My good friend Berkan once said “Oh, the pain we are willing to feel in order not to separate.” And he was right. Back then, we were discussing about an other friend of ours who could not decide whether she could move on with her life on her own or simply follow the path of her common life with someone she has spent the past years with, believing in the possibility of common future or even worse, marriage. Her reactions showed exactly the opposite of her own actions. I am sure she will find her way,as we all do at the end of the day. Of course, they cheat on each other and they make the enormous effort to show they are happy together, cause that is how it is supposed to be. I still find it unbelievably inhuman to live someone else’s life. Or nobody’s life. Who can guarantee that what you sacrifice for, is what the other person actually needs you to do for them?
The reason I am thinking about this again, is that it is so common among … everybody, I guess.
Coming back home, I went out on the balcony to meet London, as I say to myself when I feel alone. I lit up a cigarette and I observed once again the lights of the city below me. Southwark, Westminster, Pimlico, Lambeth, Battersea, Brixton, Clapham, Dulwich. I was alone, surrounded by city’s white noise and the city itself. So many lives around me, so many stories, told… untold. Unrevealed.
When I got inside, my friend from Greece texted me, he said “I am lost, we are in a place where we do not know who we are to each other. What have we become?” As I heard him talking about their break up, this long lasting break up, of more than a year of back and forth against all signs of the contrary, their fears, their human side reflected on each other, I remembered the day I photographed them back in my flat in Athens, one of the most productive days in my artistic life. I had the chance to discover the dynamics of a couple, without having them say a word. Berkan says I have a strong insight. Maybe he is right. I can “see” people, most of the times. I guess that is why I get disappointed when they do not meet my image of them…or me. One of my qualities is that I observe people so closely, and I listen to them. Another one is my excellent memory. I remember what people say, how they look at each other, what their face looks like, how their skin smells, their body posture when they express emotions. M says I am close to the other person, but not that close to me yet. I guess this is my path… coming closer to me, through others.
I heard Yannis talking about her, her accident, his fear of not being there for her now that they are not together, his confusion “what are we?” Two people who still care for each other, no matter how life has changed for them. I heard him and I could only be sure that once we feel we have to do something for our partner, that is the moment we love them less, we love our fears and guilt more. One once said that when we love someone we have to trust their own way and time of dealing matters and flow in life. That is a hard task. I can only assume that is why love is not so easy to cultivate and preserve. Why is it that we are so afraid to move on? Why none has ever taught us how to let go. Is there a certain way? And if memories come back and forth, have we ever let go?
As I was giving my advice to Yannis, my advice to myself through him, I thought I missed my friend, that significant, irreplaceable friend so badly, that I wished I could turn back time and change it all. But, as our subconscious self is always ahead of us, the minute I felt I miss him, I told Yannis “You know what loneliness is? Loneliness is returning home at night, standing alone in front of this beauty (London) and the one you wished standing next to you is probably out there among those little yellow and red blurry city lights. Not with you, next to you, for you. And that’s okay, because it is what it is , and this is what you both achieved, this is the reality you both created. Just let it go.” Was I talking to Yannis or me? I don’t know and it does not matter either.
Why do we have to be something more than what we are in order to show we care, we love? Why a label has to justify our actions, or our feelings?
Call me naive or romantic, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and only the brave dive into it. And when we are in need of a breath, get out of it. And move on.
nassia kapa 