One Dad, One Talk

Once upon a time, there was a girl. And this girl had a dad - a man with dark hair slowly turning white, a man wearing a big, dark mustache shading the thick lips.

One evening, as the two of them gathered around the table for dinner, the man stopped eating and just looked at his daughter.

"Tell me, what do you wish from your boyfriend?" He suddenly asked, making the girl stare at him.

She never had a boyfriend in the real sense of the word: a guy to be sweet to her, a guy to hold her hand and just be by her side no matter what.

"What do you mean with that?" She showed a confused smile.

"I mean, what do you wish he had? A car, a house, money?"

"If it's really a must that I chose, then a house," the girl answered after a moment of thinking. "It wouldn't be bad if he had a house of his own."

"A house? Why? All girls want a boyfriend with a car so that they can finally stop taking the bus," the man smiled, probably remembering how he got his old car to win over some other girl than the girl's mother. 

"I don't."

"And why's that?"

"I prefer knowing he went to a party by bus or by train or by any other mean of transport except for personal car. If he had a car, I would probably be worried to death every time he'd get on the driver's seat, thinking that he hit someone while driving drunk or something. Or even worse, that he died after crashing into a pole or jumped off the bridge because some idiot crashed into him. So, better a house than a car."

"Then you should wish for a boyfriend that doesn't drink," the dad laughed, giving a thought to what the girl just said.

"No, a man should drink occasionally. I don't like cars, especially when my loved ones are in them. So, no, I wouldn't like my boyfriend to have a car. I think I would cope better with a break up, than having to break up because he died in a car accident. Plus, a house means he doesn't live with his parents..."

Once upon a time, there was this girl that wished for a guy who would think of her own mental sanity before getting inside his personal car. Because she loved him in a present where he was just an idea of the future that was yet to come...

"Where are you going? Why you wanna go?"

Breaking up is easier than sticking together.

Breaking up is the clean way out when boredom make itself cosy in between you two.

Breaking up via text messages, but never face to face.

Even pretending there was nothing is easier than being honest to the person next to you and to yourself as well.

She's happy, but you're not.

She's angry, but you're relaxed.

She's crying, but you're yawning.

She's Ying, but you're Yang.

No, she's not alright. You just text messaged her with those final words written without capital letters, without punctuation or anything that would make you a gentleman: "lets break up". You didn't sigh as you placed the phone back in the pocket, continuing your stroll down the crowded and thin line of your thoughts. She didn't reply. She didn't call you crying, asking for an explanation despite the years you spent together. She didn't call to argue with you in the middle of a drunk night, neither did she ask for you to return by her side. Her dreams, her hopes, her silly laughter, her smell, her favourite shampoo, her hair brush, even her pink stained socks remained with you, in your apartment, in your bathroom, on your shelf, impregnated on your skin, sunk inside your mind.

And yet you left her. You put her behind, closing the book you were about to write together, leaving the hard work to her: she has to remember everything whenever she walks around the neighborhood because that was when you kissed her on your first date, when she goes shopping with her girls because that's where you planned a surprise event for her birthday, when she looks at her white hands turning blue because you used to be there to hold them and right now they're missing their pairs.

Breaking up.

You chose the simple way out when you got scared.

No, you're not alright. You saved his text message only to stare at it blankly and wonder what went wrong. Were you childish? Were you clingy? Were you not seeing the obvious and holding on something that just didn't work for him? What exactly did you do, because you just know it was all your doing and not his since he's such a sweet and nice guy.

And there you are, sitting at the table for two, in his favourite coffee house, drinking his favourite mocha because - well, it turned into a bad habit to go back there again and again, hoping he will return with a smile, asking for forgiveness for being late once again.

Late. If you are to think he was always a little late: late when you graduated, late when you planned a surprise party for his birthday, late when the doctor announced you that you're pregnant, late when you went into the OAR to kill the product of your love nights, late when he finally confessed his feelings to you.

Late. Always late.

And late means another. Late means there was or still is someone else. Late means he deceived you. Late means he's a complete and total jackass. Late means it's finally over between you two.

Breaking up.

He chose it for you and it was all for the best.

Breaking up.

It left so many questions answered: "Where are you going?" "Why you wanna go?". She deserved an explanation, but he was too lazy to look for a better lie other than the truth he knows it so well: he was unprepared to be committed to a family with her, he was unprepared to see her face in the morning - every morning, unprepared to wear her perfume on the collar of his white shirt, her voice in his head, her soft touch on the back of his hand. He was unprepared to say "You are mine and I am yours, now and for a lifetime.". 

Back he wanted to go. Back in time when he was afraid of kissing her, when her presence only would make his heart tumbling inside his chest, when they'd stay up late on the phone talking about stars and  unknown names of the places they'd love to visit one day. Back before they'd become so used to each other, back when every day was a surprise, back when they would push each other off the bed because they both eyes the right side of the bed, back when the coffee would always get cold...

Back.

In time.

"Let's break up and start all over again."

How to Love, Hard to Love

Is there a book we go by? Some sort of magical and full of past decades' wisdom brochure?

Is there a rule? A ten-steps way to finding the right path when it comes to showing your feelings to your absolute crush?

Or perhaps a Fairy Godmother to swing her wand and sprinkle her magic upon you to open your eyes and see the light in the darkness you often find yourself?

Unfortunately, that's what we see on the Internet, in sitcoms or some other types of shows on TV. The truth that no one tells you when you talk about love stories that lasted over the years is that it didn't took magic nor a special book to feed you with imaginary lines and ways to dodge awkward situations. 

They say it takes time for love to bloom.

They say it takes a single second to see that red thread you've been tied with all your life.

They say that despite the darkness and the crowd that often surrounds you out there, in the world, that special one will reveal himself to you in ways you never imagined. All you have to do is see. See the people, see their hearts, see the way the sun runs after the moon and never gets tired of chasing it. See the seconds go by when you meet someone.

I never believed in love at first sight. I strongly believe that love needs time; time to plant its seeds inside your heart, time to grow from a weak stem to a vigorous haulm that will wrap its vines all around your heart, making it beat faster than the wings of  a butterfly, time to fully bloom into the flower that will never die and always remain imprinted on your body.

Time.

But how to love when we don't have the needed time? How to love when there's barely any time left for the casuals 'Hello.' while passing on crowded corridors? How to love when we walk without seeing the sky, just the tips of our shoes that just got dirty on the way to the afternoon classes? How to love when we seek perfection in shallow places? How to love when we measure time in coins and thoughts in financial plans?

Tell me, how do you love? Do you often look at the wrist watch you always carry around? Do you even know the meaning of stopping, of breathing, of seeing? How do you love? In phrases, in sentences, broken in words, in gestures, in red lips and acid remarks, in the way you look but don't see reality, in the way you know you're broken and still go for a try?

How do you love?

It's hard to love, isn't it?

When tomorrow flies by becoming yesterday, when today is already history, it's hard to love, hope, understand and smile. When all we do needs a reason, when our thoughts are all scattered and can't really keep the track of them, when we think we understand but we don't have the needed time to ask the lingering question... it's hard to love then.

It's hard to love when loyalty is perceived as love, when kindness passes as immortal love, when silence is taken as a positive answer. It's hard to love when we've slowly become artificial humanoids under the SF name of 'Homo Sapiens Sapiens'. Have we really evolved over time? If yes, then how come our heart become proportionally smaller as the brains get bigger? If no, then what are we constantly forgetting to include in this every day equation we get to live and struggle to solve? What number did we forgot to add or subtract?

How to love when life has transformed into a huge Mathematical problem?

How to love when Chemistry died and Physics can no longer figure out the theorem of gravity?

How to love when feelings have transformed into  a well-intentioned automatic behavior?

It's hard to love when we ourselves are shallow and seek perfection.

How to love?

You tell me. For I love in words and phrases, in dreams and smiles, in rays of sun and promises. I love in kilometers.

How to love?

I tell you. For you passed by love at the intersection you left behind: give it time to settle in your heart.

Cliché story

One kid among the others.

Always last in game, always crushing on the wrong boys, always being the first one to go inside in the evening because well, she was the youngest of them all.

One kid among the others.

Always pushed aside and taken advantage of, always being laughed at, always found first during 'hide-and-seek', always getting beaten because she was too stubborn to give up.

One kid among the others, one single drop in the ocean of tears she cried all of her life. Childish or not, they were all of her world and she would have followed if they would have looked at her and see the summer in her eyes. She would have swung the swing higher, she would have let them take away all of her cherries, she would have kept silent when hearing monster like voice under her window. 

One teenager single among so many others.

Always striking for more, always liking the wrong guy, always growing up in the wrong way.

One girl among million of others.

Living in the outskirts of the city, surrounded by cats and dogs, always having to walk miles to the school. She saw trees growing older and  looking younger with every spring and summer that came, she laughed at the flowers on her window sill despite their thorns, she saw roots covering the once so walked paths. Roads she used to walk on - now gone, trees she used to climb in - brought down by an ax, the swig she love so much - destroyed and thrown away, the next-door-nanny - long gone dead.

How is it that we can't turn back time? Feel the same wind against our cheeks during the terrible winter? Feel the pain of the bruised knees and still get on the bike, challenging the birds high up in the sky? How is it that the grass feels different against the new and tired soles - it stings and cuts the skin... How come we are left all alone when there are so many people that used to surround you?

They all leave, they all forget, they all get lost.

But not this girl.

She remembers: the wind during a torrid summer, the summer storm that soaked her to the skin, the winter games down a hunched hill, the mud sticking to her new shoes in the autumn, the long walks during the first days of spring. 

She never got flowers from boys, she was never popular and her first kiss was stolen by a guy who made a bet with his friends.

And still, she remembers all of them; white and black, sepia-coloured, mute and unorganized movies she can always play in her mind. She can even smell the perfume of cakes during holidays, hear the sound of the roller blades against the paved alley and the thrill of a swallow that had settled down underneath the roof of her house.

So many little things they all have forgotten - she kept them hidden in her lil' heart. So that one day she will tell her kids about times that were greener, when the air was cleaner, when the kids would take naps at noon and play in the dirt with water. And she kept all of her old friends inside her heart as well - for they are the first people she knew; they were her people, a bunch of crazy kids whistling under the neighbors' windows.

Yeah, one kid among them all.

One crazy teen among so many others.

One single girl out of a million that still holds tight on her first memories of a world that is about to disappear.