The loss that you cannot replace...

I've been dreaming about losses. The kind of painful and strenuous dreams that leave you numb and drained in the morning- you no longer notice the physical pain, all there is is the bottomless pit of emptiness, pressing hard against your insides, creating a sort of vacuum that's almost unbearable, and you move through your day as a sleepwalker, knowing that at night there will be the same dream waiting for you in that dark corner of your mind and you dread the minute of going to bed, because you know you won't escape what you've been trying to avoid in broad daylight.

They say the price for knowledge gained through experience is your innocence. And yet, there are certain things i wish i had never learned- i wish i could claim that innocence back, giving up all that knowledge that i've gained at such a high price...
the experience of pain... the experience of loss. A kind of loss that you will never fully come to comprehend, let alone to reconcile with... A kind of loss that cannot be replaced or recovered from... i wonder how long it takes to heal... as much as this healing is possible in a given situation...
a month... a year... or until another loss and anothe pain come to replace this one?
or until you find something that will at least partly fill that void that will stay within you for a long long time...and what do you do till then? How do you continue living with this loss that you know will not be replaced...

How long does it take to heal...

"...Tears stream down on your face
when you lose something you cannot replace
tears stream down on your face
and I will try to fix you..."
Coldplay

and another... short story

A man, relatively young, and yet already jaded- running away from something or rather, from himself, into a distant part of the world, in search of some kind of sanity, or rather normality, in a place where everything appears skewed and crooked…

He runs around, sleeps around, makes himself acquainted with these unfamiliar ways, and makes himself comfortable in his new surroundings so much that he has no wish to return to the place where he has come from. Meets a woman, conventional in every way- a solid, bulky, traditional woman who promises only stability and devotion, unlike the eccentric and neurotic flighty pieces he used to end up with… A woman with a good hand and a stable head, the woman who will know how to run the house, how to hold the family on her shoulders, how to raise the kids… a woman who’s a great investment into a future that speaks of stability and prosperity and is as conventional as it could be…the only thing slightly out of ordinary being that she’s foreign, but that’s also rather banal, isn’t it? Seems to happen all the time- foreigners, and mostly Americans, marrying women from cultures drastically different from their own- these women either being the exotic pieces or those stable, devoted women that know how to take care of their men… so overall, a banal story, and by writing the outlines I pinned him down and now he’s done, finished, limited to a conventional life he chose to live… but I’m still not convinced and I wonder what it really is that makes American men resign to these godforsaken corners of the world and end up marrying foreign women to live their lives happily ever after?

And i'm dreaming of improbable places again...

"i want to live in a small town in deep South in the States. I want to live in a town where summers are hot and long and careless and women are full figured and wear long dresses and practice magic and men speak in this almost musical Southern drawl and there's music seemingly everywhere…and there's a street named Sullivan Street…"

"Why's that?"

"i don't know. I can just see the place, that town with its people, it all seems so real, uncomplicated. Funny, of all places in the world i want to be in this middle of nowhere place. Do you know a place like that?"

"Well, i am not sure. You're asking for too much, lady. Long dresses and magic...Move to New Orleans."

"But that's a city, I want a small town"

"How's Tennessee? Not quite deep south, but still… Maybe Memphis?"

"Not quite…"

"What then?"

"Don't know. I guess you'll have to find it yourself…guys would call you sweetheart and tell you you're pretty" he said this in this deep southern accent, purrty, made me laugh.

***
and the next day...

"i'm sad..."

"why's that?"

"that whole small town dream... i just want real life. with real people. real men. there are no real men left anymore. they're either fags or too pretentious, too snobbish or too stuck up. or too young even at the age of thirty. sigh. are there really no real men left?"

"hmmm, you're looking at one..."

"yeah, but you don't count..."

"thank you very much i don't."

"perhaps to your missus... i just want real people with real lives. lately i'm getting a feeling that all i see around me is some kind of immitation of life that's being lived elsewhere. yeah, i'm going to move to that southern town one day. just to see how real THAT feels"

"Oh, come on, you just want to get yourself some southern love..."

"Maybe...or i'm just confusing real with redneck. go figure."

"...true potential manifests itself in the one who could, but at present prefers not to act. only in the moment of suspended action does potentiality show itself in its pure form..."

It's August...

... it's not over yet, the summer is not over yet, the heat will persist almost until October, but it will end, eventually, like everything else... sooner than I think, sooner than i'll have time to notice.

I've come to accept the end...

it's not over yet, but it has already ended in my mind, for i know exactly how it is going to be, i can see it so clearly. It's a surreal feeling being at two points simultaneously, a situation when your mind is two steps ahead into the future from where you actually are at the present moment. And i watch myself, from this advanced vantage point, and last night i said out loudly.
«Ever been able to view everything from a point somewhere in future, able to predict your each and every action, watching yourself as it you're watching something staged, already known...»

"You're talking riddles..."

Talking riddles, talking riddles, talking riddles...
There seem to be way too many puzzles and riddles these days, way too much symbolism around. And now the most symbolic month of the year has started... and i'm talking riddles.

In two weeks i'll move into the apartment downtown, it will be four weeks of absolute solitude amidst the busy life of the city crazed and jaded in the summer sun. i can see myself locked inside that apartment, spending hour after hour in nothing but silence, while the city roars behind the soundproof windows... i can see hours stretching long and thin, as i sit motionless playing the game i've always played... i can see myself at the end of the month, packing up my things, not to leave even a trace of my existence, closing the door to the apartment, and the summer gone, but never to be forgotten...

There is only one word to be said in the end, acceptance.
i have learned to accept.
i've come to reconcile with what seemed to be the most difficult thing to reconcile with in the past. i have already accepted and i know i will move on, gone... as if i never existed...

it's not time ...
it is not over yet
august has just started today
august and everything after...

"World, i cannot hold you close enough..."
or is it how it goes?

***

The essence of scepticism is the refusal to accept any choice unconditionally...

***
Jesus is the fat lady...

***

it was exactly what i needed to hear.
i need to find and read that book one more time. before august and everything after comes...

***

When you come to think about it- it’s the simple everydayness that makes up for everything… it’s this everydayness that contributes to this overall happiness that I am feeling now… orange juice in the morning, apple and walnut crepes in the afternoon, late evening ride to downtown, watching the string of lights at night as the cab takes me home… going to bed tired yet knowing that the morning is going to bring yet another wonderful day and it’s all that matters….

I miss certain aspects of living in the states… I am coming to realize that.
I am also coming to realize that despite the fact that I am so incredibly happy here in Yerevan, and move and breathe with so much ease, from aside i act as an American… and I think I enjoy acting as one, although I know I am not… a funny thing, when in the states I used to feel my foreignness, my armenianness almost all the time, and here… yeah, I am acting like a damn westerner- yet I’ve never been more myself than now. I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin, more content amidst all this shit that brings nothing but dissatisfaction… and yet, I miss the states. Chris asked me today what it is that I miss, and the only thing I could come up with to define this vague feeling was “the everydayness... and bagelland” and I told him about that morning, right before we left, when I had gone to bagelland, right after we had had one of our last fights, and sat there for three hours, my head in complete disarray, grateful for the fact that I was leaving in four days. And I remember those kids who sat at the next table- they were young and happy and so decadent- and so everything I wish I had had when I was their age- and it made me want, for the first time I can ever recall, this decadent living, this careless, easy living of simplicity, when days are filled with sunlight and color and you’re unaware of the time ticking away, when every day has a life of its own, every day a threshold of discovering something new, unknown… when life is nothing but an endless string of possibilities and yet it’s not your turn to make your choice yet, and they shift and flicker according to your whims and you never know what’s the next day is going to bring…and I want this life more than anything I’ve ever wanted- and I get a funny feeling that now is the only time I’ll ever get a chance to have anything that comes even close to that kind of life, and I have to have it before I run out of time,,,

And the summer is slowly progressing...

The other day, sitting at Mariott cafe with a friend, talking about future plans that are still vauge and full of uncertainties i caught myself thinking out loudly, more as a note to myself than an actual conversation "It's amazing how you continue living your life day by day in a way you've always lived, doing the same things you ordinarily do and yet with the knowledge that every day is bringing you closer to whaever you've set to accomplish. It's a wonderful feeling..."
He gave me one of his sly smiles, saying "That means you're growing up..."

***

*
how do you reconcile the knowledge of the present with your past self?

... for looking back i cannot help the feeling of dismay and I laugh the laugh of malie at my younger self, the laugh of spite at my own innocence and naivite.

*
what you lost in return of the knowledge you've gained is the innocence.

*
and when you realize that there's no going back to this innocence that's when you know you're old...

Stories

An almost banal, overly sentimental situation.
A man and a woman in a relationship (for this instance I'll use the "terms" man and woman only out of convenience, since they were not ready to accept these roles and play them properly or with dignity of adults.) They have everything to be happy, from outside it looks like a perfect idyll, and yet the relationship is as dysfunctional as it can be- at least on of them, the woman, knows that they are not happy, that she is not happy despite the man's constant denial of the fact or rather his inability to notice what should be apparent to the eye of an insider. Perhaps he IS happy after all, at least during the moments when everything's quiet and things are going seemingly well. He is happy because she's there, with him, he couldn't have possible asked for more, and yet what troubles her is the awareness, the knowledge of the fact that his happiness is because of her, by the mere fact of her existence, and her proximity to him. This makes her extremely uncomfortable and restless, she realizes she does not want the responsibility of being the sole provider of someone's happiness. Even if this someone is the man she loves more than anything in the world. Here is where the discrepancy lies. He's content, does not want anything else, she's trapped, feels burdened with the responsibility of being the reason of happiness she knows she cannot bear it anymore, especially when she knows that she no longer has or wishes to be giving anything any longer. One day she leaves.

He's devastated. He's lost, hurt and unhappy. One moment he has what seemed to be perfect happiness, the next moment everything is gone and the world he thought he knew is no longer the same... He doesn't fully comprehend the fact, only notices the emptiness of the rooms and the cold spot in bed. She's gone, miles away, and for the first time in a long while she realizes that she can breathe freely. She's happy.

Another story

A man and a woman, apart. Separated because of the will of the woman, in the most painful manner ever possible to imagine. She runs away to a place where he won't be able to reach her- halfway across the world, and only when she knows she's beyond his reach, she finds herself finally at peace with herself and happy. She's like to shove this happiness to his face, for he was the one to accuse her constantly for not wanting to be happy... "You just like being unhappy. That's the only way you know how to be..." A statement that's been haunting her for as long as she could remember, and perhaps her departure was partly because of this, and out of spite to prove him wrong, that no, she can be perfectly happy and content, that it IS possible to be ultimately happy, and that her source of happiness does not come from the outside, but lies within her.

U2, the trip and everything else...

Notes from the trip

“It hasn't finally clicked in that this is happening. Still stuck in that one moment when the escape seems inphantomable, when the hopelessness of my confinement in my own condition is all that i will get-and yet, here i am, almost halfway done with the journey, and all i can do is count hours, and hope for the best, perhaps pray for the best, whatever the best is...”

It's been a while- seems like forever, and I cannot fully grasp what is happening, And once again, I'm traveling alone, and I find myself in random locations, surrounded with people as strange as they can be, and I am starting to recall how much I hate airports and traveling alone and I literally count every hour until this whole nightmare is over and I am finally home…

The whole trip is in a haze. Vaguely I remember the uncomfortable ride to Orlando, tension building up between us as he drove silently, occasionally giving me a critical remark or another,,, Tension that wouldn't let go even when I was up in the air, all the way until I landed in JFK- dirty, crowded, depressing… The moment I stepped out I knew I was on my own- I could have chosen to step out of the airport and lose myself in the city- New York, the place I fell in love with only a few months back, the place I still dream I'll be able to live in who knows what distant future- and yet, I knew I had to go home, not even New York with all its temptations could keep me back- and here I was, loaded with a ton of luggage, running around in circles, trying to find some stupid terminal 3- yes, the airport was as depressing as it could be- and yet I entertained myself by talking on the phone- it helped to kill some time as I waited for Aeroflot to finally start checking in the luggage. The crowd around me was even more depressing- Russians from New York or who knows where, flying into Moscow. The only good thing left from New York was the guy with dreadlocks who was flying to India- although I never got a chance to talk to him… The flight itself bad- I was desperate for sleep and yet all I could do was curl in my seat and listen to music- U2 again and pray for a safe landing…

“And I'm trying to figure out how to spend the next 20 or so hours without going completely insane over the fact that this is finally happening. I try to imagine what it will be like, and yet, i know there is no use doing something like this, the imaginary never matches the real, and yet, all i want is to open my eyes and see mount Ararat again, all i want is to walk along Sayat-Nova avenue, to breathe the cool spring air, to listen to the Yerevan sounds, and watch the streets, and stream of lights, in my city of lights...

I wish i could sleep. I really do want to sleep, or perhaps i could try and make a list of hundred and one things that went wrong with my relationship during these last 2 years... Or hundred and one things on why life is so beautiful and getting better as i slowly progress into my recovery. Or hundred and one reasons why i should stay in armenia, although i guess that's too dangerous an issue to speculate over...

And again i listen to U2, i've been listening to U2 for the last two months, my freedom songs, the songs of hope and my liberation, the songs of past and a brand new, almost impossible future. Whatever that future might hold, it's the freedom that makes it so attractive, the freedom that will perhaps be my own salvation...


I listen to u2 and entertain all possibilities, and yet this time i do not want to force any decision upon myself. I will let it happen, i will let it fall upon me rather than force fed it to myself and him... although there's a lot at stake, i think i will put my inner peace and well being first this time and see how it goes.

I wish i could stay at home longer. i wish... i really wish i could just stay there... and not return. i really wish...”

Russian Airlines sucks, but that was pretty much expected. At times i think that it really is worth it to spend some extra for comfort and everything else. Moscow, and the airport nightmare started all over again, although the worst part was yet to come- by the time I stepped out of the terminal I was so tired and grateful for my uncle to be there to meet me that I was about to collapse in his arms- and yet, obediently I let him walk me to his car, although the last thing I wanted to do was talk, I did find some energy to make a quite a decent conversation and even joke. Six hours, a glimpse of Moscow- the city was too bizarre or maybe the time interval too short, and me way too tired to form any definite impression about the place. But at least I can say that I've seen the Red Square if that makes any difference at all. Flying out of Moscow was the worst- luggage, passport control- and I completely panicked and broke down for I could already sense trouble coming towards my way- trouble I was not able to deal with yet- too tired, too ravaged, the only thing on my mind being to finally get home.

Stepped off the plane into the night, all my luggage safe and in one piece thank god- walked out of the gate and saw my mother and my brother- and again, I could help the tears, and I cried like I had never cried before with the realization how much I had missed them in these past two years and how much I needed to be with them at that very moment. Calmed down while waiting for the taxi- and we talked, as if nothing had ever happened, as if it was only yesterday that I had left, and it gave me a very strange feeling of dislocation as if it was not only the space that I crossed, but time as well, and here I was, back in two years, at the exact spot that I was right before I left.

Our apartment at first sight looked more shabby than I remembered, not much had changed and yet it looked like the apartment itself had aged, whereas my mother and my brother looked exactly as I remembered, A surreal feeling- sitting in the living room, drinking tea and talking- and I kept thinking about the place that I lived the last few months, and couldn't help but compare. The strangest thing was going to sleep- I thought of the bed, my bed, and our bed- the white bedroom and everything else, and it gave me a painful pang in the stomach, and a creepy feeling that I would never see those things again….

The last i wrote on the trip...

“And I never really got to say goodbye to Gainesville, anyway, despite the fact that i kept changing my mind- or rather situation kept changing- every other day, i still think that most likely than not i will be coming back, i have no choice but do so, and how much i hate situations like this, when even though you know you're doing the only possibly right thing, in the end you will end up regretting about your choice bitterly, blaming your fate and the one single life that you've given, and dream about another life of a different choice under different circumstances...what can one do in situation like this? I really wonder and admire those who are able to make a decision and stick with it till the very end, without experiencing any feeling of remorse.

I no longer want to live regretting...”

*Interlude

To leave, in such a state of mind, the irony and fucked-upness of the whole situation, who would’ve though... i thought i was the victim here, and yet, i guess, we both are the victims of some cosmic fucked up joke that’s being played on us. Maybe somehow this is a sign for us to wake up, and open our eyes... although whatever that cosmic message might be i still don’t have any interpretations. perhaps i should really consider being alone as my only option, and the more i think about it, the more attractive the whole thing seems, and yet at the same time i think about him, after i’ve left, him, devastated, lost, hurt and torn into pieces, a caricature of himself, mean, spiteful, cynical, hateful... if he were to tell his story to someone at a random bar, i would be the bitch who ruined his life in that story. yes, i would be that one, the evil bitch, that was the end of him.... But at the same time, is it worth ruining my own life for the sake of his happiness? not even happiness, for if we go back to the old ways, it’s going to be yet another nightmare that neither one of us deserves. So tis there possibly an answer, a kind of solution that would be the least hurtful for both of us?

And it's happening again...

Reoccuring
“Sometimes all you want is a place you could go to and
feel safely hidden and lost. An unfamiliar place in a foreign city, a street without a name, you walk into a bar you’ve never been to, order a drink you will not drink… Talk to yet another stranger, smile a disappointed smile, give a shrug, and walk out, sober, leaving only cigarette ashes behind… For you know better, you should- you’ve spoken to way too many strangers…

You walk into a building undistinguished in any way, open the
door to a room that has no personality; look at the bare
walls and a single chair in the corner. In fading daylight
coming through the stained glass you are alone. You walk
into that empty space, sit on the floor with a full pot of
coffee and smoke cigarettes one after another. Watch the
smoke curl above your head and melt in the air. Watch the
air turn blue and heavy as hours pass…

…and you’re still there, on the floor trying to recall who
you are and where you have come from. Trying to remember
what was today and what was yesterday. All those faces and places, and bits and snippets of conversations… They swirl around your head- distant echoes of forgotten voices, past instants flashing before your eyes… here you are at sixteen, here you are at twenty… now you no longer know your age, it’s been too long since you stopped to ask. Scenes from the past flashing before your eyes, scenes that seem to belong to someone else’s life, you’re merely an observer with indifferent eyes, watching a poorly cast movie with badly matched characters. You go through each one of those scenes, one by one dismissing them all, letting them roll into the dark void of oblivion, without experiencing any regret. Hardly feeling a thing. What a waste…

Nothing remains. Your mind is yet another space, bare and empty, uninhabited- there is nothing left to remember. Nothing to evoke even a slight resemblance of what you once used to call an emotion. There are no more thoughts, none of the moments of past holding you
back, making you want to return, no useless weight holding
you down. You could interrupt the film at any moment, leave that life as it is, unfinished, yet suggesting no logical ending. You could chose never to leave the room and no one would even notice… Leave the body behind, dissolve in the air in search of the eternity… And as
you stand staring into the huge dark eye of the unknown,
you’d know that’s where you have come from."

*

“You need to see a shrink.”
...and although I was quite surprised at his comment, I simply shook my head and told him that there was nothing in this world the shrink could possibly tell me that I didn't already know.

“You've got to figure out whether you're running from or to, you'll be just fine when you know for sure…”
...and it makes me wonder...

Notes to Self

... since i've had no time.

o When they ask me what I miss most about the States…
o Toxic wife
o Met a stranger at a bar…
o Stories.
o Does it have to get that bad before it starts getting better?
o The city
o Letters to a friend
o Comments on the blog
o Spective
o The reality
o In another life we could have something…

Scenes

A man and a woman in a room, barely looking at each other. Heavy silence has settled in the room and in this silence they sit, each with a thought of their own, excluding the other. One wonders what they can possibly have to tell to one another…

A scene with similar settings but a different context.

A man and a woman, this time facing each other, while the necessity to speak brings anticipation that drifts in the room. She is hurt and is waiting for him to speak, to make a move in a word or an action. She has an urge to get up and put her arms around him, yet pride makes her remain where she is. He is baffled and confused for he does not understand what he has done wrong to make her act the way she does. It pains him and in his turn he is waiting for her to speak. An awkward silence prevails.

Two in a room, her back turned to him, while he restlessly paces the floor. Tension growing in silence, tension that rejects, is repulsive. Unable to stand any longer he walks towards the door and steps out, closing the door quietly behind him. She hears it, but remains where she is, without even turning her head toward the door.

***
Once, long in the past, in real life, she ran after him, down the stairs and into the street, where she caught up with him and took him by the hand. They walked together, without speaking, holding hands and avoiding looking at each other.

They returned late at night to the same room, where they lit candles and sat in each others arms, still not speaking. They fell asleep, on the floor, while the candle slowly died in the dark.

***
Now i no longer run after you, you no longer stop to look back, we've had too many scenes of silence, they do not matter anymore, only the haunting heavy presence of the other, the desire to escape, to be elsewhere... Now i am only glad when you slam the door and leave, or else i run out of the door, away, away from this dark and destructive place, the eye of the storm that will inevitably swipe away everything and send me off spinning.