Day One hundred and fifty two - Moves like Jagger

Which club we were at, I'll never know. What I do know was that everyone was well and truly drunk by the time we'd got there. So drunk, in fact, that I really didn't mind that the music being played there just wasn't my style. I didn't give a shit, I was making the eyes at Olga and she was making the eyes at me. What got things going was when a song I usually would detest started playing. I moved closer to Olga and asked her to dance with me. As the song grew into the crescendo of its famous chorus - 'I've got the moooooves like Jagger' - we got closer and closer and... nothing happened. Well, not yet... but it would a bit later. Olga had to leave, and as she was making her way out I asked if I could talk to her for a bit. She said yes, and we stood on the stairway that led to the upper level of the club where we'd danced. About what we talked, I can no longer remember, but I do recall a very brief kiss we shared. She gave me her phone number, and though I was due to leave the following day, I was still able to spend a few hours with her.

That day - it was a sunday - I had lunch with Hugo and his girlfriend, then went back to my five star hotel suite that I could never afford, and which was in fact Hugo's, who was staying with his girl, and gave me the keys to his room while I was in Warsaw. I packed up my stuff, which wasn't much to be honest, because I'd only be there like for three days, but all the while me and Olga had been in touch. We'd agreed that I'd go to meet her at her place - and how I, not speaking a word of polish, managed to get there is something I cannot now fathom - but get to her I did. And yeah, things got going. No sex, no, but just a few hours spent together, making out, talking and getting to know each other. Her english was quite broken, but still, we managed to understand each other. It's very important that I mention that I found Olga to ve very similar to Silvia. Whereas anyone I'd ever been with after Silvia resembled her not one bit, Olga had a lot in common with her. They were both tall, lanky girls, very similar in nature and character, and they even had the same hairstyle. Did I see her as a replacement - and a worthwhile one at that - for Silvia, or did those similarities help foster my interest for her? Eh, either/ or, or even maybe none of them. But I did feel like Olga... Olga I could really like. Maybe even love, who knows?

As I said goodbye to her, I did something that was unexpected even for me - I left my celtic ring with her, the twin of which I'd once given to Silvia. This was a sure sign that, indeed, I was moving on.

Day One hundred and fifty one - Only love can break your heart

After Filipa, and even after our last night together, I - once again - kept to myself. I'd started exercising again, I still hated my job, but overall I was feeling happy. And then, some unexpected things happened. Now, I'm not certain now which of these happened first, but I'd say with great certainty that the order was as I'll write them. So, first thing I wasn't expecting - ever - was to be with Silvia again. I already told this story some posts back, but to cut a long story, Silvia came home to care of something or the other, she had some books of mine she wanted to return, and I had some books of her as well, and we ended up meeting. We were together for not very long, it was weird, it was strangely passive-aggressive, and by the end of that little get together I was walking away knowing full well that I didn't love Silvia anymore.

As I also wrote in that previous post, there's still a part of me that loves her still, but it's not a real, physical part of me; rather, it's the ghost of a ghost of a ghost, it's the reflection of an image, many times removed, echoing down a neverending well. But it was a relief. Knowing that I would no longer spend my days thinking about her, knowing that I would no longer spend my nights dreaming about her. Honestly? It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

It also left me feeling sad... empty. She had been such a presence in my life for the past six years or so, that feeling like I had no emotional attachment to her anymore left me feeling a bit... lost. But also, and in a strange way, it also left me feeling that, and much more than I'd ever felt before that liberating moment, that I could welcome love in my heart again. And it so happened that shortly after I found myself visiting my friend Hugo in Switzerland. He told me that he'd be staying in Poland for the next few months because of work commitments, and he asked me if I wanted to go visit him. I booked my trip to Poland then and there, and soon enough there I was, boarding a plane that would take me to the beautful of Warszawa - or Warsaw as we more commonly know it. My plan was a simple one : go there for a few days, have fun, get to know the city a bit, hang out with Hugo and his to this day girlfriend. What I didn't plan on doing was meeting someone. But meet someone I did - a polish girl called Olga. 

We'd been out for a meal somewhere in Warsaw, and at some point a group of people joined us - as I recall it they might've been friend with either Hugo's girlfriend or someone who was with us. And I immediately took a liking to this girl - though I'm not so sure she did to me. However, all it would take was one dance for all that to change...

Day One hundred and fifty - Terrible love

So, the two things that really characterized our relantionship - me and Filipa - was that terrible excitement, that quite soon fizzled out. Looking back, We should've spent more time apart, buty very early we were living that couple kind of life where I'd be sleeping over every night...we didn't really get the chance to miss each other. Be that as it may, during our time together I'd managed to keep at bay that which made it impossible for me to get too attached to Eunice or Irene - my love for Silvia.

Sure, I maybe denied it to myself that I felt it still, but damn... I still carried pictures of her, and I still went back to convesrations we'd had over email often. I reasoned that I did so in order to punish myself, to make sure that the wounds never fully healed, and that the cross that was my guilt over all the things that I'd done to Silvia never got any easier to bear. And Filipa... well, in the beginning, at least, she made it very easy for me to hope. And yes, I had hoped that I could love again - true love - which I doubted I'd ever would. And I dared hope with Filipa. So, did I love her? Not really, though I think I did. I think we both did think we loved each other. But it wasn't love, really, it was just the passion and the libido and the circumstances of out entitr story. It felt dangerous, and wrong, and exciting. So we fooled each other into thinking that it was love. 

But... I could never love Filipa - or anyone else, for that matter - back then. As months passed in our relationship, and as some distance began to grow between us, I started thinking more and more about Silvia, about my feelings for her. Oh, I knew, deep down in my heart of hearts that I'd never get her back, but damn if I didn't wish for just that more than anything else in the world. And on that new year's eve I spent with Filipa - a great night, really, with good food, good booze, and great sex - which was always great with Filipa when she got drunk - I found myself grabbing my phone and I emailed Silvia. I told her just how I felt, I told her I loved her still.

To be fair, this is something that I'd already done some months before, in a moment of weakness and much alcohol. I felt incredibly stupid for that the following day, and so reasoned that it had only happened because I'd gotten drunk. And her reply then, on this first occasion, was just as curt as it was on this second occasion - and that was the last time I'd ever tell Silvia I loved her. And yet... I felt it still. Though me and Filipa would still get a couple more months in, we'd end up calling it quits. Some months after that, we actually hooked up one night. I'd gone out on my own and I found myself in a place where I knew she might go as well. I texted her to see if she was nearby, and she was. We met, had a few drinks, spent the night dancing, and got drunk. But that was all I thought that was going to happen between us - as far as I knew she was already seeing someone else, and was quite happy. Imagine how I felt, when, to my surprise, she asked if we she could stay with me. Well, us having to sleep on the same bed - buck naked - led to some really great sex. The best we'd had together in a long, long time. 

I never saw Filipa again after that night. We remained friends on social media, and I was delighted when she eventually got married. She got what she so richly deserved.

All I had was this love for Silvia. This terrible love.

Day One hundred and forty nine - My desire

There were two things that characterized our relationship, and I'll write about the first now. Firstly, there was a terrible excitemement between us : because of the circumstances under which we'd met, sparks flew between us, especially during the first few months. Though I resisted her at first; that second time we'd met she'd told me that she couldn't stop thinking about me, and that she was wildly in love with her. As for me... I was attracted to her, sure, and wanted to unspeakable things to her, but at first I was more in love with the idea of her rather than Filipa herself. But she was... enthusiastic. Sex was pretty good at the beginning, our life together was pretty wild back when we first started going out. Soon, I'd start spending my nights over at her place - she shared a flat with another girl - but that would prove to be our undoing. There was always too much nearness - and never enough distance so we'd miss each other. But damn, those first few months... I've never met anyone who drank as much as her, ate as much as her, and still looked so goddamned hot as she did. We got so, so drunk most every night we were together. Sometimes, we'd drink her place dry, and we had to go out in the middle of the night searching for some place that was still open and sold booze. Those were good times. They were also times when I put on a lot of weight - what with waking up hungover so often, I'd stopped going to the gym. 

This was pretty much it for the first part of our relationship, good - but not really great - sex, booze and crappy food, me getting fat. Then, as so often happens, we were the victims of that which breeds contempt : familiarity. Things stopped being good, things stopped happening, and even the sex became a chore. Our days together were spent getting drunk and then, if it was a day off for me, we'd stay in bed until late and we got hungry and we'd go out for food and booze. We kept this thing going for a few months but by late 2011 we'd be getting close to our time together being done. In fact, and for reasons that now escape me, by December that year we'd already split up - or maybe we just took some time off, whatever. But Filipa and I kept in touch, and she asked me if I'd want sto spend new year's eve with her. She told me that I'd been the most important person for her that year, and she really wanted to spend that night with me. Of course I went, and of course everything got rekindled again, and of course I finally admitted to myself something I'd been keeping at bay for so, so long. I did like Filipa, and I did like being with her, and I did like our time together. But the trouble was that I was in love with someone else. I loved someone else.

Day One hundred and forty eight - Jenny was a friend of mine

Well, no, not Jenny - though for some reason I always thought of that song as being me and Filipa's song. And I have no idea if we even heard it together once. But Filipa was a friend of mine. No, scratch that - she was my girlfriend, for some eight or nine months, but I'm not sure that if we ever were friends. We never went through that stage. We literally went from being strangers to being in a relationship in a span of a few weeks. So how did that happen when the last thing I wrote was that when I felt that something was on the verge of happening between us on that very first night was to make a retreat and go home? Well, it just so happened that I was about a quarter of the way home when my phone rang. An unkown number was callling me. It was Filipa. She wanted to know why I'd left without even saying goodbye. And by jove, the honesty one feels when one is dead drunk, led me to tell her that had I stayed we'd end up making out. And she asked me if that was such a bad thing to do. Which, I know, morally is. But the flesh was weak and willing. So I asked her what she wanted me to do, and she told me to go back to where they were. I jumped in a cab, went back to the club where I knew they were, and I rang Filipa to let her know I was outside. I couldn't go back in - if her friends saw us making out they would kill me. So she came out, and came up to me, and seconds later we were kissing. We didn't make out for long, because she had to go back, and I had to go home... but wheels were set in motion that night. But... it almost went nowhere. A pang of guilt made Filipa call me a few days later and she told me that she really wanted to go ahead with the wedding. I said I understood, and I hoped she'd be happy, but in a way, it was such a pity. And that was that - I truly thought that I'd never hear from her again. Happened before, so why would that time be any different? 

So it was indeed a surprise when shortly thereafter Filipa asks me if I want to go and have dinner with her. We'd eat somewhere then maybe get some drinks, and just talk. I asked her why she wanted to do it, and she said she needed to be sure. And so we met, and we had a meal and drinks, and we got to know each other a little bit. For quite a large part of that evening I felt that, yeah, nothing more was going to happen. I felt like she was sure, that whatever this thing she needed to do had made her make a decision. And she did, soon after she was breaking up with the guy and we'd be going to become a couple.

Day One hundred and forty seven - Every day is like sunday

After Eunice and Irene, I stayed put for a while, trying to focus on what was really important. Maintaining my shape, looking after my health and trying to heal my heart. So for a while there my life was gym-work-home-sleep-repeat. But all that changed one night where my friend Elaine asked me if I wanted to go have a drink with her and a few of her friends, and after all, why not? It would do me a world of good to be out with someone I was friends with, and get some drinks in, and go and dance my feet off for a while. So I went down to meet Elaine, and I expected nothing from that night but to get somewhat drunk and have a fun night out. And when I met up with Elaine at some bar, she introduced me to the girls she was with. They were two, maybe three, and I can only remember the name of one of them by now. Filipa, her name is. And the very first thing I was told about Filipa after I'd met her was that she was about to get married in a month or so. Huh... not after that night, she wasn't.

So what happened? Well, first let me say that Filipa was - and probably still is, I haven't seen her in a long while now - a very striking woman. Long black hair, green eyes, and... uhhh... ample bosoms. She naturally had the sort of physique that many toil very hard for on a daily basis at the gym, but not only did she not do any exercise whatsoever, she also drunk and ate whatever she wanted. But be that as it may... though I did find myself attracted to her, the last thing in my mind that night was that I was going to get involved with someone who was about to get married. We were at a club where we drank some more, danced our asses off, and every now and again we'd find ourselves staring straight at each other. There was something going on... sometime during that night, I'd went to the loo to have a wee, and as I was coming out, she was coming in and we sort of bumped into each other. That led us to have our first real talk - and as alcohol can make heroes out of cowards, I asked her why she was going to get married. I asked if she was happy. And she said she wasn't. She'd been in a long term relationship with this this guy, and their getting married was like a last gasp attempt at salvaging their relationship. I told her - drunkenly - that I thought she was making a mistake. That whatever their troubles were, they would not be really going away, and that if they stayed together, they'd end up hating each other. And I think she knew that deep down. Soon after we went to a different club, and that's where things started to get dicey. Me and Filipa were getting close to something, so I did the right thing : I made a strategic retreat and went home.

Day One hundred and forty six - Lilian

So, 2011 began with me more heartbroken than I'd ever been before - but not as much, not by a longshot, as heartbroken as I would be a couple of years later. From that one, I'm not sure that I'll fully recover. But that's a story for another time. Heartbroken, yes, and sad, but never without focus. I knew what I had to do, I knew what I wanted to do, and I got to it quickly. Two things on my mind : get in shape and get a job. I started going to a gym every single day, and I sent tons of CV's every single day. Something was bound to pop up sooner or later, and it did. Little did I know that not only I'd spend the next couple of years there, but it would also end up greatly contributing to the deterioration of my mental health. That last girl I cheated on Silvia with? I might not have explained this well, but she was just an online friend of mine, and even before I'd met Silvia, we were already very communicative with each other, there already was a bit of flirting going on, but we'd never gotten the timing right. When one of us was single, the other one wasn't, and it took the imminent demise of my relationship with Silvia for us to finally get to know each other in person. Me and this girl - Eunice - we went into an unofficial sort of relationship, but what kept us together was the sex, really. No, let me rephrase that, not the sex : the fucking. I've never met someone like her, with such a libido and appetite, who was up to pretty much anything. And by god, the things we did in public... it could be anytime, anywhere. And it often was. Though we always tried getting to a room first, things would happen all along the way there. Jesus, was she a fun one. But she committed that greatest of crimes... she wasn't Silvia. And she wasn't the only one, no. After her there was Irene, who I'd met some months before but had forgotten all about her. She was an external consultant at the place I was working at, and after a few weeks of me not paying attention, she pulled me aside and told me that there were some issues in the quality assurance from she'd done on one of my tasks that fell under her purview. It was just an excuse, really, to talk to me and see whether or not I remembered her. Naturally, as soon as she said that I remembered full well when and how we'd met - through a mutual friend. That initial talk led me to get her number from her, which led us to go out one day, which led us to get involved with each other. And I knew very early on that it was doomed to fail. I couldn't get invested emotionally on someone... not yet, not at that time. My heart belonged to Silvia. 

Day One hundred and forty five - How it ends

And it ended just like I'd told Silvia in the very beginning - in tears. For long, long days I stayed in bed, awash in tears, felling completely miserable. I like to imagine that Silvia - though in a different way - also felt that same pain. Because it must have been hard for her to let me go, to let us go. I like to think that she nurtured an hope for us - that somehow we could make it work, once and for all. And to give up on that ghost can't have been easy. It ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

But was it really over? Well, in a sense, it was over - we'd never be together as a couple again. In another sense, and I speak for my part only, emotionally it was far from over for me. I'm going to jump a little bit in the chronology here, but that's OK.Though, in a sense they will be relevant to the story that's yet to be told, I might revisit them then. But I've only Silvia in person once since then, and then some months later, I think we might've skyped maybe once or twice. Once, for sure. The last time we met up in person, she'd come back to care of something or the other,and she asked me if we could meet up somewhere. I think she might've had some of my books and she wanted to return them to me. Fine, I had some books of hers as well, so we set up the time and place - funnily enough, in the same exact place where we first met.

And it was weird. It was... huh... a little bit on the passive aggressive. A little bit hostile. It felt like we were no more than strangers who'd just met and instantly knew they disliked each other. This would've been sometime in 2012, I'd say, maybe during the first third of the year, and I came out of that final time with her knowing that my love for her was fully gone, that my heart no longer skipped a beat whenever I thought of her. That realisation would lead me some... hmmm... interesting times, to say the least. But that's still to come. Unfortunately for me, and for everyone else I shared my nights with, my love for Silvia still burned strongly and every one else that crossed my life then committed the cardinal sin  of not being Silvia.

Though a few years back we shared a couple of emails because I went to Switzerland on holiday for a few days and I asked her if she wanted to get a coffee and catch up, but she just didn't have any free time, and truly, it was better that way - the last time we ever spoke was that skype call I mentioned before, sometime in 2013. I was going through some bad shit back then, and I needed someone to talk to, and we just talked for a few minutes.

So this is how it ended. But there's a part of me that will always cherish and treasure and love her - not a really physical or emotional part of me per se, but the ghost of a guy that no longer exists who loved a girl who no longer exists. Echoes that fade into black, telling the story of how two souls once met, like ships in the night.

Day One hundred and forty four - A single wish

Sometimes, as I write this, I wonder if I'm getting the dates right about some of the stuff. I can't clearly remember everything now, but I do think I have the dates mostly right. Believe it or not, I have a number of years that are so incredibly alike that I have some trouble placing them in the correct chronological order. The last moment for me and Silvia, the final shot, the last hurrah, was when I visited her for the last time in early 2011. In fact, and for reasons I can no longer recall, I ended up staying with her for two or three weeks. My love for Silvia was at its zenith - of a sorts, but more on that in the future - and I asked her to marry me all the time. Not very long before we broke up for the last time, she said that she'd agree to marry me after we'd spent one year together - something that had never happened before - and, though I saw that as a sign of hope... I really shouldn't have. It was never meant to be.

I remember well two things that happened during those final times : once, we were on a bus coming home from somewhere, and somehow, somehow, I managed to misplace (read : lose) her pair of gloves. I knew the pain and misery that was headed my way as soon as she knew I'd messed up - yet again, in her eyes. And man, was I ever chastised for it. Even though I tried to defuse it, even though I offered up my heart on a platter to her, I was still chastised. And don't get me wrong, though we loved each other, very often we just didn't like each other very much. We couldn't stand being together. I don't know quite what it was that would happen between us, but the nearness that brought us close, also could drive us apart. And whenever that happened there was no option but to get away.

The other moment I remember clearly from that time was the very last day we spent together : I had my flight back home on that very day, and I went with her down to where she worked. We kissed one very last painful kiss goodbye - we were both of us sure that that was it for us - and after I left her, I made my way to the airport. I was coming home. Or so I thought.

What happened was that there was some strike going on at the moment, and my flight got delayed a couple of time, so I ended up staying in a hotel in Geneva for a few days more. I never told Silvia this - it would've broken us even more had we have to spend more time together. I made sure to stay away from any places where our paths would cross for the duration of my stay. Though we both knew that it was curtains for us, we didn't really make it official. No, that happened a little bit after I got back. It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, writing that e-mail to her. I loved her, I wanted her, I desired her, I longed for her... but after almost five years later I just couldn't do it anymore. None of us could. 

Day One hundred and forty three - Follow the cops back home

2010 can't have been anything other than a mostly unremarkable year for me, because I remember a few things only about that year. Yes, me and Silvia were trudging on towards the inevitable end of our story, but back home what was I doing of relevance? Nothing, really. I had a few quid saved up from my time in London, so I didn't really need to find a job that fast. I found out soon after I got back that I had been placed in an incorrect tax bracket while I was living in London, and HMRC saw fit to send a not so inconsiderable sum... twice. Apparently, their initial calculations were, well, miscalculated, and they sent me money again, which is always nice. So I think I only started working around summertime - by then money was, indeed, running low, and I started looking for a job. And I found a job - and heaven knows how miserable that month was. I won't go into details, but I only worked there one month - barely putting any effort at all - just to get paid and then ghost the hell out of that place. But I'll be damned if that month didn't feel like it went on forever. The pay wasn't good, but it was enough for me to buy a somewhat crappy laptop that did pretty much everything I needed out of a computer - internet, downloading stuff, looking for jobs online. Memory does me a disservice here because there was a job I had back then that could have either been in 2010 or maybe before? But I'll hazard a guess and say that was in 2010. Another dead-end job, where I stayed for a few months only, before being asked not to come back. I hated it there, and was desperate for them to fire me. I never quite got why it took them three months or so to do it.

I visited Silvia in Switzerland a few times that year, and that September she came home for her birthday. We spent a... huh... weird day at the beach on her birthday, which had started on the wrong foot for her - she and her mother had a spat for some reason - and then she took it all out on me. It was a good day, to be sure, but a hard one as well. But it was just yet another sign of how difficult things were becoming for us. There was a marked breakdown in our communication, and affection from Silvia was becoming a rare commodity. As the year closed - literally on new year's eve - I cheated on her for the last time. To be fair, I thought we'd called it quits for good by then, things had been pretty dismal by then. An old flame of mine had recently started showing an interest on me, and I found her very hard to resist. But... the end, the true end was still to come. There would yet be one final moment for us.

Day One hundred and forty two - Le vent nous portera

It's now September 2009 before I see Silvia again. We were always in touch, that never ceased to be a constant at that time. And we agreed that we needed a conversation in person, and so for the one and only time, Silvia actually visited me. Well, she came to be with me for a weekend or so. And things were... different. I'd previsoulsy mentioned a weird metamorphosis that had started to happen for us, and it was now reaching its full bloom : she had become me, and I had become her. And I say this in the sense that I was the needy, emotional, clingy one now, whereas she was distant and cold. Somehow, where we started and where we ended up, we became what the other one was. Silvia was becoming... harsh. Her silences had grown deeper, more violent. Sometimes - not very often, though - it felt like there was some hostility behind her silences. But here's the sad thing : we still loved each other. We were still crazy for each other. And yet... pretty much else had gone. We only had that love, now. And I hoped that it would, in and of itself, be enough to save us. 

That time she spent in me was good for us, at least for a little bit, but there were some difficult bits. Silvia resisted to the idea of us having another go at, well, us. It took some talking, and courting, and sexing, but we'd agree on another shot. So for a the remainder of my time in London I'd sometimes get on a plane to Geneva, and spend my weekends with her. There were no further visits from her, though. And while we were managing to keep things smooth at a distance, and while the times we had together were largely good, things weren't perfect. They weren't ideal. And by christmas 2009 I'd decided that would be leaving London to go back home early the following year. I'd had enough of this city I loved, I was lonely there, I felt miserable all the time, and I needed to go back home. I had informed Silvia of my decision, and really, the distance would still be there anyways. It was as easy  for me to get on a plane to go see her bach home as it was in London. Not very long after I'd returned, though, one of Silvia's ex's died, and she had to come here for the funeral. I knew very little about that whole story between them, but I did know that Silvia held him in high regard, and the whole ordeal was hard on her. I wasn't with her for that part - I had no place being there, really - but soon after I went to visit her in Geneva so I could give her my support in person. For quite a large part of 2010, there was distance punctuated by an occasional trip to Geneve to be with Silvia, and pretty much that was it. But the end was fast approaching, though we'd still give it one final shot at it.

Day One hundred and forty one - All of this

So, Silvia came back, but if I told you that things once again wouldn't really work out, you wouldn't be surprised, now would you? But what you might not imagine was just how quickly things turned sour. In fact, it was just after she'd arrived. What happened was, I picked her up in the airport just after work. And after she'd picked up her luggage, she somehow managed to misplace her handbag, which had all her documents and stuff. So as soon as I meet her, she's already stresses out - huffing and puffing about what had happened, and we went to the lost and found desk at once. Now, I understand just how stressed she felt. All her stuff - and important stuff, at that - had been lost. But I was on the receiving end of that stress. And it was blunt, ugly, and made me feel like shit. But I kept quiet. Even though she was able to retrieve her missing handbag - wholly intact - it was something that cast a heavy pall upon us. The trip back home was made in silence, and I could see at once how much she disapproved of the place I'd found for us. She said it was a dump, and I disagreed with that. Sure, it wasn't great, but it was good enough, at least as a starting place. But nothing ever really got started there. The only thing that continued was the fracturing of our relationship. All the while she stayed there - and it wouldn't be terribly long, really - Silvia didn't get a job, and I can't vouch for how much of an effort she really put in. She got into yoga then, though, which was yay for me... not. Again, our life was mostly me leaving for work early in the morning, arriving around dinner time, we'd watch a few episodes of something, I don't recall us being even remotely sexual at that time, and that went for a few months. Then something that I knew would happen, happened. Though I was not quite certain just how it would happen... it happened. I'd be planning my vacations for a while, I'd spend three weeks at home in july, and I asked Silvia if she wantes to come with me. I told her I would take care of all the expenses. But she said no. She told me I could go, and she'd stay. So... I started worrying about that. I couldn't quite put my finger to what it was that was going on, but something was indeed going on. So, on the day I left to go home on holiday, I asked her to please wait for me. And what happened? Well, turns out that on that very day she was travelling as well. She was moving to Switzerland, where she still lives to this day. And how do I find out about this? Well, when I land here, I sent her a message to let her know that I'd arrived safe. And she always replied to me very quick. Not this time. Well, I had things to do, so I took care of whatever needed being done, but as the hours wore on, nothing from her. I tried calling her - the phone was turned off. I started wondering if anything had happened. And what happened was that later thatn day Silvia told me that, once again, she had run away. 

Day One hundred and forty - Universal soul

So, after Silvia came back home, and after we kept in touch still, we were both having a hard time living without one another. A funny thing that, we couldn't live with each other, and yet we couldn't live without each other. And I knew that Silvia wasn't happy with the fact that he ex-bosses back home had kinda duped her into going back - that prestigious architecture job wasn't exactly what it had been advertised. I was finding the distance far too much to bear, so I visited her. Twice, maybe three times. And though I never neither asked or demanded it of her, I cannot tell you how much she'd done me such a kindness, even if it had been for one sinle solitary time. I dreamt about it - I daydreamt about if often. I'd find myself at work and many times I imagined her coming in the store just to tell me that she'd be waiting for me when I left work, or she'd surprise me just as I was leaving work... but it never happened. I went through so much darkness alone, at that time. I never had a single friend there - not even the people who I got along with well at work I'd consider my friends. But I did it, and I did it because I wanted to go and visit her, I did it because being away from SIlvia was physically and emotionally painful. And as those visits continued, and as we continued to talk, and as I sensed her unhappiness there and her desire to come back to me, I worked so that it would eventually come to be a reality. But... it almost very nearly didn't happen.

You see, and I don't quite remember just how this came about, but during one of the times that I'd gone to visit SIlvia, I'd found out that she had a not so secret admirer that she wasn't exactly pushing away. Again, while she said that nothing had happened between them - though of that I was never 100% certain - it was the intimate, soul-bearing talks that crushed me. I don''t think I'd gone through her computer again, but maybe I went through her phone. I think that was how I found out. But the worst was still to come. I asked her how she'd met this guy, and she said he worked at this bar she usually went to. She told me the bar, and my heart sank at once. It was the bar where my ex Ana's ex-boyfriend worked at - the skinhead piece of shit I think I mentioned a while ago - and I asked Silvia what his name was - I think he had a nickname on her phone - and when she told me the name, I knew at once that it was the same unfortunate excrement of a person. I felt so, so disappointed. I think I would've understood anyone else, pretty much, but that guy? Fuck that guy. But Silvia also believed that I'd gotten involved with someone else while she was away - I had not. Not only was I behaving, I also couldn't look that way at another girl anymore. I even had a couple of girls flirt with me, but I never ever reciprocated that attention. It was touch and go for a while, but finally, we agreed on her coming back. 

Day One hundred and thirty nine - The other side of Mt. Heart Attack

There was a yawning chasm between us. We weren't communicating, we were hurting, and the distance bewteen us seemed to grow. I think I confronted Silvia about what I found out, and it was during this conversation that I found out she was leaving. Not leaving me, but leaving - she was going back home. Her previous employer before she moved to the Netherlands had been in touch with her, and they'd landed a prestigious architecture gig and were courting her back. I know she was unhappy there, but so was I. We both were. But her way of dealing with unhappiness was to run away. I was detecting a pattern here, one that would eventually repeat itself, time and time again. So she told me that she had booked her flight, and that was that. She was going back. No amount of words I spoke could sway her. Once more I thought that that would be it for us, that our story had come to an end. I could see no hope for us. But, of course, we kept in touch. We talked often - probably daily - and we wrote letters to one another all the time. So things were never quite done between us.

In the meantime, not only was I still getting flak from the landlady over what the other tenants were neglecting to do and she demanded I do, but in a short time the house got filled up with noisy french kids. The first guy thought he could practice his guitar late at night, then when two girls arrived they'd literally talk as loud as they could for as long as they could every single god damned night, and I was getting fed up. At work I'd met a customer that told me had a room to rent, and soon I moved out of where I was and went to the new place. I went to literally the cheapest room I could find, and that meant sharing the room with another person. But the people who I lived with - and I was there for a few months only - were cool people and we got along really well. It was no hardship at all sharing the room with the other guy - he worked ungodly hours, and I only ever saw him during the weekends, when we'd drink a few beers. My life back then was gym-work-home, basically. After work, maybe some shopping if I needed, days off would be spent resting, sometimes going to Camden or to central London to buy books, and then get some leisure time at home reading or watching something on my computer. As I said, I didn't stay there for too long, and that's because a new place was offered up to me. I would have to spend some days in a different house, though - I'd have to wait until the new place got vacated. But I stayed in a huge-ish house all for myself for a few days. I got the sincere impression that the house was haunted, as I kept hearing very strange noises. I was glad to be on my way out of there as soon as I could, though I didn't yet know that eventually I'd end up back there again. But that's still some ways away.

Day One hundred and thirty eight - Well I wonder

But this was one of the few good moments we'd share in that early stage. Things started to go south with the landlady as well - when we moved to the house, she included us on a cleaning rota that all the tenants had to adhere to, and with which we had no problems with keeping up our side of the thing. But evidently, some of the other tenants had trouble with keeping up their end of the bargain, and the psycho landlady started taking it out on us, demanding that we should be responsible for what the others dind't do. I said that what she was asking wasn't fair - especially to us, who always did our bits without fail. But she was insistent on it, and more than once at that, and it eventually started to get too much for us to comfortably bear. As months wore on, maybe a couple of months into our stay, I was actually the first one to get a job - out of the countless I'd applied to, and less than a handful that I'd really been selected for an interview at least - after a very successful interview, I was offered a job at the Carphone Warehouse. The pay was decent enough, we still got some nice commissions on top - at least for a whille, that would soon change - and it was like half an hour by tube from where we lived, so it was too good an opportunity to pass up. And though at first I felt completely lost there - everything was so different, so new, so alien to me - I soon fell into the groove and learned how business got done. I didn't like everyone I worked with, in fact some I outright despised - they were naught but amoral scammers, but most I got along with well. It was a good enough job, with good enough pay, so I really didn't complain. Meanwhile Silvia was still looking for a job, which she'd find like a month or so after I did. But what did she do in the meantime? Well, she'd made a 'special' friendship with some guy online. I only found out about this because I ended up doing to her what she'd done to me - one day while she was away, I went through her laptop, and read the litany of emails she'd been exchanging with this guy. And they weren't even vaguely sexual - no, it was far worse. She was opening herself up to this guy - someone she'd never met - and telling him stuff that not even I knew. I'd have understoood it well enough if she'd been looking for sex - I'd deserve that outcome. But this was more. This was deeper. This was meaningful. And so, a wedge that was already there between us got absolutely pounded into the ground. We lapsed into a painful silence between us, punctuated by some small, curt words here and there. This would go on for weeks; every night I fell asleep with a multitude of words I so wanted to utter trapped inside me, but I just couldn't speak.

"Sylvia, can't you see what you are doing?

Can't you see I'm scared to speak, and I hate my voice 'cause it only makes you angry.

Sylvia, I only talk when you are sleeping.

That's when I tell you everything, and I imagine that somehow you're going to hear me..."

Day One hundred and thirty seven - Wrong

By now, if I say 'I had a plan', I hope you'll undestand that that meant what I really had was a badly thought out plan, or just, plainly the wrong plan. My plan was this : we would be getting a job as soon as we could, so we could then think about moving to somewhere beter than we were. For that we'd look for jobs online as much as we could, go to every job agency we could find, or scour the streets, as it were, for a job. Did we? Did we bollocks. But the worst part of this plan was that - and as I thought that we could find a job at any given moment - I amde it a point that we bought our passes every week. Even thpugh there were whole weeks where we barely left the house. Oh, sometimes we went to central London, sure, but most often our trips were just to the supermarket. So that meant that we were haemorrhaging money, what with our rent, which wasn't cheap by any stretch of the imagination, plus the travel expenses every week - expenses that were wholly unnecessary - and money we were spending on food.

Out first few weeks there weren't easy, and they started showing some well known stress signs - we loved each other, but we just didn't know how to live with one another. And that would often lead to us not liking each otehr very much. But shortly after we arrived there, it was my birthday. Now, precisely one year before, I'd decided to not drink a drop of alcohol, because on my birthday that year I'd gotten so drunk that I almost didn't funcion the following day. But I was ready to drink again, so me and Silvia loaded up on beer, and Catherine made a guest appearance, bringing with herlself a bottle of Jack Daniels. So the three of us got well and proper drunk, and I always thought that I missed out on a chance for a threesome withe the girls - I mean, there werev some clear signs and bidy language that indicated that it could, indeed, be on the table. Well, more likely on the bed. But you know what I mean. What I know is that there was no universes in which I could go ahead with such a thing, even if I wanted it. And I didn't, not anymore. After Catherine made to leave, we took her to the nearest tube station, but on the way we made one final pit stop at a pub - just to have one last drink. One last shot of whisky. And that, my friends, was that. If I thought I had it under control up to that point, then that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

After we'd returned home from dropping off Catherine, me and Silvia had savage sex - I feel for the other tenants who had to listen through the whole thing - and after that we crashed together... then the throwing up started. For hours on end, I retched everything I had inside me. The next day, I felt so, so bad that I decided not to have a drink for three whole years. Bullshit, a couple of days later I was already dinking again.

Day One hundred and thirty six - Broken promises for broken hearts

Right after she said those words - 'I need you so much' - we fell into an embrace that, I swear, I thought would never end. Much more than an embrace, it was a melding of our hearts, our souls. I wouldn't be aware of this yet, but the words 'it takes an ocean not to break' certainly never proved truer for us. But, ah, The National would still be a ways away from having such a perch in my heart. But in that moment, in that perfect moment, a moment against which the centuries beat vain, we finallly became one. Our love fully blossomed, our union as one all but complete. She led me to her room, and then to her bed. There were more words, more tears, and then more sex. Not making love - that only happened maybe twice during our time - but sex. Good Sex. Sex with Silvia eventually became always very, very good.But this wasn't happy sex, no. This was sad sex - the kind two broken people have when they're desperately looking for something to cling on to. It was after all physical activity had ended - our bodies spent - that we fell into a deep silence. There had always been deep silences from us, but this one was different. And it wouldn't even be the worst one - that was still to come. But in that silence, where it was just us and the nearness of us, and our hands and legs twined around each other's, I told her for the first time that I loved her. I had wished for this moment so many times in the past, but it never materialized. But it did now... and boy, did the dam burst. It was a now a raging torrent pouring out of me, its fervour unbridled. I wanted nothing more than to shout out to the world just how much I loved this woman. But if I was the noise, then Silvia was the silence... always. Random, yes, but also calculated when she wanted to. 

The wounds we had would have to be mended - for the sake of our future together. We would have to get closer than we'd ever been before, and learn how to live with one another. And that challenge would be one we never quite managed to overcome. So, after we'd talked things through, and after we agreed that we'd still be going forward with the move to London - which was days away only, really - we soon found ourselves getting on that plane. We'd arranged to meet up with our landlady near Mile End, where we would renting our flat. The trek there was arduous, loaded up as we were. As soon as me met our landlady, she seemed to be just a tad on the unhinged side. She would not prove me wrong. But she was nice enough as she was showing us around the house, and as soon as she left us, our keys in hand, we had a well deserved shower and fell asleep exhausted soon after. 

The time for rebuilding was upon us.

Day One hundred and thirty five - When we murdered the world on the fourteenth of May

[I have to make a preamble before I go into the rest of this sad tale. This day, the 14th of May, will never not be a weird day for me. For one, it's my father's birthday, and naturally, I always end up thinking about him... though I never want to. Oh, I don't linger, and nor do I feel any pangs of guilt for not seeing him in close to twenty years now. But there is a part of me that wishes that somehow we'd all have been happier. One other reason why this is a weird day for me is because it's also the birthday of someone I once was very close to - Sonia - but that's a story that's yet to come, it's a few years away from this story right now. Sonia was my last attempt - serious, at that - of having a relationship, and it really didn't work out. And then I just sort of gave up. But we'll ge there, in due time.]

Now, whether or not Silvia and I had agreed to meet up in person or if I took that initiative upon myself, I can't remember. What's important is that soon enough I'd foud myself at her door. The person who opened up the door to let me in was barely recognizable to me : the hurt had changed her, distorted into a grotesque caricature of herself. Seeing this broke me, knowing that I had caused this broke me even further. And callous as this may seem... I had no idea what and how much she knew. So I had to gauge exactly how much she, in fact, knew. I tiptoed around the conversation and discerned that she was sure about two instances only. Now, out of both self-preservation and a desire not to hurt her any further, I told her that that was that. We talked for a veey long time - it was still early afternoon when I got there, and into the small hours of the morning we carried on talking. Maybe she asked me why. Maybe I said there wasn't ever any reason why. I don't know. I no longer know. I know, though, that I was fully expecting for us to be finished that night. I was fully expecting Silvia to move to London, and then she'd completely cut me off from her life, and I'd never see her again. It would have been no less than what I deserved.

What I didn't expect - and certainly did not deserve -  was how, amid all the tears we were weeping, tears who, unto themselves, could have filled an ocean, she told me she needed me. SHE needed me. She NEEDED me. She needed ME. And why she needed me - especially then - I could never fathom. She could have had anyone. Anyone else would have been better for her. Not this broken, damaged, husk of a specimen that quivered before her. And at that moment wy heart fully went into bloom with my love for her. And that would herald a strange metamorphosis for us.

Day One hundred and thirty four - Where is my mind?

So, after Silvia returned from the Netherlands, she wento to stay with her family for a while. She also later stayed at one of her friend's, but just before that she stayed with me for a while. And it was during this time that things got really bad. This was the moment when she found out about the cheating. Well, some of it - two instances only. The rest she never found out, and neither did I come clean about everything else. And this happened not out of my own volition - though I regretted immensely what I had done, I had no intention of ever telling her, I knew it would hurt her beyond words. This happened because I made such an amateurish cock up that I well and truly deserved it happening. So, while she was staying with me, she was unemployed. We were in the process of planning our move to London - we had no jobs in sight, but what we'd need to figure out first was finding a place to stay. So we'd spend our nights together after I'd leave work looking for a place we could afford. But that also meant that during the day I'd be away at work, and Silvia would do whatever. She had my house keys, so she could come and go as she pleased. She could whatever she pleased. Including going through my laptop... which, admittedly, was full of incriminating evidence, and - almost even worse - had no password protection. So one day after coming back from work, I find an icy cold Silvia waiting for me - but this she was something she could be at any given moment, so I really didn't notice that something was off. Well, not until she asked me to delete some xxx pics I had of her. I thought that was weird, but ok. Pictures deleted, no problem. She then said she was going back to her family's - she might've given me some flimsy excuse - and hey, I still thought everything was going all right. We kissed goodbye, I asked her to let me know as soon as she arrived, and then she left.

And I can't recall now whether if it was some hours later or the following when the shit really hit the fan, but I got a text from her -  a long one - telling me that she'd found out I had cheated on her. And man... my heart just broke. My whole self became enveloped in pain. But her heart got broken far worse than mine. The pain she felt must've seemed unbearable. And this was just a few days shy of us moving to London, where we'd already secured a house, had booked flights, and were set to go. I don't know for how long, maybe it was just for a day or two, but Silvia - and understanbly so - really wanted nothing to do with me. Though I tried approaching her, she pushed me back. We were both in so much pain. But I had to try again. I knew that she wasn't with her family, but rather with her friend. In a desperation move, I went there to see her - even if for the final time - and apologise for the hurt I'd brought her.

Day One hundred and thirty three - Carbon

But before London, there was London. And by this I mean a couple of different things : one, Silvia - who worked as an architect at the time - had gone to London on a work trip for a few days; the studio she worked for had applied for the renovations/revamping of a library in the Tower Hamlets area of East London. They'd not end up getting the assignment, but I think she networked a little bit while she was there. Two, just before the Cris sex thing, me and Silvia actually went to London together. You see, a girl I know called Elaine - I'd met her and her niece Alice some years before - told me she was going to London to go see some concert, and she asked me if I wanted to go with her. I said ok, but I wasn't really interested in going to the concert, and I wasn't really that interested in being with her really. What I was interested in was finding out whether or not Silvia wanted to go with me. And she did, it certainly helped that flights were dirt cheap at the time, so we arranged to meet up in London - we'd be arriving in the same airport within moments of each other. After we all hooked up, Elaine went to stay with someone else, whereas Alice had let us stay with her. It was just for a few days - maybe just the weekend, really - and we could stay in her leaving room. Now me and Alice always got along well. She's funny, intelligent, interesting - and though not in a way that would appeal to me, she's quite attractive. But there was never anything between us, I don't think any of us ever entertained that notion. So one of the nights we spent there that time, me and Silvia and Alice went out for dinner, and I thought that things had gone really well, that we'd all had a great time. I thought we'd had nice conversations, helped by good food and decent wine, and that was that. But unfortunately, something that never happened left a sour taste on Silvia's mouth : she thought - for some reason that to this day I cannot fathom - that me and Alice had spent the whole night flirting with each other, while she just sat there next to us. Of course, I told her that nothing was further from the truth. But this perceived slight made it so that things became not very pleasant for the remainder of our time there, and still haunted us for a little bit after we'd returned to our respective places. I do think that that was the inciting incident that led me to sleep with Cris. Things had taken a turn, and no matter just how much I explained or apologized for something I hadn't done in the first place, Silvia just was relentless. I'm not ever trying to justify or rationalize what I did - and wish I hadn't done - but damn me if sometimes I didn't feel far too close to the edge of an abyss and was shoved down it by what I thought was a loving hand.

Day One hundred and thirty two - The romance of the telescope

I knew, going in, no pun intended, that I would regret it. I knew that I wouldn't enjoy any of it, that I'd be mutilating my soul even further for no good reason whatsoever. And yet... I went. I think I met up wih her at our friend's flat after dinner, or maybe it was after I left work or something like that. There may have been some idle chit chat, nothing much in the way of foreplay - we eventually just jumped into bed, but for a while nothing happened. I can't stress just how unattractive and unappealing this girl was to me, and not only physically. She was very uninteresting, and we pretty much had nothing in common. And why she found something appealing in me I also can't fathom. Still, be that as it may, there we were, laying half-naked on a bed. She knew I had a girlfriend. I knew I had a girlfriend. What were we doing? What was I doing? Well, I was about to have just what I dreaded - very bad sex. 

So, I never fooled myself into thinking that I would be having the best sex I'd ever had. In fact, I was prepared mentally for it to be bad. Or at least I thought I was. Because it wasn´t just the bad sex - and she was, to put it politely incredibly bad at it -  it was also just how our bodies didn't seem to fit. How our skins just didn't... I don't know, mesh with each other. Nothing could connect us. Not then, not ever. And one thing I'll never be able to forget was just how weird she tasted. How... acidic it felt. Why did I persevere? It was so bad that not only I couldn't get any completion, I couldn't even maintain an erection. What a soul crunching, pelasureless ordeal this one was proving to be. Eventually we just stopped. It wasn't going anywhere. I was already too tired, too sad, too deep in regret. It was late, and we went back to bed. To sleep, that is. I closed my eyes and drifted away. The next morning was as if nothing had ever happened between us. And, oh, how I wish It never had. Me and Cris never ever talked about it again, but we maintained a cordial relationship. It's strange, because if in a way she might've realized that she was unlikely to ever what she wanted out of me, in another way all this nonsense actually made her believe even more that I'd eventually come to my senses. Because though we never spoke of the sex thing again, it doesn't mean she stopped trying to entice me. But I couldn't. I didn't want to. Not with her and not with anyone else. A while after this event Silvia told me that she was leaving the Netherlands, and coming home for a spell, but then she'd move to London and if I wanted I could go with her. We'd live there together. Just the two of us. But before we got there things almost completely fell apart.

Day One hundred and thirty one - Destroy everything you touch

Why indeed. And therein lies the rub - I wanted nothing at all to do with her; in fact I was getting to finally come to grips with what I felt for Silvia. Increasingly, I knew that I loved her - not just feeling it, knowing it. And in the meantime I returned to the Netherlands to visit her - an unplanned thing, well, from her part as least. I started planning it as soon as I'd been with her there the first time. And it could've gone horribly wrong... for all I knew she could have been having herself a piece of dutch beefcake, though I don't think she did. What I did, I booked a trip to Amsterdam on a friday morning, arrived there just after lunch, got on the train to where she lived, and sursprised her just after she'd got home from work. My ideal iteration would be she bumping into me as she was on her way home, but alas, I was a few minutes late. But when I knocked on her door, and saw the delight on her face - and her surprise as well - then everything felt right again. Being apart from Silvia was becoming a painful ordeal. My heart ached for her, my soul yearned for her. And when I wasn't with her I let that deep pain I was feeling completely consume me. Again, I am offering no excuses for my behaviour - the price I paid in the end was punishment that was due, ultimately. But I'm trying to put into perspective just how... empty... I became when I was alone. It was as if a part of me stayed behind with her, and what returned was a barely funcional copy of myself. And empty is indeed how I mostly felt. Back then, I was working in a very low-paying job, and I couldn't really afford to travel often. I only visited her twice - these two stories I shared - and she visited me not one single time. I wouldn't know it yet, but that would prove to be a pattern.

So though we talked to, emailed, and texted each other constantly we barely saw each other during those months she lived in the Netherlands. I'm not telling a lie when I say I just didn't function without her. I thought of nothing but her, I wanted nothing more than to be with her. I was increasingly certain of my love for her - it could not be anything else. And some I chased, some others came to me, none I ultimately said no to. And though I tried hard, for a number of months, to keep Cris at bay, she was relentless. I can't recall now what provoked it - I seem to recall that for some reason me and Silvia were going through a rough patch - but one day Cris sort of made me an ultimatum. She said she had the keys to our friend's flat, that we would be there just the two of us, and that we could do whatever we felt like doing. And I really didn't want to do anything. And yet... I did.

Day One hundred and thirty - Mr. November

Those few days we spent together in Assen were golden. We were happy, the sex was amazing, and there was so much love between us. It was also symptomatic of our relationship - we got on really well for short periods of time, but then if it went on for much longer we'd start to get on each other's nerves. But there'll be moments there that I'll never forget - like the snow falling in Rotterdam as we went for a walk together, or eating a traditional new year's gigantic meatball cooked by her stoner flatmates. So of course I repay all this love and all this kindness with some more cheating. Again I reiterate that not only do I regret every single time I did it, but also that none were deserving or worthy of this blemish I placed upon my soul. I can't remember now who or how many there were, but there's at least a couple that.. damn, what in the hell was I thinking? The one I'll never ever be able to forget is a girl called... I'll call her Cris. Now, she was a friend of a friend of mine - who had already introduced me to another friend of hers some time before - curiously also called Cris, and the only thing I remember about that girl was her massive breasts, us making out once or twice, and then she ghosting the hell out of me. But eh, whatever - it was what it was. Now this other Cris - the second one - was a weird girl. Stick thin. Being very diplomatic, she was very, very unattractive, and she proved to be very annoying and highly innapropiate. And for some reason I will never fathom, she not only took a liking to me, she literally got obsessed with me. Now, I'm not someone to deny anyone my friendship, no. I always tend to believe that, first and foremost, when I meet someone or someone wanders into my life, it's friendship that's on the cards. But this girl wanted more. And I didn't - at least not from her. No matter how much I told her I was in a relationship, she was unrelenting. She legit thought she could sway me. 

One day I was just talking to her - she'd taken a habit of visiting me me at work, and hanging around, and then spend my lunch hour with me - and she asked me if I had some sort of 'ideal woman' - and I didn't hesitate : I did, I still do, and that 'ideal woman' has here and there graced my life. So what is this or these characteristics that I find them to be paramount in a woman? It's a very small thing - but girls with bangs drive me crazy. Always did, always will. Now, I don't demand or expect whomever's in my life to comply to this quirk of mine, but as I said - sometimes I got lucky. So I tell her this, and what does she do? The following day she's coming up to me at work with a new hairdo - you guessed it, bangs - and if anything, she looked even more unattractive to me. So why did I eventually fuck her? 

Day One hundred and twenty nine - All sparks

Seeing Silvia go broke my heart. And it broke in a way it had never been broken before - this time it had been in my hands. This time I could have prevented it from happening. All it would have taken was a gesture, a word. Something she could hold on to. And right then and there? She would have. But I let her go. I saw her turn her back on me, board a plane, and move far away. Though not strictly officially, we did become a couple again just before she left, and she let me know as soon as she landed. We kept in touch all the time, we talked as often as we could, and we missed each other... terribly. Now, what I'm about to say might just be some of the dumbest shit ever said, but it needs to be said. When we started dating, I was 29 - and I think that bit between that and me turning 30 did a number on my head. I legit thought I was too young to settle down, that I was too young to have my last woman ever. For about two years I couldn't imagine Silvia being the last woman I'd ever have sex with. How stupid I was, and how litlle did I know. So, what with her being absent, I took advantage of that. Not only was I starting to DJ again - and that often led to me chatting up girls - but for some stupid reason women just fell in my lap without me doing anything, really. And I always fell for that tempation. But... it never, ever felt good. It never felt worthwhile. It never felt like I was getting anything that was better than what I could get from Silvia. Hell, it was often far from as good as what I could get from her. And, idiotic as it may seem to write this, this was my way of coping with the notion that I truly, madly, deeply... loved her. I really did, I missed her - more than missing her, her absence hurt me. And after christmas 2007 I was on a flight to go meet her in the Netherlands - we'd be spending a few days together until just past new year's. And if there's a moment I'll never forget, it's the joy in her face when she saw me arriving in Schiphol Airport - she was literally jumping up and down when she saw me. We kissed, and that was a hell of a kiss, full of passion, full of love. We walked around Amsterdam for a litlle while, but we were soon on our way up north where she was living. The thing is... just before this, I'd gotten involved wiith a girl called Patricia. She worked in the store next to mine - I'd since quit my previous job and went to work in a similar thing - and for some strange reason me and her got along really well. We went out once, things snowballed from there, and soon enough we were sleeping together - not just the sex bit of it, actually sleeping together. Oh, I knew there wasn't anything real there - Patricia needed a distraction in her life and I was on hand, and I could not commit to anyone else - but one of the very first things I did when we got to Silvia's place was to text Patricia and say that I'd arrived. Here I was with an amazing woman who loved me, and my stupid dick was doing all the thinking for me.

Day One hundred and twenty eight - Take you on a cruise

I'd been debating with myself whether or not the next bit should be included, but if I'm being open and honest about how things went down, then I should come clean. I consider the greatest blemish upon my soul, my very character, the fact that I cheated on Silvia - and I did it multiple times. She found out, eventually, yes. But she ever only knew about a couple of the incidents. There were a bunch more she never knew. I know that our paths will likely never cross again, and the likelihood of her reading these words is very, very small, so I acknowledge the bravery of owning up to bad behaviour from a distance. 

The first time I cheated on her, we'd have been going out for not a month yet, and an ex-girlfriend of mine said she had a birthday present she wanted to give me, and by this she meant herself and me doing the horizontal tango. And as much as I want to excuse myself with the fact that it was at the time in our relationship where I just didn't see us lasting, and Silvia's wieird idiosyncrasies proving to be almost for much for me to bear, It's all bullshit. I did it because I was weak, I did it because sex with Susan was pretty damn great and sex with Silvia was still very far from where it'd be, I did because that god-damned temptation got the better of me.

Now, this part I just told, as well yesterday's post, serve well to illustrate just how much I positioned myself for our relationship to fail. And believe me - she was no saint either. She also had her trysts, and though they hurt when I found out about them, I always forgave her. I went so far as tracking down online one of the guys she had been with, and I told him that I hoped that he would take good care of her. But Silvia... she really did love me. She didn't say it, she really didn't show it in a flashy way - no that that's necessary - but she loved me, and she chose me. And we sort of broke up for a while in 2007, maybe for a couple of months, though we did keep in semi-regular touch. In the meantime she told me that she was planning on going to the Netherlands. There was no underlying invitation for me to go with her, but rather the unsaid statement that being around me and not having me in her life hurt her too much. That me not giving her what she so desperately craved from me was killing her. 

Weird as this may seem, it brought us together again. We started going out again, and I started sleeping at her place again, everything went back to normal - except that now she was leaving. Now time was running out for us. We had one last perfect night together, with the ecstasy of sex and the pain of separation tearing us apart. The cruel morning arrived far too soon, and as we were saying goodbye in the airport, she said she loved me, for the second time - but this one was real feeling. And I wanted so badly to tell her not to go. To stay. To stay with me. I wanted to her so much that I loved her. And yet... and yet I did not. I could not.

Day One hundred and twenty seven - I am

Before me and Silvia started dating though, some relevant things happened. I had started working in a different mobile phone store than the one I'd worked before, and I got along pretty well with the people I worked with. Here and there some people drifted in and out of my life - nothing ever too serious, really. The job itself was another of the sort of dead-end job I'd end up accumulating - nothing terribly exciting, no prospects of moving up, and I only saw myself staying there for a few years before moving on to something else. But some of the people there I got on fine out of work too, and even after I left, some of them I kept in touch for a few years. It woud be during my early days at this job that I witnessed firsthand just how loyal Silvia was to me, and just how important I was to her - though I all but dismissed it at the time. Some years prior I'd had a bad kidney stone experience, one I thought would actually be the death of me. And maybe a couple of months into my relationship with SIlvia, while I was at work, I started to feel really bad. I'd gonr to the toilet to have a wee, and suddenly I felt as if all my energies had been drained out of me. Unfortunately, I knew this feeling all too well - my first kidney stone had had the same symptoms. I went back to work, said I was going straight to the hospital, texted Silvia - who worked pretty close to where I worked - and told her that I had to go to the hospital at once. I thought I was just letting her know what was up, but she immediatelt left work, met up with me, and went to the hospital. We had to get a taxi there, but I was already feeling bloody awful - I started throwing up, I was in pain, I was felling tetchy... and Silvia stuck with me. We went to the hospital together, and moments after we'd arrived I was already being whisked away by a nurse. He took me to a doctor, I described what I was feeling, he did some x-rays, and soon I had a drip inserted into my veins that took me to la-la land for a few hours. All the while, she waited for me. I don't know for how long, but she waited in the waiting room patiently, and when she saw me walk out of the emergency room, visibly dazed - I'd been given the all clear to walk out of the hospital seeing as I had someone there, and was prescribed some medication - she came up to me, asked what had happened, how I was feeling - I could see just how worried she was for me. Moreover, I felt something I could not hope to expect. I felt her love for me. And mine for her was there too. But I didn't know how to process it, how to open myself that way. At least not yet.

Day One hundred and twenty six - Sunday

I wanted to call it quits for a couple of different reasons : on the one hand, our first few times together were a bit on the odd side, I was finding Silvia to be a pretty weird girl - and to be honest, I was weird too. On the other hand, there was a peaceful quality to being with Silvia - she was a very silent, very reserved, very to herself kind of girl. If I was the noise, she was the silence. And those early moments we spent in this tranquility I realize I didn't value as much as I should have back then. I was far too fragile inside to be able to deal with peace. To think that someone could love me. By then I was already having an extreme difficulty believing in someone, let alone trust them. But I came to learn that for Silvia it was the same thing. She had erected walls around her heart and her soul, and I was pulling them down, gradually. And so was she, in regards to mine own inner defenses, but it took far longer for her to reach my core than it did me to reach hers. 

Fairly early on, we had sex for the first time - and while it wasn't outstanding, it was good enough, quite likely the best sex I'd had in years. But even that didn't seem enough to make me want to stay. And so, a few weeks into our rtelationship, she took a few days off from work and went back home to spend some time with her family. During that time, though we talked, we weren't together. So I took that time to formulate how the break-up would come about. After she returned, she asked me to go meet her at her place, and I thought that would be that. But when I got there I realized that I had missed her, that I had felt her absence. And so had she - so much so that soon we were at it, and this time... this time was real good. And I thought that, if nothing else, I could cling on to good sex, for a while at least. But... that wouldn't be enough, would it? Not by a longshot. And so as time passed and we built our relationship, I always kept a part of me from her at arm's length. I couldn't fully open uo my heart to her. I was hurt, and hurting. And that hurt her too. But she stood by my side for as long as her patience allowed, she used to go to my DJ nights just to keep me company, and we always had those cozy moments just to ourselves that I took for granted. And then, sometime in mid-2007 things came crashing down. I told her things just weren't working out, that maybe we weren't a good fit, that we should go our own ways. She challlenged this, and very nearly convinced me to back down. Unfortunately, I had to start losing her to realize just how much she meant to me.

Day One hundred and twenty five - Sylvia

It was my friend Hugo who first started his blog - long since abandoned - and a bunch of his friends soon got theirs. Some lasted a little bit only, some others lasted a few years, but none are extant still. Not even my first iteration of that blog I had exists - I'd eventually come to delete it, and create a new one. But for a year or so, United States of Mind was where I irregularly posted about whatever. Sometimes it'd be ramblings, sometimes it'd be just the lyrics to a song I was obsessing over. Nothing really ever terribly profound, though I did think I had the best blog around. I didn't, obviously, but I was too full of myself. Someone else who also had a blog back then was Hugo's then girlfriend, and I used to visit her blog a lot. It was very sophisticated and literary, always a delight to read whatever she posted. Then one day - one fateful day - I noticed a comment in her one of her recent posts by someone named 'sil', who'd left a Samuel Beckett quote there. I felt curious. Intrigued. And so I clicked on her profile - you could tell from the profile picture that it was, indeed, a girl - and I started reading and following her blog. Again, this was far more sophisticated than mine own ever was, but I did no let that deter me. I started to make my presence felt there, and eventually we started talking via messenger as well. In one of those conversations, we exchanged phone numbers, and soon I was asking he out. Our first date was pretty damn weird - and that would set the tone for the relationship we'd be in for the next five years. We met up early in the afternoon, and went for a long walk. God only knows what we talked about, but we stayed together well into the evening, likely had a meal somewhere, then some drinks. For the longest time I got the feeling that Silvia actively disliked me, but I might've misread the whole situation. There was something I wanted to try - I asked for her hand, and she held it out to me and I held it. For the first time in the longest time it didn't feel alien to me. A part of me - albeit a small one at the time - realized that maybe, just maybe... she was the one. As the first wee hours of the morning started coming up, we kissed : a part of me remembers her pressed against a wall, and she pulled me in close to her, our lips locking for the first time. It had begun, and in no way, shape or form could I ever imagine just what was coming my way.

But I have to be honest here and admit that during the early days of the relationship I didn't think we'd make it. I was still in a bad place on an emotional level, and Silvia was never the easiest person to decipher. In fact, about two weeks into our relationship I'd decided I'd be calling it quits.

Day One hundred and twenty four - Rain

But Sara's absence left a gaping maw in my heart. I was so used to pining for her endlessly, to think about her, and to chastise myself for what I felt for her. All that was gone now. I felt empty. It's early 2006, and I'm not sure yet what I'd be doing moving forward. I think I only found a job in February, and that one I was only thankfully there for a short time - very soon after I started working there, I was talking to one of my previous Area Managers, and I found out she'd moved on to a different company, and when I asked her if she had any openings for me, she asked me to forward her my CV and I'd be sorted out quickly. But just before that, a couple of weird things happened : one would turn out to be something of a hobby that I'd be into for the next few years, and that would provide me with a small source of additional income, and the other was finding out that Ana - the girl I briefly dated back in 2004 - had gotten together with Pedro, a guy who I worked with, and though we all were sort of in the same scene together, it was well known that there was some bad blood between them, and that they actively disliked each other. Funny how things turn out. Funnier still how soon after they'd welcome a baby girl to the world, and what would her name be? Why, of course it's Cassandra, the very same name I'd told Ana that I'd give my daughter, should I ever have one. Funny how things turn out indeed.

That hobby thing was me starting to 'DJ' - and the quotes are fully warranted, because I was more of song selecter/queuing up said songs/pressing play on one deck and stop on the other deck rather than an actual DJ. But I loved doing it, and I think I was pretty decent at it, and I always fancied my taste in music to be pretty spot on. But still, my very first time doing it was nerve wracking. I spent hours agonizing over the perfect playlist, even going to the extremes of adding up how much the minutes totalled to, so I wouldn't risk going over my alloted time or whatever, and when the night finally came I realized just how futile planning ahead had been. Sure, I played some of the tracks I meant to, but everything else was just on the spot improv. I loved how that night went, and though only maybe a couple of people attended - it was like on a tuesday night - it was enough for me to have further spots there moving forward, and that experience would lead me to getting more opportunities in the very near future in other places. 

All this said, by March I'd be working on the place where I'd spend the next couple of years. It should be mentioned that I had started my first blog in or around 2005, maybe as early as 2004, and having that blog would come to shape how my next five years would turn out to be.

Day One hundred and twenty three - Dangerous

I knew going in, that when I went to meet up with Catherine, that things wouldn't be likely to go that well. And by this I mean to say I already knew that Catherine and I just weren't meant to be - though far away now, my heart still beat for Sara. It's stupid, I know, but I just couldn't let got of what I felt. I just couldn't forget her. I did try, but this being the era when social networks really began being a thing - me and her were friends on Hi5 - it felt like she was still an ubiquitous presence in my life. And we never really stopped talking, we spoke on messenger all the time. I hoped that if I wento to be with Catherine then everything else might be assuaged, but there was too big an ocean between what we wanted for our lives. Back then I stil harboured the notion of really settling down, and maybe having more children - a baby girl, at the very least - and Catherine's priorities were completely opposite to that. Her focus was academia and then her career, and who could blame her? Someone of that caliber was surely bound to have a really bright future ahead. So I stayed there with her in Brighton for a few weeks, we had bad sex a few times, went out once or twice, but most of our time together there was just whiling away the hours, often in silence, until we went to sleep, and the following day the process would begin anew. After a few weeks I went back to Luton, and I guess both me and Catherine understood that we'd never be together again, and I also realized that I was feeling truly miserable there, and I wanted nothing more than go back gome again. I started making my plans for my return - I was fast running out of money, so I needed to buy the cheapest flight possible. As I recall it, I returned home just before Christmas 2005 - I told Catarina that I'd be spending the holidays with my son, and then I'd be back. I even left pretty much everything I'd taken with me there.

Not only did I never return - well, at least not to Luton - but I never talked to Catarina again. This was not on purpose, or by design, it's just how things played out. Maybe she, too, knew that I was leaving and didn't plan on returning.

Back home, once again, and that Rubicon I'd crossed, hoping that it would carry me onwards, was crossed again on my way back with my tail between my legs, so to speak. And, of course, one of the very first things I do when I got back is get together with Sara. It was a wise thing I did, because enough time had passed for me to realize I'd been clinging on to a fantasy. There were things in her I barely recognized anymore, and things I once had found endearing had become things I actively disliked. I don't think I've seen her more than once or twice since then.

Day One hundred and twenty two - The may song

It goes without saying that before I made my decision to leave, let alone plan for it, I talked to both Dora and Ian. Me and Dora managed to maintain a good relationship after we broke up, and we talked about what was going on in my life, how I was feeling, how I felt I needed to get away from it all. And they understood - bear in mind that Ian was still five years old then, but I talked to him and said that I hoped that me going back to the U.K. might help him have a better life as well. It was my hope that, if things went as I planned them to go, that I could provide even more for him.

So, as expected, Catarina was there in Luton airport to pick me up. That's where she actually lived in, Luton, on the outskirts of London. She took me to her place - a nice, little house ideal for a single person, and two were already making it feel a bit crowded. She said I'd be sleeping in a fold-out couch, to which I didn't object. I unpacked the admittedly very few things I'd brought with me, and then she took me around the town to show me where everything was. Luton is not a big town, not by any means, and there's a whole lot of it that's rather centralized in one area, and that was quite near from where she lived. I made a notice of a couple of bookstores nearby that I'd intend to visit in the near future. I was on a very limited budget, but there were a few books I wanted to buy as soon as I could. So I settled in, and for the first few days, all I did was stay home, and apply for jobs online. I found no openings in or around Luton, so I expanded my radius to London proper. But as the weeks passed and no job offers arrived, I started feeling despondent. And as winter was fast approaching, I found out that Catarina really didn't have heating - and if during the day it was barely bearable, the nights were getting really hard to endure. She told me that if I wanted to, I could sleep next to her in her bed, but there was something more that she was insinuating. If I'm honest, I did notice pretty soon that she was making some moves, but she was a pretty weird girl... nice, but weird. And at that exact moment in time, I had no space in my life for more of thr weird variety. I think we only had the one night where we slept together in her bed, but I never felt comfortable. I could tell she wanted something else... and I just couldn't give whatever she needed to her. I'd begun realizing just how emptied of everything I'd become. I truly felt like everything that made me 'me' had been stripped away from me. And very soon I'd have to go and meet Catherine to spend some time with her. I dreaded it.