The Croatian paradise

Rovinj is the European equivalent to Zanzibar, the paradise on the Earth. Run-down windows, decaying walls, speechless windows and streets in which cars are unable to fit now & tomorrow. The town is bursting with joy and laughter and things simply feel good in this city. Cafes sprinkled around the Stari Grad (old town), homemade ice cream with a selection of pistachio and yoghurt and whatever your mind can think of. Italian tourists speaking their own language and the Croatian is tuned down from place to place as they have lost their position as an overwhelming majority in this part of the country. You take the hand of you loved one in secret, because someone could still you & scream something at you, yell, mock, attack, but you are too much in love with the serenity, with the silent words craved in the air for centuries and and most importantly you are too much in love with a person who is everything to your mind & heart & soul. Rovinj holds you tightly & 

everything is alright once again.

They want to be something

-- wandering, lingering.

Once you were not much to look at.

Today you are beautiful.

Take a coffee in this street

-- watch them wandering, lingering

while you sip your coffee & smoke a cigarette.

It goes on & on,

never ends.

And it all is so old, you think.

I think I fell in love with the windows

-- they have told me more than you could ever

said even if you read aloud the dictionary to me.

We all linger, wander.

But we live, too.

What is happening?

Take my hand &

you will be safe.

It has been impossible to write lately. Four years ago I wrote stories every second night, because there was nothing else to do. I had no other life than fictional, containing of words that never existed anywhere else than in my mind. I would bring the unreal world alive artificially, but no matter how hard I would try, it would be nothing more than imagination and painted images in a place, which is visited only by few. Since meeting S last year, I had had too much happening in my life. There is always something that takes my time, either it's me sobbing for not being with him or it's me being so happy for being with him. I ceased writing long time ago and I am afraid that I will never be able to write ever again, that stories, the fiction, the imagination slipped through my fingers. My only reason to write so I can live in a world that would be only mine, that would be my creation and that no one else would be able to touch, perhaps I was too afraid of living in this place where everyone else seems to live, too. When I was with my ex-boyfriend, I still found time to write my miseries and worries down, everything was under control. Things have changed since I met S in Strasbourg over a year ago. And I think I should be happy about the fact that I have no need to escape anymore. However, I miss it. There. I said it. I miss escaping.

I have lived in Croatia for six months now, a bit more than that. I moved here, because I was in love with a Croatian man who had finished his university-degree when I only started my high school. There has been a lot of tears and bashing heads against the wall - literally. Sometimes I wonder what happened, at what point I decided to take the control for real. Everything was fine previously. Studying with a full scholarship at a prestigious university in the United States. Getting drunk with people who enjoyed life more than they enjoyed misery. Flying in the clouds with friends who would call you at 5am after a long night of partying, wanting a friend next to them, worried for themselves and not knowing what to do. Studying hard in order to get an A in Arabic and making the dreams come true, the dreams you thought you still had at the moment. And still with a full confident I can say I have never been happier than in my current city. I am happier here than I was last fall in Paris with him. I am content, although worried very often. I get anxious from time to time and I pick up fights with him, because I am insecure. I am afraid and there are too many things that make me feel sick and keep awake in the nights. I wonder what life would be like if I had not come here. I think that maybe I lost my freedom too fast, too early, perhaps I committed before I should had. These thoughts do rush in my mind and then I doubt my happiness, my decisions but I have realized that there will be always things that are not as you wish them to be. There will be an endless number of things you want, it is a cycle and no one is able to escape from that, no matter how much you write, dream, sing, reminisce... Even after everything, I know I am happy. Even with every single doubt that I have in my mind.

I feel like writing now, because he's sleeping the next door, snoring and I am awake, because there are worries and nostalgia keeping me away from resting my eyes. My friend, who became my friend four year ago when we two were selected as the UWC-scholars to Swaziland, visited me here. She is the first friend of mine who ever saw him and I have been with him for one year, three months. Everything felt suddenly real and I became nostalgic, craving for the past, wanting life to be easy. I remember how simple things were when I lived in Swaziland, although at the time it seemed as if everything was collapsing and there was no way to cope with the problems. My time in Croatia is coming to end; I am moving next fall to the Netherlands to start my Bachelors-degree once again. He is trying to find a job there, but most of the time life gets in your way and you and everyone around you becomes sad. People ask me aren't you a bit too old to start university, aren't you afraid that you did the wrong decision last December by dropping out from the college? In a year I have seen the United States, Canada, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Austria and Hungary. In the next following two months I will see Spain, Bulgaria and maybe Slovenia and Turkey. I live with the man who is more than the man of my dreams. I am content and I can tell everything to someone who is there for me literally all the time. I have experienced more life, more feelings and emotions that I had ever witnessed before making the decision that brought me here. I am alive in the real world.

That's what is happening.