Stages of grief

“So, do you finally feel at home?” He asks me casually. I look up from my beer to his face, one I still know well even though it has gotten older in these years of absence. His hair has gotten longer; his voice is still the same. He is a person I know; yet one I’m not familiar with. There is a sense of calmness over him that tells me that he does feel at home. Where ever that may be, I don’t know. In these four years he has become a stranger to me, of whom I know random details that are still stuck in my memory. Like his dislike for chicory, his shoe size, and even the way he lights a cigarette and smokes it still set a familiar scene.

I don’t have an answer to that question, so I just smile, take another sip of my beer, put down the glass and hear myself say “yeah, maybe.” But the truth is, in that moment it doesn’t matter whether I finally found myself a place to feel at home or not, the thing that does strike a chord is that he remembers these details about me too. Two strangers with too much shared memory and no shared future.

I gave up on the anger a long time ago, resentment a little later. I filed him in a segment of the memory-box that I hardly ever returned to. I went through all these stages of grief and arrived to a peaceful state of mind again.  Yet, I never expected to wholeheartedly be able to say: I hope you’re happy.

The language of love

Apparently, we’ve been fools thinking that opposites attract whilst in reality it is our shared interests that attract us to one another and make us fall in love. Even though this seems like This got me thinking, whilst “slightly” intoxicated (more emphasis on the latter), in the arms of an Italian passing a beer back and forth, communicating in broken German, whether or not a language barrier would stand in between of attraction. But let’s be honest, I’m too drunk and the Berlinesque techno is drifting away any worry I can possibly overthink on a Saturday night. So I dance the night away and he does the same. We walk back, closely next to one another. He would love to live in the countryside, whilst I love cities. He misses the Italian cuisine, and I fondly remember the Thai kitchen of my travels.

I don’t want him to talk, because I don’t want to overthink his words and he’s good enough to just enjoy looking at. There goes his last touch; his goodbye burns on my cheek. The alcohol in my veins fast forward time and suddenly I’m sat in the S-bahn heading home, alone, spotify on repeat. I can’t help but thinking that I just shared a drink called loneliness, but just like the piano man always sings: it’s better than drinking alone.

C’est la Vie!

My hair looks good today, I polished away the flu with a little blush, and I’m wearing that LBD that makes every day a good day. Even though it’s Monday – or maybe it especially brightens up a Monday. I want to sit down in a bar, with a way to densely written 19^th century novel, order a small glass of wine (or two), and be a model citizen by helping an old lady carry her suitcase up the stairs when I catch the S-bahn back. I feel like the embodiment of the French “je ne sais quoi” and all I want to do is carelessly light a cigarette, whilst I’m strutting through the streets of Berlin.

The only problem is I’m not in France, and I don’t know enough of German sayings – all I know is that the grammar frustrates me. No strut, just running my eyes over foreign words that look too similar to my first language. No bars, no wine, no cigarettes, because it’s still that ever dreaded Monday and I don’t smoke.

Then again… “C’est la vie” has always been more powerful than “Je ne sais quoi.”

A not so warm welcome

Over a year has passed and nothing more than a quick welcome has been scribbled down in this little corner of the Internet. (probably going to delete it) So where are we now? Since January I graduated from my masters program, took a flight to Bangkok with my bestie B. traveled through Thailand and Cambodia for six blissful weeks, broke up my almost-but-not-really three year relationship, and since three weeks I now live in Berlin. Oh how lovely this little sum-up sounds when you go over it like that: one sentence, a few commas and no details what so ever. But trust me, especially following your dreams can be a real bitch – because that’s just life. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be fun. All I’m saying is that I expected Berlin to be a little more zsa zsa zsu, and a little less living with an older lady and her two cats, not having a stable internet connection, and being tackled by the worst flu I’ve had in years. It feels like living in Eat, Pray, Love, so who knows… things might look up for me soon.