover with fury that entrance to the cathedral requires a 7€ fee. I think not.

To the beach, I say, fuming.

And there my feet finally touch the Mediterranean sea and it might as well have been heaven. If it weren’t for the the people constantly walking around trying to sell cocktails, beer, water, blankets, or even massages. No gracias becomes a mantra on loop and after a while I have soured on the place because it’s getting too much.

We take the metro to reach El-Prat where my friend’s friend lives who will put me up for the night because she lives incredibly close to the airport. And has a spare room.

There is a little trophy on the shelf in the dimly lit living room honouring her as the most regular player on the team. It dates back to 2003/2004. The edges of my heart vibrate as if preparing to shatter.

They cook rice with chicken while I repack. We pour tomato sauce over it for flavour and I am perfectly content. I am a nervous traveller and if I were Spanish inclined I would describe the gastro-intestinal problems that ensue when the nervousness takes over, but I am not so I won’t.

The room I am being put up in is cozy but feels out of place in a house of a 32 year old without her own children. There’s stuffed animals and tons of video games. The bed covers are tucked in neatly and tightly and I sleep decently, snuggled in place.

Barcelona at 6:30 am from the air looks like someone spilled the box with Christmas lights on the floor and they all lit up at the same time. Peaceful.

I reminisce on the realisation that I am adult. That I have arrived in this chapter of my life where I can talk about sex, life, philosophy, politics and feelings without sounding pretentious (I think). But the greatest gift is the realisation that I have chosen wisely. That one of the people I believed would be worth the investment of my effort has proven to be so. Privilege and gratitude flood my blood stream like drugs that leave me elated and high on life.

It’s been a good weekend and this will be a good life.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

shitty quality but yea. first one in more than five years.

Forever Cut Short

I thought this love would never die Oh what an epic waste of time Shed this anger like dead skin let’s move on from what has been

I never thought that I’d be wrong I guess that’s why it took so long To see the truth as it was there It was more than I could bear

It took forever to let go you were everything I know All the good and all the bad let’s forget all that we had

You are all that I regret I will leave and not look back You’re a lesson I have learned Watch this bridge as it will burn

Watch me put my ghosts to rest I have given you my best It’s now time to turn and go Thank you for the chance to grow

It was never meant to be I was too in love to see I guess I will take the blame for losing our little game

I never thought I’d reach this point but all you did was disappoint It breaks my heart to sing this line it’s been a while since you’ve been mine

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

high tide after drought

   I went from being her world to being not nothing    but an in-between something for which a label proved elusive.    A forgery, perhaps, crafted by unskilled, inexperienced hands.    A mediocre copy of an original it could by definition not live up to.

Allowing myself to love her when she loved me was the second bravest thing I have ever done. Allowing myself to continue to love her when she had stopped loving me back was by far braver. Of course, in reality, no permission was ever given because I never actually sought it. Loving her came naturally to me. Like the moon pulling the waves to the horizon. Loving her was as inevitable as breathing. I never forced or decided it. I just loved her. And when I eventually realised I needed to stop, I embarked on the hardest journey of my life. I walked right to the edge of what I thought I could take and jumped into everything I was ever afraid of.

Unloving her became the most exhausting endeavour I ever forced myself to undertake. I have never before failed so consistently at something I attempted to achieve. And eventually, I found myself alone in the struggle because everyone had understandably run out of patience to listen to me recount the same grievance in a hundred different shades. She didn’t love me anymore and her conduct reflected that. And I still loved her and held on to a version of her that had no footing in any version of reality, no matter how generous the interpretation thereof.

And so every I miss you was a doomed attempt to give shape to a feeling that threatened to rip my insides to shreds. To give a verbal home to the love that sat in my chest as grief. And every sign that I could still be important to her lit up my world the way a dying flashlight gives hope in the dark. Flickering briefly before going out for good.

Unloving her was the hardest, most painful experience I have collected in 25 years on this earth and I do not wish to ever do it again. It runs counter to every value and principle governing my existence and cutting ties with her for good this time caused a part of me to collapse. In a controlled demolition I watched everything I had built for her to live in tumble and crash and there was no one to share in my sorrow because it was a step so long overdue no one had the time to wait for me to finally take it. I don’t blame any of them. I was a fool for too long, holding on to a ghost that had no benevolence or purpose other than to torment and punish.

Something died when I told her I would be exiting her metaphorical arena. Perhaps, my unshaken belief that every story gets an ending everyone can sort of live with. Or my stubborn insistence that everything can be fixed as long as we try hard enough. Or the illusion that my loyalty was boundless and my capacity to forgive without limits. Something died and the void is filling up with the bitter realisation that I was wrong. Again, and again.

But of course, I deserve better and I am slowly learning that. I am no one’s debate. I am no conquest, no notch on a bedpost. I am not an option, I should be obvious. I come with such fierce love, anyone would be lucky to be at the receiving end of it. I know I contain multitudes that not everyone can or wants to handle.

It’s a year later and I am getting ready to move to a different country. I don’t think I have fully accepted that I will never see her again, that she joins the ranks of people I will leave in the past to become relics of chapters I have no interest in reading again. I wrestled for worthiness because I had allowed my sense of worth to be intertwined with how well I loved. And watching her walk away and move on the way she did was a crushing verdict. Clearly, I thought, I can’t be that good at this if it’s so fucking easy to leave. 

I know now, that that’s not the correct way to look at the situation but I had to claw my way to this piece of insight. It came neither easy nor cheap. 

For months, I listened to well-meaning friends urging me to turn my back on her and walk away and I agreed that there was nothing good left in loving her. But of course, I loved her all the same. They hadn’t been there for us dancing to the duet of Classic rock radio and the whistling of the kettle in her parents’ kitchen. They hadn’t felt how I could lean into her and feel everything safe and good envelop me. I know that for two years of my life I was her world and she treated me like it. I know that she wanted to love me and I know that deep down, she mourns that she wasn’t able to. I had to learn that my worth is not measured by how much someone grieves my absence. 

My worth isn’t measured at all, period.

I had given my heart and soul to the notion that we would build a life together. And when that dream imploded I was homeless and broken because I had found a home in her love, I had been made whole by her adoration.

Losing her love triggered an emergency response that is so deeply ingrained in me that I didn’t realise it was governing everything I did. As a child, I learned that people’s love is a quantity you earn. And when you run out, you need to find ways to replenish it. Her love ran out and I spent the past year trying to win it back. I tiptoed over quicksand and nearly drowned. 

You see, in my heart, I had married her when I wrote my vows sitting in my little room up on the 7th floor in Tawney tower that looked a lot like a prison cell with its bricks visible through dirty-yellow paint and exposed plumbing. The room where we had magical moments crying to the poem in “Four weddings and a funeral” and where my resolution to make her my wife solidified during conversations about perfect holidays. I married her in my heart when I wrote my vows sat at the cheap desk bent over which she made me commit blasphemy while entering heaven. In my heart, I had committed myself to this love for the rest of my life and so this break-up was a lot like the divorce I don't believe in.

Loving her like this was like trying to fit an ocean into a pint glass - futile and foolish. The pint glass will always overflow but the ocean will never be at home. 

The tide is rising slowly, and it’s bringing peace to my shores. For the past year, I wore my engagement ring on my necklace as a reminder of the ‘best mistake’ I have ever made. I took it off last week and hope I make better mistakes in the future.

[the-nostalgic-sentimentalist]

Anthology of The Unsaid

“I’m Sorry.”

It’s 5.17 am on Tuesday May 23, 2017 and I have not heard from you in 151 days. All my attempts to reconnect with you have been met with silence. Punishing, uncompromising silence. There was nothing to hold onto. I tried, and gripped into the void.

I stumble upon your message because I tend to scroll mindlessly through tumblr while waiting for the train and when I notice that the messages icon is lit, the possibility that it could be from you does not even cross my mind. I had given up. My message from last Friday, in all its grammatically incorrect glory, was a drunken outburst, a testament to the sheer grief knowing you has caused me. After everything I have done and tried to re-establish our connection, I did not think that there was anything left I could say to elicit a response. But oh god - what a response that was. I have issued enough apologies in my life, both those sincere and those less so, to know the difference. I can tell that yours was not meant to mend this friendship, it’s aimed at absolution. It’s meant to rid yourself of the charge of having committed the one act you promised you’d spare me - ghost me - and return to the status quo unburdened by the guilt you perhaps feel. It's not the start of a conversation, it's the end of one. But you and I – we haven't really talked in six months. And after this much silence, “I’m sorry” doesn't really cut it. You know that. I know that. And you know that I know that. You're not apologising for what you have done, but for what you're unwilling to do. There will be neither reconciliation nor resolution. Just regret.

 After months of yearning for a sign that your affection had not just been a figment of my imagination, I am presented with proof that it had been. And now my heart slides along my ribcage until it thumps painfully in my gut and my mouth has gone dry and bitter, as if I was chewing acidic ashes. I stare at the phone in my hands and the numbness spreads so quickly that I nearly drop it onto the uneven concrete beneath my feet.

Your silence, while painful, held hope. No matter how small, elusive or delusional - the uncertainty came with the possibility that you'd come around. That one day in a future I caught myself fantasising about too often, you'd come back to this friendship. And we could find a way to start again.

That hope died today.

There are endless permutations of accidents, life choices and lucky coincidences that lead to a version of this life in which we don’t meet, where we spend our time on this planet utterly oblivious to each other’s existence. And right now, as for the past five months, I would prefer every single one of them, would choose them over the cruel awareness that you know who I am and couldn't care less. That we had what we had, and lost it all the same.

You met me when my life was in a state of emergency. I was in freefall and quite desperate for anything steady. That's where I was at and I never lied about it. I did not conceal that I was in crisis. Not that I could have. From the very beginning of this initially serendipitous friendship you had the ability to know things I tried to hide. You read between the lines, no matter how small that space was.

“Let me show you what happens when we let in so much light.”

I did. I spoke all my fears into existence and you vowed to keep them safe. You reaffirmed over and over again that I could hand over my anxiety and pain and insecurity and you’d hold a space for it all. Being vulnerable was our thing and we bore our secrets and shortcomings for each other to behold and I softened into your promises to never betray that. I let in all the light you had to offer and it left me blinded. What you did in October crushed me in ways I didn’t know I could still be crushed. I thought I had felt every variety of hurt and humiliation, but you resoundingly proved me wrong. I felt the shame brewing in my gut for weeks of poorly disguised dysfunction. And when I finally put into words what it had done to me, I was met with a non-response. To this day, I don’t know what you felt when you heard my voice telling you how much you had hurt me. But there are many things I do not know to this day, and yesterday’s message confirmed my worst fear:

I will never know, either. 

I will never know if the jars of pesto for Christmas arrived. I will never know if you still use the mug, or if you smile when you grab the little spoon I stole for you. I will never know what happened to your puppy, or what your favourite part of your honeymoon was. I will never know how you are adjusting to the Trump presidency, or whether the end of the drought is palpable in everyday life. I will never know if it was easy to let me go or whether you still think about me sometimes. 

Mama and Papa eventually stopped asking about you, you know. When I stopped having anything new to tell them, you faded from our conversations and we went back to conducting our lives as we had done pre-June 2016. Until two weeks ago, when I went home for a surprise visit because it was their 30th wedding anniversary and Dad asked in misplaced jest when you’d be coming to visit this summer. I felt as though someone was pushing my head underwater and if I didn’t steer the conversation into a distinctly different direction, I would undoubtedly drown. They are confused, but not even remotely as hurt as I am. They loved you in the humble, unassuming way in which they have loved many people who have come and gone. When you came to visit our corner of this universe, they grew fond of you and will look back on that week with happy memories.

I look back and want to weep.

For the record I know no one is keeping - my life would have ended if we had crossed that line. I feel like that has always been an assumption, a tacit accusation of sorts, but I never wanted nor envisioned anything beyond being friends. Not in this life nor any other. I loved you like a friend. You're attractive, no doubt. But I like to be in love with the people I fuck. And I was not in love.

I will never forget that moment on the field near my house, the sun setting gently in the background, beer coursing through our bloodstream. If I concentrate I can hear your voice mutter those words that flipped my world on its head, and that probably ruined everything. I think I knew back then. That's why I didn't sleep much that night. And that's why, at the airport, I told you that I had a feeling that I'd never see you again. You protested, reminded me of February, hugged me and then walked away. Sometimes I hate being right.

While I adored you unequivocally, my heart rested firmly in someone else’s hands. And I know, now more than ever, that I was nothing more than an exotic diversion, a brief, entertaining distraction and I will remain, at best, a footnote in your sun-kissed life. I don’t envy you, I don’t pity you, I simply wish I had never met you.

 In the end, there was nothing good left in loving you and I kept loving you all the same.

“You are my type of human.”

Today is the first day since September 10, 2016 that I am purposely not wearing the watch you gifted to me. I have felt intensely ambivalent about it for months, but today its sight would be unbearable. I have watched the hours and days go by, measured by a watch you have never seen me cherish. A watch that has never run in your time zone. It is a constant reminder of everything that was and will not be again.

It broke my heart that you ignored my birthday. If anything you missed the chance to take revenge for all my ageist jokes. It hurt that the disappointment over my dissertation went largely unacknowledged even though you knew it would devastate me. In the end, you faded from my life like rain that evaporates under sunlight, until no one can tell it was there, except those who remember the storm. I have admonished myself often and enduringly for my inability to let you go and move on. But no matter how often I remind myself of the blatant discrepancy between how much I care and how much you clearly no longer do, I can't help it. It’s like you opened the floodgates and allowed me to love the way I love without judgment. Now I feel everything twice as intensely because you are no longer here to tell me it’s okay to be and love like this.

“I dreamed you into existence.”

You used to say that to illustrate how much you appreciated that we had met. You called me your best friend. You told me to rest easy as you will never cut ties like I had seen in a nightmare. And I allowed myself to believe all of it, sank into the promises that were far too good to be true… and far too good to last.

It took me months to come out of the traumatised haze the experience with you left me in. The occasional slip up of attempting to get in touch pulling me back to square one nearly every single time. It took me months to be somewhat okay. To trust people's friendship again and I still barely do. On the list of disappointments in my life, you rank supreme.

I always knew things could and most likely would change. That a friendship across ocean and continent isn't set up to succeed. But I was still all in. I was completely committed to giving it my best shot. You had my loyalty, my thoughtfulness, my love, my confidence, my trust and affection. We could have talked about what you needed me to do to make this work. But like her, you disengaged. But unlike her you pretended you had never promised me any different, that you had never promised me any better. 

It added insult to injury. That on top of the obvious pain I was always going to feel at losing you, I endured months of humiliating silence. Only to be served with an “I’m sorry.” What went through your head when you sent that? Are we playing a game? I don't play games anymore. And especially not with you.

We played Boule. Mama, Papa and I. My bones ached with your absence. Not just because the 2 v. 1 combination was awkward but because I saw you in every corner as we made our rounds. Remembered with an involuntary smirk how annoyingly talented you were and how Papa beamed with delight as we played. My heart was brimming with nostalgia and I had no words to find release. 

You could have just told me. Without hints or vagueness. Ideally wrapped in some kindness, as if I had mattered at some point. You knew my history with people doing this, and you still decided that you could live with treating me like that. I despise unworthy endings and you condemned me to a reality in which there is nothing I can do to change this one.

We used to joke that we were essentially the same person and I feel violent protest bubbling up inside me at the thought of it.  I refuse to believe I could do what you have done. I know that I would rather die than inflict this kind of confusion and self-doubt on another person.

“You have no idea what you deserve. I guess I’m here with the mirror.”

If you served as the mirror to show me my worth, I am pretty cheap. Over the past six months I have oscillated between fury and self-pity and now I just grieve for you. Now I just long for the first day I think of you not once.

You once warned me, that should you ever face a certain choice, you'd stay true to your commitment. There have been hints, but they lie so far back that the timeline is off. I thought we had litigated this point on that dreadful Wednesday night when we were drunk and miserable. But evidently not.

“If your world falls apart, I’d start a riot.”

Did you know it's impossible to hold a song in your hands? I have tried and failed. I never asked you to save me. I just wish you didn't pretend that you never promised you'd be there as I saved myself. Your near complete abstention forced me to instigate my own riot. In the end, I survived without you, like I had predicted when I still thought that I would never have to prove it. I clawed my way back to a sense of worthiness and I know it would have been easier if you had been what you promised you’d be. And so you weren't around anymore when I emerged from the truly awful place that had held me captive for months. You weren't around when I got over her. Or when I quit smoking. Or when I got promoted and started smoking again. We didn’t talk about how the increasing frequency of terror attacks in Europe began to freak me out and feel unsafe in London, or when I discovered new music I know for a fact you would have loved. You missed so much and through it all I lived with the knowledge that it didn't matter to you, anymore. That somewhere along the way, I had squandered the affection of yet another person whom I had loved...and lost.

“You and I love in the same way.”

It seems like I love a little differently. If the roles had been reversed and it had been my affection that was fading, my patience that was dissipating, and my interest that was waning - I would have been gentle with you. I would have looked out for you in the process, making sure you understood what was happening. But you did none of that. Rather, you made me feel foolish for trusting you to protect me. In the end, there was no riot, no owning up to mistakes, no open discourse, no safety. Just one-sided vulnerability, gradual disengagement and a lot of broken trust. Frustration vibrates through me when I ponder how this was my single greatest fear when we started talking and it manifested in all the worst ways.

There was no lesson in meeting you that I was in any need of learning. It was merely a repetition of something miserable I had hoped to never feel again. Friendships form, friendships dissolve. That it happened was never my point of contention, the how certainly was.

We deserved better, and I sure as hell did, too.