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I was not sure if it was you.

And I am still not sure if it is you.

I attempted to learn ten consonants of Indian alphabets two hours ago and I believe if I continue studying all these letters and things that simply make no sense, I could learn to read and write my mother language in less than two weeks. Perhaps not fluently, maybe I will not be India's next prestigious poet and most probably I will give up in weeks, but I still need to try. A few years ago I had the habit of making a list of things that I should do when the New Year knocked your heart and entered with fireworks. I tended to make the list vague and general so it could apply to every single person in the world, but the following list is for my mind, for my heart, for my crumbling world as I need some things that could keep my universe intact. Each year is heavier and more difficult than the earlier one - and each year I would like to believe things will change - and each year I cry more than in the previous one - and with more sadness, I am merrier. But I need stability. I need something constant as right at the moment the ground on which I walk shifts and changes too often and I fall and soon enough I will be incapable of standing up on my own anymore. Change is necessary and this time I will be the change.

1. I will learn to read and write Hindi and in addition to that, I will begin to study French and will be able to produce a short story by end of the year in both languages. The stories will be happier than any other story that I have written in my life. They will be also the first stories I have written since 2009.
2. Tell my mother and father and my brothers, how much I love them & care for them. They have been there always, they have done the best for me and without their help and support I would have been unable to do all the things I have done in my life. Including writing stories about falling love & falling out from love.
3. Read at least twelve academic books. I am too puzzled to elaborate this.
4. Be more in touch with my friends. In last five, six years, after living in  Finland, Swaziland, the United States, Croatia, the Netherlands and attending seminars in Ukraine and Spain, I believe I have all the people I need in my life. I just need to revive the relationships and be happy about the fact that I have encountered all these people in my life.
5. Be happier. It is easier than either of us could imagine.

It feels strange to back in Finland once more. I wish I could go back in the past and never move.
I guess I am just afraid of life.

I want to be a writer

My attempt to tell stories about snowman who has fallen in love with the sun (as absurd as it might sound), my attempt to document the days of this love story and share with the world perhaps one of the most beautiful and devastating love stories has been everything else than a success. To undress this story and put everything into simple words that we all are able to understand and comprehend: He moved to Brussels three weeks ago, he left Croatia, his parents, his friends, he left the city where he had lived for twenty-eight years to move across Europe to be closer to me. Hundreds of job applications (I know it sounds so unromantic, maybe I am better off telling the stories about the stars and boats and oceans) were sent to people who never replied back. Well that is an over exaggeration because some employers were kind enough to answer and tell him that although his CV and application looks great, there were several good applications and unfortunately at this time he was not short-listed. I sent him an email over and over again, telling him I am too sad too lonely too miserable and I had good friends in the Hague who tried to cheer me up and said that Nitin everything is alright, he will move to Brussels soon and things will be better. And oh how I could not stop thinking how this all reminded me of the past when I was in the United States and the people closest to kept saying over and over again that everything is alright, he will move to Canada and in the end I was too depressed, clinically depressed, to cope with life and I had to pack up my one suitcase that I had and move to Croatia, to be closer to him. And yet when I look at the things a year back, I feel like we made no progress, that the snowman is further away from the sun than a year ago and we go around this vicious circle in which our paths never cross because we go a circle, there is no intersection. 

I wish I could tell everything I wish I could start writing again and this has been my problem for several months I complain about how I never write whenever I get the slightest chance to write and I want to tell you everything and I want you to comfort me and I want you to tell me Nitin, you write beautifully, Nitin this and that and those words from the strangers who follow your life out of curiosity and somehow somewhat become your friends, friends that you never meet and you still feel like they are everything you are looking for in a friend. New Year's Eve is coming up and it has been two years since I wrote a story of any kind and I am worried that I have lost all my talent, my ability to tell human beings about falling in love with someone who would fall in love with you, because my life has became too concrete, too literal, too actual and words simply make no sense, written words bare nothing else than fiction, utter fiction.

And yet everything what I have written now conveys more emotions than I could simply describe with spoken words... Stories, sentences, dots, birds and written alphabets used to be my friends that would backstab me in the end. And even though that all happened, they are still my friends and I miss them. I wanted to be a writer. And I still want to be.

While it still is October

We went to Amstelveen travelled for an hour and fifteen minutes searching for an Indian festival of lights, one of the holiest holidays of the nation. Had a bottle of German white wine, enjoyed the saxophone with electronic dance music and the fireworks that were blown into the sky. Randomly took a bus to Amsterdam and walked along the streets blending into the crowd and no one anymore cared who or what you were. The city reminds me of absolute freedom an idealistic utopia that should have a place only in your mind. However, in Amsterdam things become real and you feel like you have missed you entire life when you see in pink-neon lights "SEX CINEMA" and the opposite of it we have a Tibetan restaurant what else could you imagine there?

The first time I came to Amsterdam - it was just a few days before I moved to Swaziland & before I turned eighteen & started drinking & smoking - I found it be the best place on the Earth. I saw kids running around the red light district where the smell of the weed is the norm the daily routine and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Sex shops next to a kind toy store, gay boy kisses & the touch of eternal freedom shivers your spine and you feel the feeling rushing through your veins and yet with all the adrenaline, everything is still perfect.

On Monday-morning new classes will start & I believe its everything else than an opening a new chapter in my life.

Dance with me

It has been a long time since I last wrote. I have been feeling awfully nostalgic sometime now and I thought it would be good if I wrote my feelings down like I did two years ago. Since I was fourteen I kept a blog, describing my life and movements in Helsinki, needing more and more comments, the more I would get the more I would write about my life and I have everything kept safe. From the point when I first thought I had fallen in love in Durban to my suspension for hosting a member of the opposite sex overnight at the boarding school. But there is only a little written about what happened this year. The older I grew, the less I began to write. Things got more complicated, more real and somehow someway the writing ceased. Now, this night, I had decided to write somethings for myself to remember when I read this ten years after:

I have met some amazing people at my new school in the Hague; I thought I could never find friends that I had had before and it seemed very likely the first week I spent in my new hometown. And everything changed a bit by bit, things happened and I found myself laughing with so many different people. Things seemed to work out when coming to the social life - I had good friends to whom I could talk whenever wherever. I think some have unconsciously already became such friends.

Even though I'm overwhelmingly sad about the fact that I don't see S, I seem to cope. I had a devastating week and I felt giving in and drinking alcohol excessively, which last year resulted in dropping out from university in the United States and moving in with a man that I had known for two weeks physically and seven months virtually. This week was terrible. I had presentations after presentations and I freeze and fail. It is a common feeling, isn't it?

However, I am still sad. I miss the touch, I miss the feeling of being next to your loved one, waking up next to him, feeling happy and living your life. I am sad, but I am happy, because when you know this feeling, you know that you are in love and this will never let you down - even when you are sad, it does not let you down. I miss S, but things will work out. Everything will be alright.

Happy Birthday S!

S with his two (out of four) bitches as he calls them.

It was his birthday yesterday - he turned twenty-eight, although I constantly teased him and said you are actually thirty because your mother thinks I am a year older than I actually am. He responded every single time with a boyishly innocent smile and said that no, I am now twenty-two years old. Once I said oh you have already reached the age where you have to start counting backwards and he gave me a "Let's-Pretend-I'm-Angry"-look. I kissed him and laughed. I love you, my dearest.

I had been planning his birthday for a long time - I wanted and needed everything to be perfect, because he had told me many times that he is always unhappy on his birthdays and there's usually nothing to look forward to that day. The whole last week I ran from one place to another, trying to reach his friends so they could make a short video clip for him. I had to contact his friends from Belgrad, Podgorica, Rovinj, Zagreb, Brussels and ask them to make something for him, because these friends are dear to him. I asked one of his friends to translate a text message so I could send it to his mother who spoke no English, because I wanted his mother to be in the video, too. I browsed through several different shops in the city in order to find a perfect wallet for him as his old one was crumbling into pieces. I secretly met his friend, Danijela, and together we ordered a heart-shaped fruit cake, flowers delivered to our apartment for the birthday-morning and reserved a restaurant which would allow us to bring the cake. I told her to join the dinner with an another friend of his, but not to tell him - I wanted to keep everything as a surprise. I found Indian curry that I decided to make for birthday lunch, I bought sweets that he enjoys, I got him soap bubbles to feel like a child once again, I burned the corners of a piece of paper and coffee-stained it and wrote a short love letter on the eve of his birthday. I baked blueberry muffins when he was sleeping so I could surprise in the morning when he wakes up. I wanted and needed everything to be perfect.

However, the cunning future planted surprised for me and step by step imperfection was coming closer. The restaurant informed me later that they would be close next week and they were deeply sorry about it. The other option told my friend that they have free space, but the cake is not allowed. The video was too long (52 minutes) and my MacBook constantly said it cannot be burned on DVD. When putting the tray of blueberry muffins in the owen, the tray fell twice and so did the muffins. He found parts of my gifts, because I was too clumsy and he also announced that he might be sad on his birthday, because his family is having problems. I began to be devastated and sad and wanted to give up, tell him I'm so so so sorry, but I cannot do this, I cannot make your day perfect, I cannot make you happy, I'm incapable to reach your standards. It was all too difficult.

In the morning, he woke up early and kissed me with a sad smile - he said later that he was feeling bad in the morning because it was his birthday. I went quickly to the shop to buy ice cream and candles - I smashed bananas and mixed them with milk and ice cream and vanilla sugar and there it was, the first milkshake I had ever met - I put the candles on the muffins that looked awful. I put our music to play and changed the television screen to "Happy Birthday, S!"-image. Flowers arrived soon after, gifts were given and French toast with syrup and jam was served. We tried to watch South Park online, but the connection was too slow and I told him that I could put a movie on. He began to play with his phone, I put my video on the memory stick and started to play the project on which I had been working on for the whole week. He asked me what's this, then he got silent, then he laughed... Fifty minutes of emotions that are familiar to every single human being. He said it was the best thing that he had ever received and that no one ever has done something like this for him. I told him that he is special and deserves even more that I could offer.

He was pleasantly surprised to see his friends at the restaurant, he was shocked with the size of cake and about the fact that there even was a cake, he told me I love you several times and even more he said Thank you when there was no need for it. In the night he took me to the bedroom, took my clothes off and held me tightly and said that he has not been this happy in a long time, he adores me and that he knows that we will be together for rest of our lives. I turned my back to him in order to sleep, I could feel his naked body pressing against mine and he told me he enjoys holding me when he falls asleep, that he was surprised when last week a couple that visited us slept so apart from each other because he could never be able to sleep without feeling my touch.

I said happy birthday for the last time

& we fell asleep.

To destroy everything that matters to you

With the clouds unknown approaches...

And happiness might be just around the corner.

Today I fought with him in a way that it is unforgivable. I said words that carried pain, but not a slightest bit of truth. I spoke things that made no sense to either of us and I saw him crashing down once again. It was not my world that was in the boxing ring getting punched one after another, but his and I was betting, our love on the stake. I have been afraid all the time about the future, living apart from him in the Netherlands that I had started to create a distance between us, building it artificially in order for me to leave easier and be happier in a place where I really don't want to be, but have to be. He tries so hard to get a job in the Netherlands, but time after time he's world is knocked out and instead of me picking it up, I walk upon it. Words slipped out of my mouth, my feeling for you have changed and there was no way to take them back. A hint of doubt was planted in his mind and everything got worse, no matter how many apologizes I write down, what words come out of my throat, how I would pick up his world from the ground, that will be never taken away. He looked at me with eyes that held tears back, you've given up on us haven't you and there's a moment of silence instead of a straight-forward two-lettered word. I love you. I love you, too. Why do you this to me, why do you make me sad? I don't know. Why do you say these things what do you mean? I don't know. What do you want do you want me to leave you do you want us to break up? No, I don't. Tell me what you want please tell me even if you don't love me anymore, please be honest, I think I deserve honesty, even if you don't love me, I don't deserve this, I am a good person N, I love you, I love you endlessly. 

There should be a word for to crumble your loved one's world with the intention of crumbling your love one's world whilst being more in love with your loved one than ever before. 

In English language the term is: madness.

Not alright

at one point our paths crossed in the sky.
but we did not know how to stop moving forward.

Helsinki, December 2008.

find a song that makes you happy. whenever you'd play you'd feel this joy in you. even if only briefly. post random messages around your hometown. leave a note in the bus saying 'I'd like to be your friend, but I'm too scared'. go to a tourist information and speak in English with a strong foreign accent. ask ridiculous questions. apologize every minute. tell them that you are from Moldova. smile. be sad and be happy and be joyful and be jealous and be whatever you want to be as long as you are not afraid of being what you are. it is hard. if nothing else, then be alone. and be what you want to be. write a letter. write about yourself. things that you like about yourself. things that you like about the world. things that you like. things that make you happy. pick a telephone directory. browsed until you find a name that you really like. take the address and send the letter to that person. one morning wake up earlier than your mother. make breakfast for her. ask your mother what was her dream when she was young. what did she want to become? what's her favorite color? did she have her own room in her childhood? take a local bus that you have never taken. take your camera and preferably your friend. talk about the things that you did yesterday. keep your eyes on the view. get out of the bus at a random stop and take another public transportation. get lost. wonder. be with your friend and get to know him/her. don't worry about what will happen. (take a phone, too. just in case, but turn it off.) go through your old photos. see what you used to be. see what you are now. embrace yourself. love yourself because you came this far. it has been a rough, difficult journey but do realize that you're still standing and breathing and living and that if nothing else is already an accomplishment. when someone compliments you don't start arguing with the person. accept it. say thank you if you cannot say anything else. imagine that the person was being serious. picture a scenario where a person really enjoys you and likes your work. feel good about it. feel amazing about it. feel free to be a good person. write a note to yourself. 'everything will be okay' and put it somewhere where you'll see it all the time. because everything will be okay.

Everything should be alright. Yesterday I found out that my new university will offer me a full scholarship covering the tuition fees and the rent.

Yet everything around you & me crumbles.
And the sad man is left to pick up the pieces of things that existed a second ago.

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.

Complexity

They say things will be easy when you grow up; the universe will expand and the marriage between the oceans will be legalized. However, the more you become older the more complex things seem to get. One moment you worry about the papers that you might have lost and the next second you have to cook as relatives that you probably have not seen since your cousin got married in Hong Kong a few years ago decided to drop by out of nowhere. We always think as children that oh only if I was fifteen and could do everything; at that age you realize that there are even more things that are denied and you keep wishing to be older; by the time you reach the age when everything is allowed, nothing seems to be tempting anymore. Life has taken over you and Hong Kong and Paris and Rio de Janeiro are dreams that you can only dream of and they are even more distant than they used to be. And suddenly you wish you were a child again.

I should be content at this moment; I am in love with a person who loves me. That used to be my dream, that used to be everything that I wanted and that was all. I thought if that ever happened, everything would be perfect and dreams were not needed anymore. However, dreams are still necessary and unfortunately we crave even more. I am in Croatia and there is nothing do as I barely can say my name in the language that was completely unfamiliar to my tongue. My loved one has his work, his life, his family, his friends, his thing in this city and I am beginning to get used of feeling being "all by myself". I spent daily nine hours doing almost nothing, wondering and littering the streets of Osijek and there is a little else I can do. My friend said I am like an American middle-class housewife only without children and certainly the feeling strikes to be fairly similar. I have no education nor can I become anything. My work is completely nothing and everything is handled by my husband; I have no authority and no knowledge and I seem to be a puppet with strings. I just follow and I have never followed before in my life. It makes me feel empty.

Last week I found out that University of Maastricht wants to interview me and I am rather terrified as it is the only university that has given me an invite for an interview. I know I am in a weak position. I am a kid that threw away Middlebury College in order to live with the person I love. I wish things were simple. However, now I believe they will never be simple anymore. They will only get more complex.

(Photo from New Delhi, Summer 2009.)

Another love story

Things changed last year; there was no going back anymore. An acceptance letter to a study session in Strasbourg. An early flight from Helsinki to Frankfurt and terrified feeling taking over me as I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I had became a smoker a few weeks earlier and craved for a cigarette after a short flight; I was petrified, because I had no idea what I was doing. When I arrived to Strasbourg, I was exhausted and terribly panicky. I wanted to go back to Finland & be comfortable with my surrounding. And then something unexpected happened -- I fell in love.

he came and talk to me on Monday when I was presenting United World Colleges to our conference. we talked but I thought it all was harmless because I assumed he was straight he invited me to their party and our group went there the first thing he does he greets me and serves me alcohol I drank different kinds of alcohol from Balkan and I'm starting to feel dizzy. a Macedonian guy from my group kisses me, but my head's exploding because the only thing I want is to kiss the Croatian guy tell him how beautiful he is so I escape to him and we got to his room drunk and exhausted. I wake up next to him he smiles gently and I fall in love with his eyes he kisses me I'm reserved and torn apart because never before I had ended up in a bed with a stranger. I tell him I'll ignore him that day I don't give him a reason and he thinks I'm just joking. everything starts to fall.

we didn't talk to each other for three days after that. I had left my food coupons in his room, but he never returned them to me. he tried to talk to me the very first day but I was too embarrassed so nothing happened. we try to meet each other I stay behind so I could meet him but he comes with someone else I wait for him in the dining area but he's delayed and even his friends poke me and say hi and text him that 'come down Slaven, he's here alone' but nothing happens. on Friday he grabs me out of the cafeteria says he's tired of games we used Marija from Serbia as our communication tool he asks if I wish to watch movies with him that night I tell him yes he kisses me gently no one sees us.

that night I went to his room again found myself in a situation that was everything else than I was losing all my principles even when I was sober. kissing him the sound of his breath his gentle touches on my neck everything made sense at that moment.

he took me to Strasbourg for lunch. we went to Mc Donald's as it had became some kind of a joke between us two he bought my meal and I felt slightly awkward about it and I didn't know how to eat in front of him but I loved watching him listening him speaking about his country telling about the situation between Slovenia and Croatia learning about his past current future. he speaks fluent French he's good with people he held my hand in Strasbourg in front of anyone we kissed publicly in the city and I felt as everything that I had ever wanted I had gotten now with him. we spoke about children he asked me if I wanted any I said yes he said me too we dropped the conversation, but in my head I started imagining and painting pictures. the lunch in Strasbourg was beautiful we tried to ask people to take a photo of us two but people were too busy they didn't have time to stop we wandered around and I felt good with him. we ran to the tram without tickets and obviously we got busted and fined 26 euros. I'd have paid more just to be with him.

I spent some parts of Sunday night with him went back to farewell party then again to his room around at 3am and decided that I'll travel with him to Frankfurt at 6am although my originally plan was to leave at 9am. we talked kissed spoke touched danced looked played listened things you do things you enjoy but we didn't sleep because suddenly his alarm clock began to buzz and I'm like you're kidding me you're seriously kidding me and it was 5:30am and I hadn't even packed yet. so I run to my room pack everything lost my friendship-book and took a cab to the train station with his group. I felt grumpy and restless no cigarettes in a long time and I was doubting myself again. and then something really strange happened. I realized I don't wish to leave this guy. no. or tomorrow. we kissed in the train. we actually kissed from Strasbourg until he checked-in. people children grandmothers aunts policemen ticket-inspectors black everyone stared at us but we continued kissing holding hands feeling good about each other making the world understand that we don't care. he fell asleep on my arms for a minute or two I loved him his smell his breath everything about him we changed trains three times and on the last one we didn't have any seats so we just sat in front of the door and kissed and held hands we went to the airport café for breakfast he wanted to buy me breakfast I told him no but ended up buying hot chocolate I sat next to him kissed him while he was eating his breakfast he fed me potatoes and smiled and I told him I might be falling for you he said I love you and asked me if I wanted a boy or a girl I said a girl and he was me, too, we wouldn't survive with a boy because neither of us knows any sports and I laughed. I said that he could teach her cook and then he said I could give her fashion advices and I grinned and kissed him again.

every time he smiled this ghost in me switched on feel good-emotion. every time he kissed this paranoia in me switched on you're in love-emotion. every time I saw him the world looked wonderful everything was amazing nothing could have gone wrong and I couldn't stop thinking of him soon. when he left I felt sad. but honestly it's better off me meeting him for a week than never meeting him. I just think that he'll be the one for me. the one that will tease my mind for the rest of my life. even after six years if I meet him and I'm happily with someone my feelings for him would be stronger than for anyone else. yesterday we were planning to meet again. I was imagining us two moving together. things that I shouldn't do. things that you do when you're in love.

- N, March 3, 2009

take my hand come closer and kiss me when everyone is looking at us.

in the tunnel speaking words saying goodbyes crying because nothing else make sense.

running running running forgot your ticket and inspectors demand for money you say I'm sorry I was in love.

we go to the cinema and the only movie I'm able to watch is you.

in hurry in rush madam please can you take a photo of us no sorry I'm not in love and don't wish to take a photo of love.

the only thing that the tree desires is to be a James Bond and in love. you don't need both I say. love is enough.

apples red green yellow which one is your favorite it used to be green but now it's your.

people come and go they enter your life and find a door out. you took me to Mc Donald's and I never find my way out. but I had you.

the train station had never said I love you so many times. neither had the train.

the stars up there and you down here with me.

this story is read only to few. it started with he's the only thing in my mind. it ended with he's the only thing my mind and I'm the only thing in his mind.

speak a little more so I don't have to stop listening to you. strasbourg 2009.

A few days after we had departed, I received an email from you that makes me heart tremble every time I read it.

Dragi N,

Everyone likes you too N, I heard so many nice things about you, but I don't need to hear about your qualities, I can see them myself. Besides being the best looking man I've ever seen, I enjoy you so much, I love your smile, I love that you are international as I am, I like that you are not like other guys, you are warm and giving. God damn you, N, I really can't stop thinking of you. I think of you whole day, days already. I don't think of anything else, absolutely nothing, just you, and our reunion. My friends are shocked how I act, since they've never seen me so euphoric before, so happy, so sad, so emotional. Some of them even compared me with a woman during PMS :) See what you are doing to me.

I would love to see us by the end of the year living somewhere in the world, me working in some NGO/political international organisation or whatever, you studying. We would live together, I would cook for you (as I am a really good cook), we would walk down the street every day and hold for hands, kiss in metro, train, plane....where ever. And later having children together, you would be an amazing dad, we would be so happy.... damn you N, I already picture you as my husband. I really do.

I look horrible now, no sleep, haven't shaved for days, I am totally lost, I am not productive, I don't do ANYTHING on the work, I don't have my usual hyperactivity, creativity, all my energy is invested into you, and I am soooo disappointed I did not chat with you N, I am so disappointed, I am afraid I won't be able to sleep at all :( I just want to hear your voice..... so badly.

I love you.

s

We were not suppose to be together; I booked tickets for Budapest in March to see him, but my parents found out about us and stopped me. He booked tickets for Helsinki in May, but he was unable to come, because at the same time my relatives from the Netherlands came to discuss my "situation". In summer, I left for India and stayed there for seven weeks. We only met in August -- five months after -- and one week in Paris & Strasbourg was more than I had ever imagined. However, then I left for the United States and he was suppose to move with me. Everything failed.

In December I decided to drop out from college & move to Croatia. Last weekend we celebrated our one-year anniversary.

And I am more than happy.

Planning the future & forgetting the current

I am strong enough to tell you

I love you very much.

We plan future, we discuss what we should do today and tomorrow and next month and perhaps even what we have drawn for next five years. You talk about having children & so do I, but it really is irrelevant, because they are the ones who do scribbles on the walls of cities.

You are the reason why I undressed in the harbor

naked in front of the whole world

in front of

you.

Helsinki is in a total chaos; buses come whenever they are able to reach the destination; trains miss their stations, because they are too exhausted to carry frustrated passengers who are filling their guts; airplanes say we have had enough, we need to make love so we will be unable to forget how it feels to be in love; boats and ships break the ice in the sea, two lovers separated with force. And we plan the future.

You said

dress up, you will get cold.

I told

I won't, you keep me warm.

This story is a short one; when things go according to other person's plans, there are new opportunities for everyone else. Unfortunately we see only the shattered imaginary future in our plants instead of the seeds of something new. I wonder constantly where I will be next year -- maybe I continue living in Croatia. Perhaps I have shifted to the Netherlands. I never think of the United States again, but the truth is that I would like to go back.

The following morning I woke up next to you

still naked, clothes laying two feet away from us.

You opened your eyes and said

even the sunrise is not as beautiful as you are.

Things you do for love, they say.

Swaziland & Two years ago

To all those boys and girls and female-to-males and males-to-females and Lady Gagas who never thought they could never fall in love; to all those people who wonder the world and its stars and space and universe and seek for an answer to a question that can rarely asked in a company of two or more people; to all those birds flying across the sea determined to reach their destination in the stormy blizzard of winter; to the lions in the sea; to myself who is finally alive.

It has been three years since I moved to Swaziland, a country where in last four years I have spent most of the time. I came there with full of ideas and as a boy who was intolerant towards drugs and alcohol and aimed at changing the world in seconds, preferably quicker than in just seconds. I wore glasses every day in order to see the hilly landscapes of the traditional African country and I studied in a language that was foreign to me. I met people from countries that I had only read of on the Atlas when I was six-years-old. I was face to face with HIV/Aids and yet even with my glasses I was unable to see what was in front of me. And fairly soon the world was mocking me for dreaming of teaching Russian and Finnish in an American high school, to a few selected students who had a passion for awkward languages. The world stayed still; the changes happened in me.

By the time I left Swaziland, I had began to drink alcohol in amounts that I could had never believed was possible to drink. I kissed men and girls (not boys and women) and I enjoyed it. I lost my glasses and it was not the only thing I lost when it came to my appearance. Cigarettes were soon introduced and smoking only tobacco was barely enough, needed something else & better. For very long I was ashamed of every change that took place in me; disgusted and afraid. However, I realized now after reading my old entries from history that I constantly keep thinking only the bad modifications. Something good happened, too. Something better than good.

For the first time in my life I understood that it is fine. It really is fine.

-- Memories from Swaziland,

when everything was fine, too.

I just did not know it then.

Maybe what you need is (everything)

The story is still the same even if it has a different name and appearance -- nothing if anything at all has changed. I have been writing a blog for several years and in past year I have changed the address the title the layout at least seven times, because of things that happened last spring. I always play with an idea of starting a completely fictive blog, but it would have barely any chances to survive as my life seems already seems to be out of this reality. I avoid fiction, because this way I can look at my writings in four, six years and ponder to myself how many things, including myself, have changed in such a short period of time.

I used to tell everyone that I am a writer and I write poems, short stories and letters that are never sent. It has been a year since I wrote something that could be defined as a "creative work". Last year was everything else than productive; I fell in love with a man who was seven years older than I was and lived in the other side of Europe. My parents accidentally found out that I was in love and it still keeps eating the bond between us. I moved to the United States to study, but not only did I fall in love for the first time in my life last year I also fell into depression that had never happened before. I was a step closer to alcoholism and my behavior was out of control as I would be drunk almost every single day of the eleventh month. I ceased existing, but then I decided to do something that I could have never imagined to do. I dropped out from college and moved to a foreign country to live with the man with whom I fell in love in France approximately a year ago. My parents are from continent called Asia, I was born in continent named Europe, I finish my high school in the continent of Africa and last quarter of two-thousand-and-nine I spent in the new continent of North America. I have not stayed in one place for very long ever since I turned seventeen, but I guess I never had any kind of roots either.

This story, however, is not about the past. Last year is blurry; I have not much written down about the things that happened as there was absolutely too much happening. I moved too many times (shifted from Africa to Europe, then to the Americas and found myself again in Europe), nothing was concrete and literally butterflies were losing their wings to the predators. One day I will recall the things that happened last year with the aid of words, but now photographs will be thrown into the stage and actors and actresses shall be mute.

I am collecting the pieces of myself here.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.