Immigrant and in love

November 28, I remember that...

... I met him at my cousin’s wedding. I was a bride’s maid and he was the best man.

When we were introduced I never thought that from that moment we would be inseparable. I was just happy that I wasn’t so much taller than him.

So I left my guard down, he helped me put my necklace on and everything turned into a cheesy, romantic, cliché. And as unbelievable as it may seem, from that moment on we were inseparable.

He was my dark haired knight in shiny armor, and he still is.

We spent together a whole week, a whole week without giving a rat’s ass on everyone or everything else.

He reminded me that the best feeling you can have in life is the feeling of being free next to the one you care for.

He made me lock down memories that used to haunt me and change them for new ones, beautiful and fresh ones.

I was vulnerable and single for a long time and he was charming and passionate. How was I supposed to resist? There’s no guidebook that tells you what’s the best way to react in such situations.

So I did what I know best: I just went with it.

I embraced all those warm feelings, I started to love that beautiful body that sheltered an even more beautiful soul and here I am, four weeks later, in a different country, in a different bed, next to the ”best man”.

Some would call me crazy but I think it’s a matter of choice: we do what we choose, we are what we choose.

Life itself is the sum of our choices materialized as decisions; there’s no question about that.

Even the fact that we are alive is a materialized choice made by those who have procreated us.

We begin our lives as someone else’s choice and we continue it making our own choices when necessary.

I may not be the crowned queen of best decisions in life but I’m neither Edith Piaf to “ne regrette rien”. We all have some skeletons in our closets and I’m no exception. I, too, have my fair share of things that make me sad when remembered.

But these are my battles. And now I see it!

Life isn’t supposed to be easy, nor perfect. Without bad choices and wrong decisions we wouldn’t be able to suffer. And without suffering how would we be able to recognize and appreciate happiness and tranquility, how would we be able to separate wrong from right, bad from good?

I understand now why we’re not entitled to complain about our lives.

They are given to us with the mention that nothing is impossible within the boundaries of the human law.

We have the liberty of creating each our own story and enjoy a destiny that we thought it would be suitable. We choose for ourselves and yet we’re satisfied with choosing less just because it’s safer this way, because somehow big decisions are connected with bigger risks and dreadful fears.

And yes, indeed, all my fears didn’t vanished when I met him. But I also didn’t hurried up to take the easiest and in hand choice.

This time I was down for love without running scared!

I knew he existed and that he was going to show up, it’s just that I was sick of waiting. It's not that I lost hope but I disliked that awful standby state that his delay nonchalantly gave me.

I always feared that I would not know how to recognize him. Adults were saying that I will recognize him from the first sight, that I will know who he is without needing confirmations. But how not to question their words? Most of them were divorced or compromised in their own relationship, adulterers and other professional cheaters who were fucking everything that had pulse ... how to believe the words they were saying when they were effortlessly demonstrating to me that they were wrong so many times?

I always feared, yes!

Several times I thought that I found him and along the way I realized that I was wrong. And then I had to admit it. I had to admit that either I was not paying a lot of attention, either I was not being sufficiently honest with myself to accept the reality that those whom I’ve let into my life could have offered to me.

And with each failure, the trust in my own instincts lowered because not the ending of a relationship used to hurt me. But the idea of starting over again, the distrust in those whom I was about to meet, the betraying of the comfort once known, the thought that I will continue to fall in love again and again and again, the possibility of all those repeated endings ...

I didn’t suffered for the ending, I suffered because I knew that it will start again.

I was suffering because there was the possibility that he will be late again and that will make me to stumble and fall. And I started to pay more attention and pretend that I'm selective, that I’ve learned my lesson like I’ve done something wrong in the past.

And yet, I never stopped walking my path truly believing that next time will be better, that next time it will be forever.

25 springs went by from the moment I was born. 25 years of learning how to never stop trying.

And it took only one fall day for him to show up. He appeared from I don’t know where, he simply appeared. It was as if he had been here forever. As just he had been out to the store.

And looking at him I realized that it was not going to be about someone else from now on. I realized that adults weren’t just talking shit and they were right when they told me that I will know who he is.

Yes, I looked at him and that was when I realized that I existed only for that WE/US to happen.

I may not write a perfect and correct English, I may not always think in English and I may not know how to deal with the idea of being in a totally different country but I know that loving him here will not be easy.

Because he's stubborn, because he loves his gadgets more than my quirkiness and because I can't just pack my bags and threaten him I'll go back to mommy.

December 19, It's that moment when...

... reality kicks in.

He yells, I yell, he loses his temper, I start to cry and the whole morning turns into a nightmare just because he thought I said to order two cups of coffee instead of just one.

In those moments he was still my dark haired knight in shiny armor but he wasn't fighting to maintain the peace, he was just fighting... that's all.

The problem was solved after 10 or 15 minutes of pure wrath.

We took the damn coffee to go, we got back to the car and off we went.

It was a short but long and silent drive but we finally arrived in Bedford where I had my interview for obtaining the National Insurance Number.

My palms were sweaty, my head was spinning, my eyes were moist and in my mind I kept replaying the argument we had when we were at the coffee shop.

After a relaxed chat with the one who interviewed me I knew it was time to face another 40 minutes of striking silence and subtle touches of the hand meaning that he was sorry.

I wiped everything up and let the grudge aside, I smiled, he kissed me, we went shopping, we had lunch, he went to work and... here I am, alone with my thoughts.

And I can't stop wondering if it's possible to be wrong again...

I was the one to put him on a pedestal and I've failed to see that I was doing a mistake? But what number of mistakes am I entitled to? How many times I have to screw up before I go home with "the prize"? And why was I not able to see that he was changing overnight into nothing else but that person who will continue to have expectations but will not cease to disappoint?

So be it?

Is this the moment when I realize that it's not a forever-kind-of-relationship and I will act like a teenager in love willing to overlook? All those sweet moments passed so fast that they were altered because of the speed?

Will all those beautiful memories of us falling in love turn into a sad present? Will they be just a gift of what I could've had? A sad present for my eternal present, yey!

Or maybe I'm just over reacting and all of those small things that lead to fights will vanish someday, and we will be the other's best choice in life. Maybe I have to practice what I preach to others and have patience.

We all have a tendency to dramatize when something doesn't go according to the plan. I, especially, have the tendency to scream and shout before analyzing the whole situation. Because that is who I am. I'm a 25 years old slightly neurotic woman who is afraid of being lonely but most of all, of being lonely in a relationship.

But I always remember to come back down to Earth.

I'm not the one to give up without trying to work things out.

Because I always thought that in the early stages of a relationship communication and knowledge must prevail, the skeletons and the emotional baggage must be confronted. In the early stages of a relationship we must accept the fact that the other one shits too, because s/he's also human.In the early stages of a relationship mornings should be for fighting and nights should be for making up. In the early stages of a relationship we should lose our inhibitions because in the end we are animals. In the early stages of a relationship we shouldn’t be afraid to throw ourselves headlong into pleasantries and tactical gestures meant to sweep us off our feet and we shouldn't run away from a fight that might reveal the true nature of the one we love.

In the early stages of a relationship we experience, we discover, we understand and accept or not. It's a sort of “take it or leave it” at a spiritual level. In such moments there is no place for romance because it is assumed that we are too busy to get to know one another.

Falling in love has nothing to do with really getting to know each other. Falling in love is easy, is natural and pure and getting to know the person you love may be messy and painful.

I learn new things every day, not only about him but also about myself through knowing him.

Today I discovered that morning coffee should be drunk at home and that the fears I have seem insignificant if I choose to face them wearing Victoria's Secret.

That's my little secret!

December 21, Closer and closer to...

... that time of the year. That time when we all make an analysis of the previous year, of what we had and have, of what we would love to have in the future.

Exactly! Christmas is coming.

We went yesterday in London to pick something his parents sent us.

I was over the top because I always wanted to visit this city. I always felt that I have a very good vibe thinking at it's history, at it's streets, at it's style and people, etc.

Well, everything wasn't like I've dreamed.

It was just another very quiet trip for us.

He got mad because I didn't exactly know how to manage his GPS, I was sad because of his manner of speaking to me, and the night ended with the biggest fight I've ever participated at.

I never knew frustrations have such a strong voice.

It was awful to let everything out, it was hard to label this relationship as a stress factor, it was painful to find out that beginnings hurt like this.

I realized that we're so different.

I was raised by free people who always believed in doing good and never judge others, I was taught to care and love everything around me.

He was raised in a very religious family. But he doesn't have that freedom inside of him. He pays attention to all those little things that will distract him from everything important in life. He focuses on what's wrong with others more than he focuses on his bad habits.

It's hurting me even more as I write.

Because what I write is the materialization, in my mind, of his way of being.

And I never expected this from the man I trusted to be my friend, my lover, my everything.

All of this, everything that happened in the last week,got me thinking.

You're all religious. You all go to church, pray to God, respect eating restrictions and so on.

Meanwhile you talk bad about others, you envy, you argue, your pride is stronger than your modesty, you're racist, you're jealous, you're stingy, etc.

But you think it's ok.

Because you will go to church, you will kiss a priest's hand, you will light some candles, you will ask for forgiveness and, after, you will peacefully return to your life. Being the same person you always were... you will go back without changing something... anything... because you know you are entitled to divine forgiveness, because you have a ritual that will clean all your sins, that will always bring you back on the road to redemption no matter how you choose to be in your day by day life.

But... you forget the most important thing in life.

GOD IS NOT AN INSTITUTION.

God is everywhere. He is the spirit of kindness and good, he is the spirit of love above all, he is the spirit of hope, he is not a judge, he should just be the base of our structure as human beings.

God is about love, he is about trust, he is about the power to ask for forgiveness anywhere you are, he is about seeing the good in others and never the bad, he is about turning the other cheek, he is about mercy and all those values that you seem to constantly ignore on your path to being the best at... something.

And, for sure, you all are able to be the best at something. But you keep missing the point: you will forget to be the best at just... LIVING.

In your everyday life you are the master. In your everyday life you cut and hang because you don't try to understand, you judge, you don't try to understand, you condemn. And you feel good about this. You feel good knowing you have some kind of opinionated power over everything around you.

In your chase after gains and material fulfillment you completely forget to really feed your spirit. Lighting a candle and giving some money to a church doesn't clean your soul and conscience.

Because when you live a life filled with malice and envy, 5 minutes of repentance will never do the trick.

I think I know now what I want for Christmas.

I'd like a CHANGE, please!

A change for me, in me, in him, in everyone.