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.
