A relationship told through dialogue between her and him, from the crucial point in their story to the end
"There's something I need to tell you..." he started, then faltered.
"I thought there must be an ulterior motive behind this dinner," she smiled.
His eyes were trained on the place between his plate and his glass. As he struggled to find the words, her smile faded.
"Is it something to do with me?" she asked.
He dry-swallowed and knew she noticed by the urgency in her words: "Is it about us?"
For some things there's never the right time nor the right words. His shoulders dropped with resignation.
"I've got the visa," he said talking to the table. He couldn't find strength to lift his eyes. She was silent, but he could feel her gaze on his face. With enormous effort he met her eyes. Her face was serious, lips drawn into a thin line. Single wrinkle cut across her forehead and underneath it her green eyes darkened into stormy grey.
"When?" she asked.
"A few days ago."
"That means you have already decided," she concluded. "So? Are you leaving?"
He nodded, not trusting his voice. She inhaled sharply, reached for her glass and took a long sip, then she set it down and looked at it for a long while. Finally, she composed herself, lifted her chin and attempted a smile. It didn't reach her eyes.
"Congratulations, I guess," she said. "What is the plan?"
"I will quit the job tomorrow, need to sell the car and bunch of other things, pack slowly," it helped to think about practical things. "I get residency as soon as I land. Then I find a place to live and start looking for a job."
"When?" she asked.
"In a month," he said.
"And me?"
"I hope you will join me," he said. "Will you?"
"I need to finish my studies."
"I know. But, that's—what? Six months? A year tops, right?"
She shrugged. "It could be longer than that."
"It doesn't matter," he reassured her, "take as long as you need. We can video-chat every day! I'll show you every step I take, you'll be so familiar with the place even before you come over, you'll fit right in."
"I don't have a visa," she pointed out.
"That's easy. You can enrol in post-graduate studies. You'll get a year-long student visa. Then you can decide if you want to stay."
"And if I do?" she smiled weakly.
"You continue studies for another year," he said with a goofy smile, "or you can marry a guy who already has residency."
"Would you help me find a guy like that?" she winked.
They smiled quietly drinking each other's face. His hand found hers and their fingers intertwined automatically.
"Will you come?" he whispered.
"Will you wait?" she replied.
"Forever, if I must," he said.
They sat holding hands in silence, eyes locked.
- - - - - - - - - -
The door closed loudly, but instead of familiar patter of feet approaching there was silence. He leaned through the kitchen doorway and saw her sitting on the stool by the exit. She leaned against the wall with legs outstretched and eyes closed.
"Everything alright?" he asked, sensing that it wasn't—"How was the exam?"
Her eyelids fluttered open. She looked at him unfocused, as if she didn't quite know how he ended up there.
"I failed," she said closing her eyes again.
He sat on the floor next to her.
"It doesn't matter," he said, "you can take it again. I know you'll ace it, you always do."
"I always DID," she smiled bitterly, "until a week ago."
She looked at him: "I can't focus. Since you told me about leaving, my mind is with you every waking moment."
"I'm so sorry," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"
"Can you stay until I graduate?"
It was his turn to stare at her.
"I already quit my job," he said.
"They'd take you back," she said.
"Maybe. But, I already transferred all my savings overseas. And, I have a job interview a week after landing."
"You're so quick!" she smiled ruefully.
Her sarcasm didn't surprise him, but it hurt anyway.
"I hope to hit the ground running," he said. "The sooner I get settled, the easier it will be for you to join."
She squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry. It's just... it's hard to think that in three weeks you won't be around. Why couldn't we do it together?"
"Do what together?" he asked—"Move? The same reason why you keep a separate apartment. Your parents would never let you go with me."
"What makes you think they'll let me join you?"
"That's why I'll register you for studies. You can tell them you got scholarship, and we'll have a year to break the news gently. It's easier from a distance. It'll also give them time to get used to the idea of us. We talked about it so many times..."
"Yes, I know," she sighed, "and it sounds so easy when you say it. But when I'm by myself, it seems impossible."
"Then I'll just keep repeating it. And when I'm there, I'll create a text template outlining this whole plan. I'll send it every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed."
She gave him tiniest of smiles.
"I'm scared," she said.
"Don't be scared, be excited," he whispered.
- - - - - - - - - -
"I wish I was going with you," she nuzzled his neck.
"Me too."
"I don't want to go back to empty apartment. At least you'll watch movies for the next 8 hours."
"I shouldn't have moved in with you," he stroke her hair. "I should have gone to my dad's for those three weeks."
"I'm glad you did, at least I had you to myself in the evenings. I wouldn't be able to stay with you at your dad's."
"But now everything will remind you of me."
"Maybe it'll motivate me to study harder and join you sooner."
"Or, maybe you'll go party somewhere rather than stay at home which so painfully reminds you of me and study."
She bumped his shoulder. "Don't joke! I'm serious."
"Why don't you meet up with friends and stay out for the evening?" he asked.
"That's just delaying what's coming. I'll go home and try to study. Call me when you land. Promise."
"It'll be middle of the night here."
"It doesn't matter, I don't think I'll be able to sleep anyway. Promise!"
"Okay, I'll call you as soon as I clear the customs," he said.
They kissed hungrily, desperately. After a long while, he gently pulled away.
"That was the last call for my flight," he said.
Her eyes swam in tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
"I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too."
She threw her arms around him, her lips searched for his one last time.
"Wait for me," she tore herself away.
"Forever!"
----------
"Hello?"
"God, I can't believe I finally got you on the phone! Congratulations, Ms. Graduate! You've been extremely hard to find lately!"
"Oh, that's you! Thank you!" she said.
"You don't sound too thrilled. Is this bad time?"
"No, of course not. I just walked in, my parents are here to celebrate."
"I see. Let's keep it short so you don't have to explain who it was," disappointment was thick in his voice.
"They're waiting in a cafe across the street. I have time," she chirruped.
"I didn't want to haunt you before the graduation, but I missed hearing your voice. It's been over a month..."
"I was at the university from dawn to dusk the last few weeks. I texted you, everything's fine, I told you."
"I know. I'm just saying I missed you. What's the plan now?"
"A big dinner with parents and friends!"
"I wish I was there..." he said.
"Yeah..."
They listened to each other breathing through the line.
"What are you going to do now?" he asked.
She ignored the unspoken, the real question she knew he was asking.
"I'll stay and relax for a couple of weeks when the parents leave. Then I'll go home for the Summer."
"Oh!"
"Listen, I have to go. I'll email you from home, when I sort out with myself and parents what's next."
"Okay," his voice sounded broken, "I'll wait."
"I know you will," she said.
- - - - - - - - - -
Her: Hi
Him: Hi
Her: just got back to town
Him: had an exciting summer?
Her: ya, not bad. visited family and friends. travelled a bit.
Him: missed hearing from you.
Her: am here now
Him: can I call?
Her: not now, maybe later.
Him: ok
Her: must tell you sumting. I spoke to parents
Him: uh oh
Her: mom understands but says no future for me there, i'd depend on you. dad's against.
Him: I told you they'd say that
Her: ya. got me thinking tho
Him: ...
Her: i can't say it nicely--i'm staying home
Him: ?
Her: dad found me a job
Him: can we talk?
Her: no, please. i decided. it's over. sorry
- - - - - - - - - -
Him: Happy Birthday!
Her: tx
Him: How is life?
Her: ok
Him: How do you like the job?
Her: what r u doing?
Him: What do you mean?
Her: let's not do this. don't txt me any more
- - - - - - - - - -
Her: congrats!
Him: ???
Her: heard you got married
Him: 6 mts ago
Her: i just found out. belated congrats! :D
Him: Thank you
Her: thought u'd wait 4 me ;P
Him: To borrow your words I still remember clearly: Let's not do this! Not after 10 yrs! Pls, don't text me again
- - - - - - - - - -
From: Her
To: Him
No subject
Hi. Hope you aren't still angry with me for that text long ago. I tried to text you, but you changed the number. So, here I am in a good old-fashioned email. :)
I met our old friend, he told me you came back. Retired, huh? Must be nice to retire so early. Anyway, I'm on vacation near by. Would you like to grab a coffee? It would be nice to catch up after all this time.
From: Him
To: Her
Re: No subject
Hi. Thanks for the email. I'm not mad at you. I'm not even mad at life. Things happened the way they were meant to happen. I've learned long ago to stop wondering 'what if?'
I've changed a lot, as undoubtedly have you. And I don't mean only physically. I'm happy the way my life turned out. Hope you are too. Since we retired here—my family is here with me—I met quite a few ghosts from the past: old friends, acquaintances and such. Every time I met an old friend anew, I shattered a beautiful memory and replaced it with ugly reality. That's why I'd prefer not to meet you. I'd like to remember you—remember us—the way we were. I hope life will not bring us close enough to ruin that.
The past should be left alone. Re-visiting the best of memories will only ruin them.
Steven learned that on his own when he returned to his childhood hometown and was swept into the life he thought he left behind.
I spoke to an old friend recently and would like to share his story. However, he asked me to make sure he won’t be identified by what I wrote. It’s not as if he shared deep secrets or anything like it, but he rather likes his privacy and peace. Despite my opinion that there’s nothing to hide, I vowed to conceal anything that can eventually point at him. Names and some identifying characteristics therefore had to be changed.
— — —
Steven left his home when he was barely over 20. The country of his youth had just been through a war and emerged scarred, battered and radicalized. As Steven's dreams and plans expanded, his surroundings shrunk, metaphorically, until his future could no longer fit into the limited mould the country was shaping into. He packed his bags, said his farewells and left, leaving behind everything and everyone he knew.
Steven was a gifted wrestler, a middleweight national champion. His wrestling days started when he was eight and naturally all the friends of his youth hailed from the wrestling club. For years they were inseparable—they not only trained together, they also travelled across the continent for competitions and events; they focused their education on sports, went through the same schools and as result spent most of their waking time together. They studied together, partied together, vacationed together, trained together. They knew each other better than parents ever could. Then, three years before he left, Steven suffered a back injury which sidelined him from competition for a few months. When he healed and returned to wrestling, he realized he lost the killer drive that made him a champion, and took up coaching. He spent more times with his pupils than his old teammates, but although it loosened the tight bond they had, their friendship endured in a more mature, less intense form.
When he landed at his new home an ocean away, they kept in touch. Phone calls were expensive back then, the internet was still very young, but emails flew back and forth. His friends wanted to know everything—what was the weather like, how the life there differed from theirs, what are the girls like... Questions were flying thick and fast, emails piling up in his inbox faster than he could reply to them. It was almost as good as having them around. Then, within months, the questions became rarer, the responses to his emails terse and long in coming, until in the second year of his new life they tapered into nothing. Steven was hurt, of course, when his emails went unanswered. But, most of all, he was lonely. Building life in a new country takes great toll and having no one to share the challenges and soothe disappointments was hard. Drawing on the strength of will that made him a champion, he reminded himself that it was his decision to move away. He understood that his mates had their lives, their daily routines, problems and celebrations which didn't involve him any longer. In a way, cutting loose that particular thread of his previous life made him finally immerse himself into his new reality. He found a good job in a good media company and grew with it.
On personal side a girl emerged to help him build dreams. And, using those dreams as blueprint, they built their life together. His wrestling days and wrestling friends became just a story told on late evenings after the second glass of wine. The edges of that story, just like their faces in his memory, got blurred, softer, less real, until, just like the emails all those years earlier, they faded into nothingness.
Life took Steven as far away from wrestling as it was possible to go; he worked an office job dealing with the new media. The only sport he practiced was semi-regular running by himself when he had time or felt like it. That new media programming turned out to be lucrative enough so that at the age of 50 he was ready to retire. His and wife's careful planning made it possible to move back to Steven's childhood town where living was cheaper and their savings would stretch much further.
That's the long background story Steven shared one boozy evening. He was bothered by something, and although we weren't all that close, the conversation rolled smoothly and a minor life's lesson emerged.
"One day," Steven told me, "while out and about finishing some chores, I ran into an old wrestling coach of mine. We were both genuinely happy to see each other. We sat for a while at a cafe catching up, but both of us were busy rushing somewhere, so we exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together and unravel everything that happened in our lives in the last three decades. We hugged, laughed and separated, looking forward to meet again. We have been in touch over the phone once or twice since, but there was always something that made it inconvenient to meet. That same day, or maybe a day after, the coach ran into one of my old wrestling teammates. I imagine he went 'You won't believe whom I met...' and told him about me. That teammate was always known for his curiosity and gossip he liked to share with everyone. He quickly got busy, called the rest of the team to share the news. They still kept in touch and most of them were still involved in or around wrestling. I started getting phone calls from ghosts from the past, all eager to hear something I haven't told the others, so they can compare notes. Those conversations were stunted, riddled with awkward moments and pauses, but it didn't seem to bother them. They all wanted to meet me. Some invited me to a wrestling training."
"Before I left the country I was like them—blunt, chatty, curious. But through time I grew to be more politely distant, less eager to know things that aren't my business and averse to gossip. Wrestling was something I did in my youth. At the time it probably was the most important thing in my life. However, in the past two decades I don't know if I even thought about it, let alone mentioned it. It became as distant for me as the first children's picture-book I read; I vaguely remembered it, but had no desire to revisit it. Those guys, my former teammates, they seemed frozen in the past. They still plotted and schemed against other clubs and wrestlers, their jargon was still the same, their jokes as crude and insulting. To their invitations to the club I kept replying with 'will see,' 'can't right now,' 'too busy,' maybe next time...' I mean, everybody at his right mind would get it—I wasn't into it. And, maybe they did get it, but still wanted to make me say it out loud. So I did, I finally told them that I haven't been near a wrestling mat for 30 years and I still don't miss it, so I would like to keep it that way and keep myself away."
"When that was finally sorted out, they changed the tack. I got a call from Ned. Ned was my sparing partner in the days of my best results. We went to school together and hung out together; we were practically inseparable for four years. He was a brother I never had. Naturally, when he called, I wanted to see him. Not to pick up where we left off—I knew that was impossible—but to see how he's doing and what he made of his life. We went for a drink, him and wife and me and mine. I was around when he met his wife and knew both of them quite well, but I've never seen his two sons. Ned used to be tall, lanky with head full of unruly blond curls girls were crazy about. Ned whom I met now was a prematurely aged bold guy with torso too wide for his long limbs. He spoke like the 16-year-old Ned I remember, and that maybe more than anything else, felt so weird. It seemed that, except the physical change, not much else has changed about him. Nad had forgotten to grow up. While the wives politely tried (and failed, I'll learn later) to find something common to talk about, Ned gabbed about his sons' extreme talent for wrestling. I smiled politely and tried to nod at appropriate places, hoping he'll think that I care. When we finally managed to talk about our lives, the brief sketches of all that happened since I went away, it exposed the gulf so broad and so deep that no amount of small talk could bridge it. Ned was still involved in wrestling, professionally, as a high administrator for the national association. His wife who was just getting into car sales business when I left, was now a senior manager in a dealership. Their life-paths followed the pre-set trajectory. They are now a few steps higher on the same ladder they started climbing back then."
"I, on the other hand, was doing something so completely unrelated and so utterly foreign to them that they couldn't comprehend what I was talking about when I tried to explain. I got an impression they thought it a failure that I did something other than wrestling. After a few minutes there was nothing to talk about. Of course, I could have feigned interest and asked again about his kids' training, which would undoubtedly unleash another tirade of boastful tales, but I could muster no strength for it. When we came home, wife said 'so, that was Ned! I imagined him completely different.' She hit the nail on the head—I, too, remembered him different. Suddenly, I felt a terrible loss. It was as if Ned was a shiny happy memory kept in a special gallery of my mind's archive. He was forever young, forever shy, funny, witty kid with a talent for wrestling and a charming conversation that so smoothly blended with my own. Together, we were a power-pair people wanted to be around. This new-old Ned tainted that picture forever and I was furious with myself for allowing it."
"After meeting Ned, I stopped taking the calls from the gang. Slowly, they tapered off. They taught me a really important lesson: never tried to re-live the memories, they can never live up to the image in your head. All the people I knew from my past are now strangers with whom I have nothing in common. Meeting them only serves the purpose of comparing who aged more gracefully. Keep the memory of your youth precious and NEVER try to reconnect with people you lost touch with. If they were meant to stay in your life, they would have been there all along. Instead, it's like re-reading that old picture-book, one can't help but find it inadequate, lame and strange."
Yeah, I asked the same thing: wtf is Candlemas and what does it mean?
From timeanddate.com:
Candlemas is a Christian holiday celebrated annually on February 2. It celebrates three occasions according to Christian belief: the presentation of the child Jesus; Jesus’ first entry into the temple; and it celebrates the Virgin Mary’s purification (mainly in Catholic churches).
Many Christians consider Jesus as the “light of the world” so it is fitting that candles are blessed on this day and that a candle-lit procession precedes the mass. It is traditional to eat crepes on Candlemas in some parts of Europe, such as France. Each family member prepares and cooks a crepe while holding a coin in hand. This is believed to assure wealth and happiness until the next Candlemas celebration. (If you want more, read this)
But also—Candlemass, or Candelaria, as it is known in the Mediterranean—is christians’ Groundhog day. It is believed that if the day is warm on Candlemass, the winter will be short.
“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
- Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
I know I’ll always be a small man, insignificant in this world, but I am, and always will strive to be a giant. I will rise above the pettiness of people around me, to their malice I will respond with goodness, to their curses I will respond with politeness, to their hate I will (try to) respond with love, always. At the end, no matter how great they think they are, I will tower over them in my mind and my heart. And if I never have any other benefit from it, at least I will know that I have tried, and that I was a better man. And THAT should be enough.
I'm having a blank screen freeze. Until now I only read about it, but it never happened to me—I could always write about anything, just give me a word and I'll make you a story to last you a day or five. But now I'm facing the white emptiness and the blinking cursor waiting to be sent into a frenzy of characters forming sentences, but the words aren't coming. Even the cursor's blinking seems mocking, pulsating in time with the chime "lo-ser". I'm beginning to hate it.
Sometimes I don't feel like writing. It's usually on days like this when I have lot of garbage on my mind, my daily doubts and dark thoughts that I don't write. I rather stay away from the computer to avoid spewing filth no one would want to read. But see, I made a pact with someone dear to me, someone who expresses herself in paintings. We agreed to squeeze our creative juices, so to speak, together. Right now she's only an arms length away, her brush moving furiously, contours of a town springing to life under her strokes. Me—I wrestle words from this hot air, one by one, and each one of them resists me, fights me, knowing it's not their time to be laid down on screen. My thoughts are heading in all directions without particular focus and I can't decide whether I should write fiction or tell it like it is. Then it dawns on me: I should just lay back and let the words come down on their own. And here they are, lame, jumbled and unfocused, just like my mind, but at least they're here, forming some sort of narrative about how there's no narrative. If nothing else comes out of it, at least I flipped the mocking cursor a middle finger! Take that, you bastard empty screen, I can fill you with rumble even on a bad day!
ellievsbear
