Читать книгу The illusion of forever - Rolf van der Wind - Страница 7

Chapter III

A new man.

The day I return to my home country will never be the same as if I had never left. Sweden has changed me in more ways than someone can imagine. It may have been a slight change initially, but with time turned to be a dramatic difference in my way of seeing the world. Some of my life approaches were so confusing that I don't even recognize myself today. Once my mindset changed, everything had a different meaning.

Tomorrow I will be celebrating one year since my arrival in Europe. Looking back, I see the person I used to be. For me, success was everything, and the effect on me was horrible. Gladly things are distinct, and I cease to be obsessed with the idea of success and money.

I cannot help fearing that I will be thinking the same way about my actual way of living in ten or twenty years. The strangeness of time. Not in its passing, in the irreversibility that comes with constant change. No matter how long we could exist, the change will always be part of living. I like myself better today, but that does not mean I am continuously developing into something better. The scary part is that people do not realize how much the world around you changes until we hit a point where we must either change or self-destruct.

Some things touch me in inexplicable ways. A song, a sentence, or a thought while driving around the streets bring me an inch away from weeping, and somehow, I feel ashamed of my sentimentality. It is most distressing to have a sentimental heart.

Remembering my casual relation with girls, I can feel when there is a distance between the girl and me. I can sense a girl feeling the usual alienation from me because I did not automatically love or see important matters the same way. Almost every girl I know has a very grounded idea of how her life is supposed to develop. In no way would I say that man does not have a vision of the future, but we are more open to take crazy risks just for some inexplicable reason. You can hang out with another stupid person like you who is ready to play Russian roulette, and I doubt that person will be a woman.

I never thought to be a good boyfriend. My conception of forever is vaguely close to an inevitable end. I understood a long time ago while Carol was with me that there was a flaw in my reasoning, just as there was a deficiency in my ability to love.

Something pinned to me once. The awareness that time cannot be stopped and that there is no going back or regaining a heart for a moment or doing things differently. Carol is often in my mind but unreachable in my current reality. Maybe I am a sentimentalist who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without doing what is necessary to earn it.

There is a girl somewhere I have never seen before. She will be the person of a dream I had a night thousand years ago. Until then, I could not avoid worshiping others who had little bits of her. This way, the waiting does not turn into intolerable suffering.

In my confused mind, I do not put great affection on objects. To sentimentalize items would be to put too much importance into something that is not there. I do not keep photographs or souvenirs no necessity to put emotions on objects. If something stirs in us unique feelings, I force myself instead to look only at its reality.

To be known as a cold and lonely person did not bother me much. At least that is what I told myself on lonely nights when sleep eluded me and my fears hunted my peace while the cold wind pierced my soul.

A slow grin spreads across my face. A girl called me once a lover with attention deficit disorder, and probably that was an accurate description of myself years ago. Today I would undoubtedly get better ratings but never top grades. My problem is that I believed one girl would come my way and nurse me back to health. Having so many roads in front of me, knowing which leads to her, is the hard part. It is relatively easy to find someone willing to spend time with me, not for exceptional reasons, just for the simple reason that my work depends on having social interactions. The worse way to impress a girl is by forcing the moment. You may think getting somewhere and then all at once it gets awkward. If something is not natural, let it go. Most of the time, it will get you not what you wish. I enjoy the hours between a boy and a girl are in an acquainted relationship and the moment after. It happens in a whisper. Something starts developing, taking the relationship to look at her as a girl and her looking at me as a boy. A soft touch of her skin, a coming closer, an in-depth look into each other eyes. Many little things change the future of both social butterflies forever.

I keep finding the ashes of the man I unequivocally used to be. How hard it is to change, I vaguely imagined. I continue to see myself smiling and saying, "Ok, fine!" but faking it every time. Although it is altogether abominable, faking your feelings is easier to a certain point. I aspired to identify myself as a romantic guy, but women saw me more as a refreshingly unsentimental one. That was confusing, and the best way to deal with this dilemma was to get as many opinions as possible. Of course, the more affairs I got involved in, the more discrepancies came to light. By the end, it was not unusual for me to be flirting with anything that would pay me any attention. It was more evident that if I were going to let people judge me, the verdict would always be different. These short love affairs would end commonly the same way. In my mind, there is no counting of the times a girl told me, clearly confused and disappointed, "I do not understand what you are doing."She was not the only one; I did not know either. The so-called game of love I played did not give me any victories. Maybe Carol was the last girl giving in to my ways, but she was the final warrior stabbing my knife deep in my heart, living me to die a slow and painful death.

The last days with Carol were not sweet as we would have wished. Even as the last words spoken between us were coming out of my mouth, I was enormously despising myself for saying them. At that time, my anger was controlling me, and the regrettable choice of words resulted from not knowing how to do right. Today I have nostalgia for what never was and dissatisfaction with my old self.

I promised to call a girl I do like and feel attracted to, but my new me is not ready yet. Old habits are hard to break. If all goes wrong and my intentions of becoming a better version of myself go down like raindrops into asphalt from where nothing grows, I would end drunk and jumping from any bridge high enough to send me to hell. Could it be that the time we spend trying to change is like chasing clouds?

If I wait too long, she most probably thinks that I am not interested in getting to know her or starting reasoning that I do not care. After spending a long troublesome time, recognizing that I had thrown away a girl's love only because I was pretty ignorant of its worth, I did not wish to fail with my next relationship. We do not have to be defined by our failures or things we did not do. I wanted to tell her everything, be honest, and listen to what she had to say. Was I insecure about feeling? It is realistic to believe that I refused to love something because I feared losing something I loved.

Not everything is perfect, especially at the beginning. Maybe one day, one can only hope not to regret our mistakes too much. Carol told me once that she had asked for someone to come into her life, but who came was never able to accept her offer of companionship for the time she intended. I will always be wondering what could have been. Yes, I am afraid to start. If only I could take this slowly and not rush things, then maybe all would be easier.