saudade

tavia

[daunting]

i came to costa rica and found a work exchange in a hotel on the pacific coast. i had a great first couple of weeks, going on road trips and out to parties with my italian roommate, though tension was building due to the fact that her tinder dates tended to like me more and that i was running out of money and could not keep up with her spending, but we looked past that. i was having a bad day at work when a cute guy in swim shorts with a tattoo of the sun on his thigh came to the bar and started talking to me. he seemed to be friendly with the staff, including the bosses. he asked me some questions about my life, and then to dinner, and i said sure. after he left the bar, i asked a colleague his name, since they all seemed to know him, and she said ‘he asked you to dinner?? that’s e******, the owner’. he got me off of my shift early and i waited for him in the bar when one of the bosses, a heavily tattooed tico that wears hawaiian shirts and owns a gun, walked past me and whispered that he was waiting for me in the car. over time i came to learn that this was his sidekick, or henchman of sorts. i got to his car and he drove us through the tropical unlit roads of guanacaste and i was taken aback by his mysterious charm and attractive music taste as he drove effortlessly with one hand on the wheel, impressive and a turn on to me as someone who doesn’t drive. i expected to be slumming my trip to costa rica, but had to laugh to myself as i watched him order us 25 dollar cocktails all night. i wish i remembered our first kiss. we then drove to the party town where we got cocaine and continued drinking. if anything, his wealth made him more intimidating and less comfortable for me to be around, but as we spoke more, his interest in philosophy, film, his complex and elusive attitude.. it drew me in. i could tell he was a little bit of an asshole, but that’s something i like in men. i spent the night with him, and little did i know it would be every night for the next month. meanwhile my italian roommate, desperate to find love but without success, began to get frustrated with my abilities to get male attention while she was only receiving rejections, and was distressed that i was out spending a lot of time with him while she was in our room, alone, and was upset that i was living experiences that she wished she could document on her instagram stories. she was trying to become an influencer but not having much luck. anyway, my first week with him was electric, until my roommate told me that, like clockwork, he has a girlfriend back home. i had to laugh, this happened to me in athens the month before, and two other separate times over the past year. it didn’t hurt to hear this - his overly affectionate nature and knowledge of the female ovulation cycle were two big indicators for me, having had a lot of experience with guys like this, that he was taken, so i did assume so already. because i regretted stopping seeing the man in athens, as well as the fact that i really liked this guy, i decided to continue seeing him while working at his hotel. i had no idea that over the next month, i would truly fall in love with him, and that by our last week we would be so enamoured by each other that every free moment would be by each other’s sides and we would be crying upon our separation. the complications poison things - remembering that he has a girlfriend and so an intrinsic part of him is unethical and has the ability to hurt me, and that he lives in mexico and i in europe. on top of that, my roommate would begin talking badly about me to our colleagues, trying to regain control over her jealousy of me, and people in the hotel started to treat me badly, while he would give me privileges that separated me from the other workers. during a busy weekend where the hotel was full, he took me away on a three day trip, meaning i had two extra days off that week than i should have. this made the italian even angrier and she started talking shit about me to the other staff, causing my anxiety and paranoia to skyrocket. regardless, 

[daunting]

life is very entertaining, months of numbness followed by a sudden opera of intense emotions in a short space of time. i fell for a french man, which was my first mistake, and i was aware it was a mistake at the time. but he has these insane green eyes, and it’s rare that i find a man that i am lastingly attracted to. on the first date i thought he was an annoying drunk, but the idea of romance in athens was too poetic to pass on a second drink, and after all he was quite chivalrous and charming. we jumped from bar to bar then back to his apartment where we had very intimate, satisfying and honestly animalistic sex. the third date at the techno party felt strange, for the first time we didn’t talk for each other all day the night before we met up and he was distant with me, not being romantic at all as opposed to the hand holding on the first and second dates, and giving attention instead to two greek girl friends of his. i did not impose myself, he is infatuated with athens and i know the novelty of being with a local in the city that he wants to live and to die in, since i had done the same thing with catalans in barcelona, and i am emotionally detached enough to let him go for it. once i even told him the best way to learn greek is to get a greek lover. but at the techno party these greek girl friends were quite rude to me, they blocked me out when dancing. we still went back to his at the end, i felt like i wanted to fuck him one last night. and i deserved it. in the morning i left very early and tried to be quiet as he slept because the night before just felt awkward, but he woke and said i was leaving fast. some days of insecurity and confusion passed, why had he been so weird? was it me? am i undesirable? it already felt like i was receiving less attention here in athens compared to barcelona so these subtle rejections together played with my head and gave me doubts. i felt, incredibly, quite sad. however it feels too bitter to be distraught over a boy in such a rich and gorgeous city, so i told myself to become present again, enjoy each moment and stop thinking and overthinking. i regained my confidence by, first and foremost and most fundamentally, getting drunk. a bar hop with a group of strangers, and commanding and winning them over by the end, making connections and laughing like crazy, spray painting athens, smoking joints at cantina… i happily stumbled home, moussaka in hand, and went straight to the rooftop to spin out. a chorus of french male voices then grow louder and up come two of them, one i recognised as damien, a friend of his that checked in the night before and who i could tell was into me, and a cute one that i had not met before. of course, green eyes shortly followed. then, the moment that it changed. the new, cute one introduced himself as the brother of green eyes’ girlfriend. it feels strange, and i am oddly proud, to admit that i felt a rush of relief to learn that he had a girlfriend back home. this is why he had been strange. those greek girls are part of his friendship group, he could not let them know that something had happened between us since the brother of his girlfriend was coming to athens and they might have told on him. on the rooftop after this i decided the best cosmic karma would be to seduce his friend, and i can tell it worked. damien said he loved me as he went to bed and after the cute one left, green eyes lingered to talk to me some longer. neither of us confronted it, i was too happily drunk for that and i think he wants to believe i didn’t hear it, though i probably made it obvious by reacting to my friend in the moment. i feel like, since we are staying in the same place, there may be more to come but i suppose it’s unethical to continue anything with green eyes. i love the theatrics of athens and the show it is putting on for me.

[daunting]

even worse than being unaware, i know how much i hurt people - i spent so much of my life in my own company that i am completely inept at maintaining relationships. some of these people i truly love, and they think i hate them, my actions have done nothing to reflect otherwise. my commitment issues converted into callousness until i become a bitter memory in their world

[daunting]

one of the fucking doomed things of losing someone who came from a famous and prestigious family is that i’m constantly bombarded with signs of him. bloomberg writes an article with his full family tree (complete with confirming his death and the year under his name); advertisements for the (very well known) charity his family founded surround me everywhere; his family’s namesake business working on preventative covid medication appears in the news; his london house, the site where he killed himself, haunting me in the background of tourist photos; famous people, family friends, that he told me intimate and potentially career destroying stories about do talk show interviews on tv; these things are bittersweet. they remind me that he was real, but remind me that he’s gone

[daunting]

he’s always in my mind, but i notice in my darkest times that he’s more active there. it’s cruel in a way, because the pain is just as severe and fresh as it first felt, but now, instead, i think i could join him. almost that i’m envious of the proactivity he had to kill himself. and then i say things like that and i induce feelings of disgust with myself, and the state of euphoria and positivity and potential that i once possessed for a period of my recent life yearns for me, tries to overpower the forlornness that persists but only results in artificial forced moments of ‘i can claim confidence and happiness and all that i need to feel better if i change my mindset. think more positively. don’t get stressed with work. don’t overthink certain interactions and relationships. good things will come to me if i allow them. everything is beautiful and nothing is really wrong with my life at all.’ but it just doesn’t feel right. 

[daunting]

why does it feel so exceptionally difficult to make female friends ?

[daunting]

ur spotify playlists are bomb as f pls come back to tumblr we need u

you sweet soul, thank you very much but my tumblr days are over !!!

[neshamama]

sabbath tablecloth, late 19th century, silk-thread embroidery on cotton, iran

from the imj:

It is no accident that this tablecloth is adorned with kabbalistic motifs, as many Sabbath customs are drawn from the Kabbalah. According to kabbalistic teachings, we enhance the sanctity of the Sabbath by imitating actions performed in the Temple. Thus, the placement of loaves of bread on the Sabbath table as shown on the tablecloth corresponds to the arrangement of the shewbread on the Temple table - twelve loaves placed in two rows of six loaves. In addition to the names of God, hands spread in the priestly blessing, and several vessels used in the Tabernacle and the Temple, the kabbalistic Tree of Life - representing dimensions of God - is also embroidered into the tablecloth. In a departure from tradition, the tree includes the names of the spices burned as incense on the golden altar in the Temple instead of the names of the sefirot.

[daunting]

everything confuses me. wish i could go back in time with the mind i have now

[daunting]

if any of you sweet people who have been in touch with me over the years here on tumblr would like to chat, please message me !!! there are some good souls here

[daunting]

i am proud of the woman i have become, i resolved so many things that were holding me back. i wish i could have a conversation with you, and know what you would think of me as the person i am now

[daunting]

today i feel lonely, and it was reinforced by this sweet couple appearing on my pic of the sky, i didn’t see them at the time and yet they make this photo Beautiful

[daunting]

i’m so grateful despite all of my anxieties. and i hope everything will be ok

[daunting]

torn between giving up the (little) life i have now and becoming a nomad across europe and maybe even the rest of the world, and the strong feeling of absence and heartbreak that will arise from leaving my love, my family, my things. for now it’s an option, for those moments when it all becomes too much

[daunting]

Long shot but anyone know how i can score some draw in Lisbon ??? Let me know thank u very much

[daunting]

what are u supposed to do when literally everything feels too overwhelming

[daunting]

i don’t think there is anything wrong with being critical of people. there is this notion of being a nice and a good person, which most of the time entails never speaking poorly of people and never crossing the line into offending anyone, and i lived by these rules for such a long time. i became passive, and entered a zone of neutrality in which i suffered more, never committing fully to my connections and letting bad and toxic people take advantage of me. now, when i have bad feelings or feel suspicious of people and their intentions, i let them be known and i act on them by not letting them into my life. i don’t care these days if to some i may seem callous, or a bitch... i have learnt the hard way that if you have bad feelings about someone, you must not ignore them. and it works both ways, if you have a connection with someone, or you feel yourself significantly drawn to them, you must must must pursue it. i have unwillingly lost someone i was deeply drawn to without letting them know how much i cared about them, and so as a result of this and in need of action, i more than willingly cut out a terrible and negative presence of a person, and what do you know? i was right to trust my bad feelings about them, if only i had done it sooner