IN-DIA-RY

IntroductionTell me, have you ever cried? I mean, really cried? You know, not only sobbing but wailing in an “I am about to die” way when nothing matters anymore. When your tears keep pouring like an overflowing river, irreversibly, spitting in your face the reality that nothing will ever be the same… Have you ever cried, deep from your heart, which opened up and suddenly released all the pain and joy, all the feelings you had gathered with ant-like diligence? When your very self ceased to exist, your body floating in the vicious vortex of the dark despair tore apart, your heart shattered into a million pieces, and your soul got destroyed while being lost in its pain? Have you ever felt that no human could endure more while your tear and saliva smeared face and hair made you unrecognizable, but you just couldn’t care anymore? After all, you couldn’t even be sure you still existed. That night, I was lying in my bed. I just realized a few days earlier; my husband had been cheating on me. Looking back now, I know my marriage ended on that night of sorrow. After that, we were trying to make it work for a few more years; I am the chance-giving type, loyal as a dog. Then Pluto had an idea, as it is the nature of this planet, and returned for one more round to make sure all things swept under the carpet were cleared from my life, once and for all. We have become friends, Pluto and I by now, as it gifted me with the beauty of growing up, the rebirth of a phoenix, and the experience of being on my own. So crying can be useful, after all. That is all I am trying to tell you. When it happens, the veil of our delusion finally falls, and we have to face reality. Something we yearn for, yet the realization that things do not go according to our wishes and expectations can be so painful. Things turn out not the way we want them but the way they should be. Reality and the visions of our dreams often do not match. Eventually, when we dare to admit this, we let ourselves grieve. We mourn the things that will never happen, and we start living our lives. Now, I am sitting here with a suitcase. I have to pack my life: forty-two years into twenty kilograms. The promise of adventurous novelty mixes with the bittersweet feeling of saying goodbye. As I am picking up my various belongings accumulated over the years, every single one of them tells me a story and sings about a taste, color, or a feeling. What should come with me, and what should I leave? Twenty kilograms. Not twenty-one, only twenty. That is my whole life measured by the airlines.