my farewell...part I....getting ready

I have known all along that the school year 2008-09 would be my last one as an Istanbul resident..the months passed and here I am going through May starting a countdown until the Big Day....
While standing in my living room having a nervous breakdown because of the endless things I'll have to pack, I come across a photo from my first job here in Doga College. Me smiling hugging a bunch of 6-year-olds from the 1st grade. And I am smiling again this time with a hint of nostalgy. I leave the cartons and bags as they are,they aren't going to go anywhere anyway, running through my calender, 17th of February 2005 20:00 pm....
Two girls are standing on the train platform...
around them there are 6 huge suitcases,one large carton box, two parents are standing there and two boys are trying to carry the suitcases and the cartons on the train, the train whistles and the time of goodbye has come...
I have been excited all the way until now. I got a good job in Istanbul, I found good opportunities for a master's degree, I was madly in love and my love was waiting to pick me up from my arriving point, the Sirkeci trainstation,Istanbul.
I don't know why,actually, but after the whistle I started feeling lost and afraid. My mother was definitely ready to cry,my friend Foteini was complaining about the sleeping hours she missed because of our club hopping last night and my father was trying to put a bunch of euro banknotes in my hand "just in case". I am ready to go!!!!!
My logic, that little voice in the back of my head-I hate it,by the way!!- was telling me,"you don't speak Turkish,you don't know anything about the country,you have seen your boyfriend 5-6 times until now and he will be joining the army soon..ARE YOU NUTS?" Ignoring the voice, I got on the train and started waving goodbye with a smile...bye bye..I'm not afraid,I'm happy....
During the 16-hour-ride I smoked 1 packet of cigarettes, drank 4-5 cups of bad quality coffee and refused to look out of the window by pretending that I was reading a very interesting book...Bullshit! the book was boring as hell....and I was nervous...I felt a whole lot better when I arrived in Istanbul and saw Muzaffer waiting for me...despite all his efforts, I spent my first night crying, not out of an emotional outburst but mostly because I had too many coffees...
Time went by, in fact it flew by, he went to the army, I started adoring my students and after a lot of exploring the city, I started feeling like home....I learnt the language, I made exceptional friends, I fell head over heels for this city.
It's strange how the human mind works...I cannot quite remember the worst of times among this pile of cartons and bags,only happy memories come to my mind. The happier the memories are, I cannot help but wonder how the scene of this upcoming goodbye will look like...
I look around me again,trying to convince myself that I made my decision and that just like there were reasons for my coming here,there are equally strong reasons for my going away. That little voice in my head started talking annoyingly again and it is talking for days now, I am not sure how I am going to shut it up this time. 4 years have passed...4 years!!!!!! a newborn child would be ready to go to school by now!!!!!!!
The sun is shining sheding light through my closed curtains making the little grains of dust on my TV dancing and then I hear the muslim prayer filling up the room coming from all directions....I put down my head, nod to the little voice -you have too many things to do and not enough time- and I go on packing...with a hint of smile and a hint of tear running down my left cheek.
The time for the last goodbye is not here yet...not just yet....

When caught in the in-between...

The in-between...it sounds strange, doesn't it? I choose to call so the state my life is in. People say that life is a large waiting room and me tired of waiting chose to come out of this waiting room in quest of the unknown (or the Holy Grail) but instead of that I got caught in the in-between...
To get things straight I want what the next person wants; a good job, some money to live a descent life, love, friends and family, there is nothing wrong with that, is it? I guess I was wrong, there is someting wrong with that, ME!
I did the planning and the thinking and the dreaming but somehow I forgot to do the predicting!
Therefore, here I am with my MA almost finished, with a PhD I might do, with a job probably on its way, with my family almost happy, with my friends a bit content and a bit depressed, with my quite good boyfriend.....what is wrong with that picture? the almosts and probablys and bits and quites...because nothing is complete, nothing is entirely good or entirely bad and I have to wait for the signs of time to start sorting things out.
The problem is that I have been waiting for these signs for 5 months now and still there is none of them coming and I am running out of patience and energy!
In addition of course, my body and my health (the lunatic) are playing tricks on me...swollen from extra body water, more kilos despite the usage of medicine, allergies appearing out of nowhere although I ate nothing in order to summon them, excessive sleep or excessive lack of sleep... in mathematic psychology these add up to a nervous wreck!
It's no big deal, I know in time everything will fall into its right place but until then I want to stay hidden from the rest of the world! May I ??????

A story that has no clear ending yet..

I have to get it out of my chest...I really do...I don't only feel stupid most of the time but also helpless and for a woman who is shouting "girlpower all the way!" is not something easy....

You know the classic story... girl meets boy, boy likes her, girl is madly in love and so is the boy.
It's a wonderful story, isn't it?
That's pretty much what happened to me four years ago. The man whom I have secretly been in love with for 4 years decided that he had found the woman of his life and it was not me (of course, of course). I wasn't able and noble enough neither to congratulate him nor to watch him talk about her and how perfect she is for hours and hours. I desperately needed the getaway. So, I grabbed my friend to spend Easter together in Istanbul. And there we were! Our room was excellent with a jacuzzi which we used for hours taking turns in the bathroom.
Finally, having called men names (everything nasty in each and every language we knew) we realised that we were starving. We dressed up and got ready for a night out in the town. Maybe it was the lights, the city, the different environment but I was feeling very daring and seeing the bellboy at the hotel something "clicked" for both of us. Girl meets boy, boy meets girl.
The next day it was Easter Day but for our last night in Istanbul I decided to go out with the boy...the boy was very kind, very sweet and caring. I was charmed. "wait!", I thought, "it's just because you're vulnerable, it can't be true" so, I decided to take one more careful look at the boy and at the city. But this time I got into a bigger trouble! I was not charmed, I was enchanted and swept off my feet.
I made my visits to the city an once-in-a-month routine and I spent endless nights talking with him on the phone. When one morning I woke up having decided to move to Istanbul to be closer to him. Him OH HIM! I started going through millions and billions of websites to justify my decision, to find a reason more practical than I am head over heels in love. The reason came with the form of a job and a potential master's degree. Not at all bad. Five months later I found myself on the train to Istanbul with my coupe loaded with 6 suitcases and my mind loaded with worries about the future but my heart refused to see any of that. It refused to see my mother crying as she was waving goodbye, it refused to see that I was leaving my hometown, my students and my friends behind. The only clear vision during the 14-hour train ride was the image of him waiting for me, the illusion of his smell, the memory of his touch. The girl was absolutely and madly in love. What about the boy?
The boy was ready to go to the army. He thought that once he got back, he would marry the girl and that they would live happily ever after...The boy was,too, absolutely and madly in love.

I hate how the fairy tales end, I hate it! Nobody tells us what happens after Cinderella and the Prince start living together. There is no reference about social or cultural differences and,
naturally, there is no reference of how much they were fighting with each other.
Girl and boy started living together, firstly they lived in a bubble of blissfulness for a couple of months and then he went to the army. The girl was left behind. After she cried her eyes out for days and nights, she realised that she was trapped in a foreign country with no friends, she knew nothing about the city except her house and the school she worked at and she couldn't say one single word in Turkish. She was more alone than ever.
Help started arriving from abroad. Friends from Greece and the UK and Germany started visiting in order to support her and to meet the city, of course. Time passed......the girl learnt Turkish, she wandered about the city and she started feeling comfortable in it. Sometimes she went to another city to visit the boy in the army, to get some strength from a stolen kiss and a valuable hug. Time passed and the boy came back.
The boy? What boy? The boy had turned into a madman! He was demanding, needy, winny and of course a fanatic "Turkish" man. He was prepared to leave the girl alone to go to drink and to celebrate his return with his friends and the girl was left once again behind. Every time he slammed the door to go out the girl was crying and every time he came back tripping from alcohol she was shouting. The boy was ready and eager to continue the fight and very much willing to throw to her face that he had a life in Istanbul and family and friends. She was asking "Do you understand that I'm alone here? that I have nobody else except you?" The answer was always the same " I have never asked you to come to Istanbul and live with me. It was your own choice."
The girl started working like a maniac to forget this answer and she found that infamous master's degree (finally) to get away from him. The girl's heart was broken. Her eyes didn't sparkle out of love anymore and she was thinking "oh,dear one day will come...one day I will show you what I'm made of...you'll see and you'll weep"
Meanwhile, the boy got a good job which kept him too busy for her which was a good thing because she had been busy as well.
The miracle came somehow in this "meanwhile"! The boy still madly in love with her decided to recognise her value in his life and started trying as much as he could to show her that she is THE ONE. He stopped going out unless there was nothing they could do together, he started cutting back on alcohol and he finally told her "Thank God you're here and you're with me! Thank you for not giving up on "us"!" She was deeply moved, the girl felt in love again, she felt a warmth in her heart and left all these "one day I will..." behind.
A year later temptation arrived....hmm..better yet, a year later temptation caught her attention.
A very handsome boy asked to meet the girl. The girl refused at first but the boy was really cute and her heart turned out to be only "glued" back not mended.... She never meant to be charmed by him but she was, she never meant to answer to his "flirts" but after one teeny tiny fight with the first boy she rushed into an answer.
Nights and nights passed with her gazing at the stars looking for answers. She knows that the second boy will only be a better glue for her wounded heart and pride. It is crystal clear that her heart and body and soul and mind desperately need this "mending" but she cannot help but wonder...once she is healed (if she decides to go for it) what will she discover? Once she has her whole heart back again what will happen to her feelings for the "first" boy? What if she falls in love again with him...can she actually do it all over again? Can she or is she willing to put her newly healed pride back into the game again?
Therefore, I beg you dear blog when you gaze at the sky at night and you happen to see a falling star please show it to me before it disappears so that I can make a wish...falling stars know better sometimes and grant us or not the wish to our best interest.

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus ? so who is from Earth?

Hello and Happy 2009! Being late as it is, I have the perfect chance instead of trying to write one of my papers for which I have a strict deadline to try to dedicate a few lines to the women of my life...starting from my awesome grandmother and ending to my facebook friends who I respect and admire.
Today I realised how misunderstood women are. Of course, I knew that but I couldn't grasp the magnitude of this misunderstanding. And also realised how much we misunderstood men. Nothing particular happened it was more of an epiphany than of an apocalypse. I was listening to the endless problems and complaints that my friends face everyday. One cannot stand the winning anymore, the other has him blocked because she feels hurt, another is feeling her legs num from standing by the phone for 2 days now waiting for the damn thing to ring and another one is simply crying, drinking and eating chocolate. I have an endless list of activities cause by male neglection and indifference towards women. All of my friends are secretely dreaming of a man to come and rescue them from their misery a true male vaguely reminding us of Prince Charmng on his white stallion from our beloved fairy tales. Prince Charming... The Absolute Male....strong, confident, powerful, handsome, rich, educated a man on whom you can count to save you or at least one you would be able to share your problems with.
But there is no Prince Charming in our lives just ordinary males that shout at us, cheat on us (sex is the only thing on their mind) , wait on us to serve them, turn to us for solutions to their problems and on top of that keep arguing that they are powerful and they deserve to be the boss of us! What? How? Why? hahahaha!
My grandmother was a strong woman ... financially indepedent (in the year 1920!) very well-educated (she could speak 7 languages) who left her hometown Istanbul to return to Greece all by herself...she found land, she built a house and gave birth to 6 children after her marriage and once she had done all that she was left a widow and then started the race of survival during the WWII alone again with 4 daughters. She used to say "men are worthless but we need them" me, the grandaughter that bears her name, asks "why? why do we need them?" My mother hurried to a response "they protect you" "of what?"
My aunt (her first daughter) spend a life as a widow, as well, having lost her husband at the age of 42. Ok, I thought it's a Greek thing...
My teacher from Milan, Italy was eager to trade places with her husband and die in his place and my friends are despeartely hooked on them, why?....(friends from Turkey, Holland, Germany, UK).
The answer came to me in the form of 2 men.
The first one was my very own boyfriend. He shouted at me yesterday and since then I completely refused any diplomatic solution but his humble apology. The moment he called and asked whether I was feeling any better I felt light-headed and a smile was drawn on my face. "So cute that he thought of me" So cute? So cute? 20 hours ago he told me "shut up, you stupid girl" and I was ready to cut him into the smallest pieces possible by a butcher's knife and now so cute? It's not a matter of love, it's a matter of tenderness. The maternal instict of mammals comes inevitably with a great need of tenderness and affection and when we receive it we can forgive and forget (well, not exactly forget but surely forgive).
The second one was one of my "old" students asking for my advice since his current girlfriend refused to talk to him on the phone and he was afraid she was going to break up with him. Another endless dead-end conversation about her and that she is tired and busy and she wants to get some sleep and not rumble on the phone for hours consolidating him. At the end I stated clearly that I wouldn't help him and that he should search by himslef why she is like this. My declaration was followed by a "why don't you help me?" So much for the powerful men I thought and I went to hide to my "appear offline" in order to get some peace of mind.
There I was cursing my luck this evening when it hit me! They are not powerful, they are not strong...they are scared!
The male role consists of bringing money to their families and of keeping their women happy and satisfied in bed and protected outside. They were never supposed to bring up children, they were never supposed to support their wives/girlfriends psychologically, they were never supposed to offer solutions.
Along with women's emancipation they lost the money-earner's role and the role of the protector and they became just "stallions" in our bed. One psychological shock for them.
Along with women's advanced education they are asked to contribute solutions and understanding to a relationship. Second psychological shock.
Women tired of looking for Mr. Right, discovered the hunt of Mr. Right Now...and males are disposable stallions , interchangable, no more the hunters. Third psychological shock.
Now, add the fact that they never grow up (they all are living and breathing Peter Pans)...what do you get? Afraid people, loaded with psychological shocks not being able to define their role in a relationship. All we have to do now is wait for them to pull theirselves together...
C'mon with what maturity? Would you really expect maturity from Peter Pan? He is still somewhere out there looking for new games to play with Captain Hook or for the new Playstation to come out....
We are left with 2 choices then... One we wait for them to come around , endlessly explaining and tutoring them..Two we learn to close our ears and eyes and let the maternal educational instict to surface and treat them like children.
Our grandmothers chose choice number 2, what about us then? Well we definitely need to lower our expectations when hunting for the proper male for reproduction! (Stupid biological clock stop ticking! he's not here yet!) and make a grand decision...men will be our physical shelter (they give really great hugs) and our girl friends our psychological shelter (girl power all the way).
We will understand once and for all that Prince Charming is in fact Prince Winning but it still feels great having found one you call your own.
Moreover, for our ego boost "we will always have facebook".....
Good night darling girls, I love you

Stop this madness!

Greece is going through some terrible times right now. If one follows the press and the media local or international, one will discover the madness and insanity hiding behind those events. The photo you see on your left is the headline of a morning Greek paper which was in circulation yesterday.And the line reads "Out of control".
The unexcused murder of a 15-year-old boy by the name "Alexis" (may he rest in peace) by a policeman fired a series of events which while unfolding turned out to be shocking to all the Greeks worldwide.
Who needs Nero when we have the self-destructing Greeks who offer their cities to the fire and the bombing so willingly?
Let's be fair, it's not everybody's fault but it is our fault for not working together. And the story goes:
One policeman opens fire some say with some say without reason ( I will not be the judge of that) and kills Alexis a 15-year-old boy. The response was immediate other 15-year-old boys protesting and shouting against the policemen to kill them because they are 15 years old,too. Other people and organisations try to protest,as well, in a peaceful way -we will never know- but their protest becomes an excellent excuse for anarchists and terrorists to "mix" with them and express their anger against any kind of government or any form of power.
At once nearly 10 important Greek cities live under the anarchists' regime (it's a huge irony,isn't it?) and the sight of these cities brings back vivid memories of the Greek Civil War. The police could do nothing but stare, frozen by their misfortune and carelessness that started these events. The anarchists/terrorists had the perfect plan!
They hid in the university (if one notices, the events happened only in those cities that have universities) and from there they unleashed a hell Greece had years to experience. Cars bombed, shops burnt and smoke bombs all around. The air had a horrible smell and taste and behind those anarchists/terrorists the plain thieves followed finishing off the half-burnt shops removing any kind of clothes or devices that were in good condition and able to be used or sold in the "black" market. Yes, this is still Greece we are talking about not Chicago or Far West!
I was num....unable to move, think or speak when I heard the news. It can't be true, no it's a bad dream I'll wake up eventually...yes,I will. But I didn't wake up because this isn't a dream, it's the cold and harsh reality. In my mind I tried to go through the streets that are announced as completely destroyed and I think that my heart missed a beat. Nothing's there anymore? NOTHING? However, this proved to be the slightest pain.
Universities in Greece are asylums. Due to the fall of the military regime in 1974 by university students and the courage they showed by locking themselves away inside the universities and resisting to the army that had taken over the country since 1967. If anybody,anybody at all steps onto the university grounds is protected by the police, the army and the law. Only the Dean has the right (and even that with limits) to call the police inside. A fact that our "little" anarchists knew very well and took full advantage of it.
The other citizens couldn't decide, they stayed torn between the death of the boy and the destruction by the anarchists not knowing whom to support. They all shout about democracy and rules but in the end it's been proven that the line between democratic freedom and the break-out of anarchy is very thin and that line is a bullet.
"Democracy died", "The policemen killed democracy" were few of the things one could hear on the streets. Unfortunately democracy did not die, this would mean a strong army intervening and kick their in-need-of-instant-psychiatric-help asses off, democracy was wounded seriously. Democracy suffered a million death wounds under the surveillance of the Parthenon and mount Olympus (ironic enough yet again). The policeman's shooting , according to my opinion, is merely the starting point, not even the cause of all these. Nontheless, I am not quite sure what was the true cause for all of these.
Since 1974 democracy has never been doubted in Greece, since 1974 the country hasn't suffer under an "emergency alert", since 1974 the police has never stepped inside any university campus despite the misuse of the asylum for years.
Today they entered, today the fate of the country will be decided by the Prime Minister and the President, today is the boy's funeral..........
I would like to think that this is cruel joke, a simple trick and when I'll open my eyes it will be gone...
No, the craddle of democracy has wounded democracy and this is real, the country that taught democracy to the others allowed chaos to take over, the country that was proud of its calming state of living lived a terror and cry breezing through the ten suffering cities.
Since I used the word "democracy" so many times I feel obliged to elaborate its meaning: "Democracy is a form of government in which power is held by people under a free electoral system,there are two principles that any definition of democracy includes. The first principle is that all members of the society have equal access to power and the second that all members enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties" (Wikipedia)
All members people...all members, all citizens. Just because a group of people decided to fight for "freedom" or "a better future" doesn't necessary mean that the others will lose their right of private property and the freedom to go around the city and the freedom to decide whether they want or don't want a group of people governing them deciding which building they will plunder and loot and which not. In my Greek blog I talked about respect to your fellow human being but here I would like to point out the importance of obligation to the state. Nobody has the right to make the Greek citizens suffer financialy under tha big economic crisis. These buildings, these streets, these cars were a source of income. Also the taxation was preserving them, the taxation of middle-classed citizens who work,pay their bills and rents and give to the country an income. Now we're going to have to pay double and tripple the damage done.
Today is the day of big decisions and extra safety measures. One could only hope that the government will take the right decision and quickly. Because if it doesn't, we will need to surrender the country to the army temporarily. What a chilling thought! The "Generals" governing again, I cannot bear the thought of it. Greece without democracy...can you imagine it? Isn't there something wrong with that picture?
And for what? For a couple of ill-minded people that found an outburst to escape from a much needed medication, I might think.
I would suggest hanging but it's not "democratic" nor "christianic"......any other ideas?

Facebook: a social tool or a psychiatric help?

It has been almost a year now that I've opened my facebook account and I can honestly say that so far I've been happy with it. I have discovered friends that I thought I lost for ever and I have made lots of new ones that I thought I'd never find. However, while browsing through some of the applications, I came face to face with the "cruel" reality hidden behind the apps! Perfectly normal homo sapiens sapiens were trying to find the other half that's been missing from their lives and what's even more scary..perfectly normal homo sapiens sapiens found a way out for their vices and their sexual preferences.
The things one can discover are difficult to be described..photos of naked bodies (completely naked, I might add), photos of male bodies dressed in woman's clothes, comments that could make even the "coolest" person blush and most important...these are all available to everyone,even teenagers of 14 and 15 years old. There is no age limit to facebook users. As long as you have an e-mail account and you are willing to provide some info of yourself, you can attain a facebook account and browse through all its applications.
I do realise that anonymity provides great power and freedom to express yourself sexually, mentally etc but it should also be done with great caution. We are not talking about a harmless flirt, which -let's face it- can be liberating and self-reassuring for most of us. We are talking about vulgar comments and even more vulgar pictures. I came across a photo of a male body mollesting one "specific" body part, dressed as a prostitute in leather declaring itself as a bisexual and provoking people to comment on that. Nobody had the guts to report abuse of this application so this picture continues to travel happily across the net!!!!!! In the next photo there was a 15-year-old boy that was looking for some love and a special someone to talk to. If this is not madness, then what is?
Isn't there any control or sense of descency on behalf of the creators?
The funny thing is that there are people who are kind and social, with a great sense of humour and a large amount of class and elegance. They write nice things, say "please" and "thank you" and behave impecably! They never are offensive and some of them do try to find a mate for a week or for a year or forever -duration doesn't really matter-in the most honest way.
So far, facebook has been a surprise for me. I have found friends and family members that I haven't seen or talked to for years! I have spent my boring free time playing games and taking tests that were hilarious and truly enjoyable. I have shared pictures with my friends, supported openly several causes such as "Doctors without borders" and everyday I have been given the chance to send my personal message out to the rest of the world. I guess I could say that in a way it's been a kind of psychotherapy for me,too. In an international society which spread us to the four corners of the earth and during an economic crisis that a simple phone call could cost more than an Armani outfit, facebook has been a relief. It generated the feeling that no matter where we are, we stayed connected to each other somehow. We never lost touch, just a few hours of sleep!
Nevertheless, there is the "other" side of this net phenomenon, the "dark" one. Like the flow of the capital throughout our liberal economy market, it is uncontrollable and doomed to collapse. (Oh God, I'm addicted I hope not!) There will be one day one furious parent discovering his/her son's/daughter's secret,naughty life and the persecution will begin. The parent, of course, will never blame his/herself and will be more than happy to find a scape goat. Alas! All will be lost,then....
In fact the question we really need to answer is "What leads people to such a behaviour when networking?What do they have to gain?" The anser could be more simple than you can imagine.
LONELYNESS!
Why was facebook so successful in the first place? Because people have gained the world and they lost each other. Because there is no communication beyond internet. We work 12 hours a day, we worry about our salaries 5 hours a day, we focus on our career 6 hours a day and we drown in this routine deeper and deeper as time goes by. These filthy photos are nothing more than a mere desperate cry for attention and compassion. Since the 20-minute-satisfaction is all that we have been left with to remind us of our humanity, we use it in order to cry for help, in order to validate our existence. Aristotle defined humanity as a state of being through communication, through interaction with each other and this is what modern societies are depriving us of. The funny thing is...we don't have the money to pay for a shrink to tell us what's missing! We have created shrinks and we are unable to use them! The next best thing and far cheaper is internet. I set facebook as an example but there are other cyberspaces where people can turn to. Still the message that we should get is the same. There is an overflow of lonelyness in our well-oiled society machine. We can choose to ignore it until we find ourselves non-human or we can turn to the other alive 3dimensional people next to us and try to cope with them in our real lives.
I used to be proud as a Greek for a lot of reasons and one in particular we have never needed shrinks or psychiatrists because we had friends and therapy included a bottle of wine/ouzo/tsipouro/retsina and a friendly shoulder to cry on. Now,with a dash of disappointment, I see that even the Greeks started taking the path of lonelyness, the path of friendless life. The good news is that we do hold on better than the others but we are about to go down any year now.
Let's go out people and enjoy our cities, our lives, our friends...!!!!!! Life is too short to be consumed in front of a screen!
Thank you for reading me and sorry if I have offended you. It was intentional! ;-)

This day in history,6 years ago...like today

This day in history Arab terrorists members of the Black September break into the Olympic Village in Munich and hold hostages Israelian athletes,this day in history in 1939 Roosvelt declares USA to be neutral to the World War II.
Six years ago like today one of the most infamous criminals in Greece (Koufodinas) got caught, six years ago like today my best friend got her university degree,six years ago like today I came face to face with death, num pain and loss......
My aunt died,my mother's sister who was like my mother in my heart and mind,after a 13-month-battle with cancer.But it was not the cancer that killed her,it was the pain that came from it. The death certificate says it clearly, heart-attack because of extreme pain. There is nothing in there,however,about my extreme pain.
I was waiting for her to die since the doctors took me aside and explained to me that there is cancer in her bones (between the 6th and 7th rib) and that painful days for her lie ahead,that eventually she will fall into a comma and die. It took me days to compromise with the facts and I won an Oscar for my perfomance in the play "there is nothing wrong with you auntie,you will be OK".
I didn't mind the endless race of finding doctors and morphine to ease her pain. I didn't mind the sleepless nights and my locking inside the house. I did mind though that I was slowly losing her and there was nothing I could do about that.
My aunt Anastasia was a widow since she was 45 years old. She had no children of her own,she couldn't have any (long story) and she became my mother since the moment I was born. The motto "parents raise,aunts get to spoil" was never applied to our relationship. My parents never got along well with each other and when they were younger they used to fight a lot. If one adds up the hours they were working and the frequency they were travelling...one comprehends how many years I spent living with my aunt. Her house was a 3-minute-walk from mine so by the age of 7 I could go there unattended and I had a key. This house was my harbour of tranquility,my aunts games and her natural joyful character were my happiness.
She was playing with me as a child-she was my donkey and I was riding her,she was studying with me when I grew older -she was holding my history book the year before I passed my university exams,even though her eyes were closing and it was 5 o'clock in the morning!-she was providing a shelter for me and my friends whenever we had a problem along with heartfelt advice. She made sure that I felt loved and cared about every step of the way.
The reason I grew up to be psychologically healthy and mentally steady is she. She taught me that there is no cross humans cannot carry and that everytime I fall I have to get up and back into the game quickly,there lies the strength and power in every human. She had a very difficult life herself being kidnapped from her home and taken away to Romania for 23 years, she was buried by a bomb which resulted to an inability to have children and when everything was straighten out and came back to Greece she lost her husband and her mother. Suprisingly, she never stopped smiling and thanking God for her life! What a role model!
Even when she got ill, she went through it by smiling and joking about everything around her and she didn't let cancer break her spirit not even for a second.Cancer did even kill her,her heart betrayed her. Such a big heart but still broken and stopped by pain and morphine.
Even now six years later....I look up into the sky at night and wonder on which star she lives and where she waves from down to me. There is no way that she left me here alone,unattended without her warm love around me...her embrace,however,is another issue. I still want to run and hide in her arms,in where I was untouchable by pain and problems,in where I was comforted.
It still hurts too much to think that I've lost her,it hurts to know that my children will never get to meet her.It hurts even more that I don't have her clean mind and advice. How could you,auntie,leave me here all alone without straightening my life out first? Why did you go? I wonder what you think about my choices and my life...are you smiling or are you unhappy with them? Are you at all proud of me?
You taught me well,you should know that.There is nothing that can break my spirit,just like it was the case for you. I always try to smile in bright and dark times equally. Just please show me the star you are on....show me to which direction to look at nights while thinking and wondering and deciding,please...I miss you,still.
I wish you a heavenly trip through the stars,my guardian angel...farewell 'til we meet again.