Conversations with a dying man — Paradise lost. (III)
This is part three of the Conversations with a dying man series. Part two can be found here.
The days before I died. The years before I died. What were those years made of? How did they lead to my inevitabe and catastrophic end?
The only paradise is paradise lost. — Marcel Proust
Paradise can only be known as paradise in retrospect. As there is no reference point while being in paradise, I am doomed to judge only in retrospect what might have been paradise. What paradise I have been living in.
Let me tell you. Listen to all these sweet nothings as they pour out of me.
We. We were. We were exploring this wonderfull world. Every day was an adventure. Roaming the city, roaming countries, roaming this world. Finding pleasure in the big and small wonders alike.
Holding the universe in our hands, floating on thin air, on a breeze of happiness. She protected my with her warmth. I protected her with my safety.
She kept me wild, I kept her safe.
Together we were safe from harm. Nothing could stop us. We wove a cocoon of warmth around us, a heavenly place. An ashram amidst the bloody battlegrounds of life around us. An ocean of meditative silence when the world around us imploded.
Charming and lovely we were. Young when we started. Young at heart when we ended. And the future remains unwritten — I can not tell, if this lovestory may ever be over. If it can ever be over.
We were golden, loved and hated wherever we went. The beauty and the nerd. The soulful women and the nerd. Fierce female passion and heavymental male composure. Street savviness and academic merits. Intelligence and intellect. Fire and Ice. Yin and Yang. Pain and Pleasure. You and me.
I remember when we went late night shopping for cake and champagne, the cashier mentioning how nice it must be to be freshly in love. That was around the time we were 8 years together.
Innocence.
In retrospect I see how utterly innocent we were from the beginning. Like puppies cuddling together, far from any harm, far from the harshness of the world.
Looking back at how things unfolded when we met, it seems it could not have been any other way. Or it could have been millions of different ways, still it wasn´t. The likelihood of us teaming up was not a given. Quite the opposite. At crucial parts of our journey there have been external inputs, pushing us towards each other. She could have run many times. She did not. I could have given up many times, I did not.
So it is happening
The depth of my love knew no boundaries. I wanted to get lost in her endlessness, and succesfully did. I seduced her with my charm and persistence. She gave me protection, gave me all her love, nourished me, helped me in so many ways to become the man I am right now. I paid back with scalp massages and relentless loving. Sometimes clumsy little hearts drawn on a handkerchiefs, sometimes just my loving glance. I did what I was capable of — it was not much most of the time, but it was all I had, pure and honest. My intentions were lovingly and sincere, even if my means were mostly inadequate. When we started I had nothing but a bicycle and great dreams and passion, which did not do any harm to us. Fueled on love, dreams and hopium we started our journey into the unknown.
Now I roam the streets of this vast city alone. Miles and miles I roam, through pissing rain, wind, snow and sunshine. Passing by the places we explored. Every stone bears her smile. Every street carries her smell, each tree tells our story. I see us on every corner and remember her smile, cracking jokes, enjoying the moment, loving. Roaming the earth like gods, having each other. Radiating warmth in our souls. Knowing we can trust each other, knowing if everything falls apart, we have us.
As you might have guessed by now, it was me who ate the forbidden fruit and started to obliterated our Paradise. Like Eve and Adam ate the apple from the forbiden tree of knowledge, I let myself get carried away into the depth of my own despair.
In retrospect, this might have been the only way possible. Regardless of what the incident might have been, or if it was her or me kicking off the destruction of our paradise, It feels like our paradise had to come to an end, for us to die into life. It ails me when I read these lines. Leaving paradise is painful. As is leaving the womb. Leaving protection and perfection to enter into chaos and uncertainty. Yet this might have been exactly what was needed. Not leaving the womb means dying, mother and child.
We knew. Deep inside. And we lied to ourselves.
We started to love life. We grew addicted to life. We started to love what we have. We valued our experiences, we grew accustomed to more. To ever more, to higher mountains, wider oceans, warmer warmths. We were consuming ourselves in love. We were consuming our lifes. We build a golden cage around our love. And we willingly let ourselves be kept prisoners in this golden prison we build. We were comforting each other in our prison. We started to watch out not to rock the boat to much. Not too much off balance. Forcing safety. Forging security. Longing for stability in what we had, amidst our ever louder screeching inner voices that there was something we need to adress.
With all the love and affection we had for each other, we became so attentive and caring for each other, that we preferred kindness over radical honesty-slowly but surely we bought into our own narrative of how our love has to be.
At the same time, we both knew that there was more to discover in each other and in the world out there. But we could not see it clearly, it run through our fingers like sand on a beach. Neither of us was able to see how much we were in some regards just re-enacting the life and drama of our families. How we were dancing like marionetts to inherited drama which we just faintly saw dawning on our inner horizon.
With a mixture of arrogance, ignorance and fear I tried to push the idea away that something might be off balance with us. I did not want anything to be off balance with us, us was a big part of me. We were bound by a strong love, the strongest love we had felt for another human so far. Our souls knew, but our limited minds could not grasp what was happening with us.
My lips were sewn shut together.
I knew I wanted to scream. To talk, to open my heart and be vulnerable to life. Still, I could not bring myself to it. I saw her hurting, I felt myself hurting. It felt like we were borrowing time. One more ride on the ferris wheel, one more escape to a beautiful place, one more time the wind in our hair and the sun on our skin, one more time conquering the city together, one more time watching the sun go down. One more time going for a walk, one more time talking to each other, one more time caressing, one more minute breathing the same air.
I can not describe the feeling. I knew I had to let go if I wanted anything to get better, but I could not bring myself to let loose. I was addicted to our love. And I realized, she was too — which made things not easier.
If she had just thrown me away like a non functioning toy, things would have been devastating but at least they would have been not tearing us apart for years. And again, I was so blind not to understand the depth of her love, of what she was capable of. How could she love me with was had happened, with all my uncertainty and all my not knowing what I want, what I feel, what the fuck I am?
She just could. On a deeper level than I ever had expteced to be worthy of receiving. I just blew me away — but at the time I was fighting it. The more I let go, the more I allowed myself to feel the torment of detaching, unbonding from this love I held so dearly for 11 years, the more I see the boundlessness of the love I am loosing.
I can not grasp it still, not yet. Still I am standing on the shoulders of this giant that is our love. My fall from grace has yet to come I reckon. She is still with me in these days and nights.
At the same time I am enjoying my solitude, no wonder, as it is my fear of commitment who plays a solid part in all what has happened. Likewise, this is mutual-we both were afraid of committing seriously, not to each other, but to the future.
Really sealing the deal, we both were on the same boat of being afraid of going all the way. Whatever the fuck that might mean and entail.
It just hurts like fuck to see love go. And I don´t want that to happen. Everything in me rebells against the final goodby, the goodbye for good. The end of the last straw. And parts in her rebell as well, I can feel it. From afar, from up close, from within me and from within her. The birds are whispering it in my ear. It is no easy goodbye.
We are not going gently into the night. We rave and rage against it, not willing to believe this is how it ends.
Still. What can I tell right now. I am still battling. Blood running down my cheeks, I hold steady. Firm grip, holding course to self destruction and hurt.
My entire body is shaking, I am sobbing uncontrollably, hot tears streaming down my face. She holds me. She still fucking holds me and cures my ailing soul. I am lost and losing it. Losing her. Losing me. And still she musters the strenght to not let me fall. Though I am permanently falling, she still catches me. I am falling into pitch blackness.
I am leaving.
Slowly and painfully. Again. A rental car is waiting for me to use it. Every day eats up 120 bucks. I don´t care. The car is packed and ready to roll. I am not. Days go by.
I am holding tight. Everything hurts. Don´t let me go. Hold me. She does. I do. Even on the last minutes, last hours, last days we have, we still discover more and more about us, after eleven years, we are not tired a second to get to know each other. As always, we are diving into each other, always eager to explore each others inner universe. Never stopped caring for each other.
And I am so tired, so afraid, so hurt, so not ready to go into the night. I do care for her so much, and finally gather what little strength is left in me and in a moment of clarity I do leave. For her, for me, for us. For fucks sake.
