'the living nightlights'

I met with a friend. She is of my nationality and I met her a few weeks ago. She is very cool and we spend great time whenever we meet. Last evening, I went to her place accompanied by a bottle of wine and some Turkish fast food to deal with my hunger. We were together at her place for almost five hours speaking about social life of the city we live in, must-know partying people, our experiences with men, friendships etc - totally SATC conversations. You know I love that.

After hearing some experiences of hers and of some of the people she knows and after telling her about the 'issues' I had in my relationship I realized how unmeaning my issues were.

When we finished the second bottle of red wine I headed back home. Accompanied by the nightlights of the city where I live in. It was surprisingly great to walk down the streets at night even though it was not the first time I had done that. I called James but he did not pick up after two trials. I was on the Square of Liechtenstein when I called him for the third time. I said to myself: 'please answer this phone - this is such a beautiful square of my city. I love this place'. When I was here waiting in my car for this friend three weeks ago I thought that I had an amazing life and that I was extremely happy with all I have - I thought about it on this place. I stopped and I thought about it again: 'please, answer the phone'. He answered the phone. I told him I loved him. He told me the same. For the rest of my way home, I wasn't walking home. I was flying home. I was literally flying on my way home. As if I had wings. I was drawing hearts of the snow on the cars. Around five hearts on five cars. And the sixth one was the biggest - it was on the roof of my car.

Just before getting home I just opened my hair, shook my head and spread my hair all over my head and face. I jumped happily. I got inside and went to bed. I received a text from James saying 'thank you for the call. I love you'

I fell asleep.

'family and other disasters'

I saw a kid at the office yesterday. My first thought was: 'what the fuck? what the fuck is this child doing here?'. I felt awkward when she looked at me. Later that day, I was in the kitchen waiting for my cup of hot chocolate when I saw some photos on the notice board. Those were the pics from a company social event showing happy kids playing together and having fun. I felt weird again.

Why does a simple settled down life in a perfect house in the suburbs make me feel some weird and not-wanna-do-that? Perfect couple, two kids, a car, a great job and then a strong feeling in my stomach saying not to end up like this. Ever! Am I not the marrying type? Am I not the family person? Was I too fast to ask James about the marrying issue? Maybe it's not for me...

Or maybe it is… but not in the standard way usually expected by the society and family and provided by today’s culture. When I was living in the Northern Africa I once met a couple. He was Dutch and she was Ukrainian. They met somewhere in the former Soviet Union. They got married a few years ago and from that day they lived in a few countries. When I met them it was their fifth year in the Northern Africa. They left a few weeks after me for Armenia where they started new jobs and new social lives. Why did they decide to move to Baku, Azerbaijan? Because they were done with Northern Africa and they just wanted to change their lives. No other reason. No family in Azerbaijan, no better job prospects than what they had there. Just a pure desire for changing the environment to a country slightly more exotic than old and predictable Mother Europe. They also had a kid. I got to meet the boy at one of the fabulous swimming pool parties that they would throw every now and then. Smart and cute boy who thanks to double nationality and living in a bilingual country could speak more languages than me at the age of six. Everything would be perfect but the fact that they were swingers. However, excluding this fact that I will never have in my life I guess they had the perfect model of a relationship that I would certainly like to apply in my life.

So maybe I can settle for the type of a family that the couple managed to build. Who says I should live all my life in the suburbs in the same perfect house near the same boring city?!?!

Can’t I change the countries every five years? You just do it and go ;)

'a view to a love'

Before the dramatic James-never-called-drama that happened 2 days after I left the European-Asian city where he lived and the same drama that turned out to be my wild imagination I had spent a lot of great time with him in that unquestionably beautiful city.

I went there once almost one and half year ago and did all the must-see touristic places (I started this blog there!!). Last week I decided to ignore the city. When James was at work, I was sleeping till noon then had an afternoon rendez-vous with him (if you know what I mean :) and a lunch together. Later, I was hanging out in different cafes all over the city and reading an amazing book (‘The Kite Runner’ by Khaled Hosseini).

Everything was perfect.

I got to meet his new colleagues and as usually I liked them all. I liked his new flat. I got a lot of assurance from him regarding our common future. We even had our first clash (not the drama I had already written about) and again thanks to honest and sincere communication we ended up totally reconciled with some learning for the future and knowing each other a bit more. I am fine with the fact that clashes will always be part of any relationship but I cannot stand that some people do not know how to handle them later. Luckily, neither James, nor me are those people.

During the last day, we took a boat and went to the neighboring islands. We ended up on the biggest one with picturesque architecture, breathtaking views of his city from the top of the hill, no cars but only the culture of biking. We biked until the top, where an old monastery/church was build centuries ago. We sat on the edge of the hill and watched the tank ships moving and the magnificent view of the city in the distance. To make it even more romantic we decided to go back to this place whenever we were in the city.

Probably, the amazing day and the great previous days made us not want to part, then sad about that and voila! - Another drama began (starting with the when-do-we-get-married question). That drama was also quickly solved and now I know I have nothing to worry about. I will see him on Christmas and New Year’s Eve again.

Last night conversation with some friends of mine about long distance relationships only assured me how very lucky I had been with James for almost 5 months of constant physical separation and despite that the relationship is going very well. Most of people either break up or go through very difficult times. I do not have either of those. And I will not have them. And the most important thing is that even though the distance is hard to deal with, I know I love him, I know he loves me. That makes it way more bearable.

How lucky I am!

'the word is not enough'

Saying ‘I love you’ is a very special moment in any relationship. When it is said for the first time it becomes a very memorable moment. In my previous relationships I would wait long enough to say these words (sometimes the words were never said because the relationships were broken way earlier…). With James, I would just say that whenever I felt that way which was quick. Did I decide that to say this? Or did it just happen itself? I really don’t care.

I suppose the most stressful moment is when you say it the first and then you wait for the reply. James said back the ‘love’ word which obviously made me very happy. But later he would sometimes use ‘like you’ again. Sometimes like, sometimes love. I would always find it weird but didn’t want to bring up this issue (don’t want to act like a drama queen even tough I am one – just not to make it even worse than it is). Then he would also often use the ‘we are dating’ expression. With my far from being perfect/fluent knowledge of English I was pretty confused. Are we in a relationship or are we dating? Isn’t the relationship thing more serious than dating? He then explained me that even tough he would use dating he meant relationship.

The end of my like/love dilemma was when he said he liked his mum. Parents are supposed to be loved and not liked. I am sure he loves her but he just didn’t express it properly. And then it occured to me that I always say ‘I love you’ to all of my friends. To James as well. So what is love? What is like? What is dating? What is a relationship? Where are the differences?

I guess that human emotions and feelings are so complex that no language on this world can properly express them. So why should we care about words? Feelings are way more important.

And those I feel and I get are more than fabulous.

:)

'from Europe/Asia with love'

You are the drama queen. Young and sweet! Only 24!

Gmail is genius! Did you hear me laugh at gmail because it popped up the stupid ‘dating without drama/he never called’ ad? I am telling you! Gmail knows what it’s doing. I deserved this ad. Because I am a drama queen.

Read the story.

I went to see James in the country where he lives now – right on the border between Asia and Europe. I was there for six days. We spent a fabulous time and all was perfect. Last evening just before going to the airport, we were tired, stressed (long story but unimportant here) and sad because of my departure. I was trying to keep the conversation and I asked the inevitable question. It was half seriously, half in jest. ‘When do we want to get married?’ If it was seriously then I only wanted to know whether he was a marrying type. I did not want to propose to him (we both think it’s too early now). But he got kind of pissed off and replied ‘ehhmmm, in 2050’. I got sadly quiet. He noticed that of course. Later, we clarified that issue and he eventually said he would marry the person he thought would be the one. And for the moment I have good chances to become the one. I should feel safe. Then he saw me off to the airport and sent a sweet message at the end just after I disappeared in the departure gate. The next day I called to get even more sufficient evidence of how insignificant the ‘2050’ reply was. All should be fine.

But…
No message yesterday during the day. I started getting worried. Had I scared him off? It is really hard to hear from someone that you have scared him/her off. When it happens you usually get no contact from the person and that’s how you get the confirmation that you have actually successfully scared someone off. So I had all those thoughts yesterday. I analyzed it with my friends. I talked about it. I asked questions. They asked me after hearing that everything was actually going fine: ‘so what is actually wrong?’ I replied: ‘he didn’t call or text me today’. They gave me a lot of support and objective opinions. I shouldn’t be worried at all according to them. But still… I was worried. Somewhere deep inside I couldn’t get the thing out of my head. Was he out of love for me?

And then I got a text message from an unknown number from the country on the border of Europe and Asia. It was from James. It read: 'Hey, I wanted to send you a note to let you know I was thinking of you. I am out of credit. Love you'. You can imagine how happy it made me, can’t you?

He was not out of love. He was out of credit.

I am a pathetic, foolish boy. And I am loved.
The former is funny. The latter is fabulous.

I have, you have, we have

Something really meaningful happened to me a few days ago. It made me realize some things about myself.

A friend of mine and I went for a weekend to the capital city of the neighboring country. She stayed at her friend’s place and I stayed with mine. But before I met up with my friends I stayed with the friends of my friend. Those friends have been married for a couple of years. The wife is not into anything related to the modern technology. She hardly uses emails let alone facebook. They have a computer. There was a connection problem and she obviously didn’t know how to fix it. I thought it was not her computer. I asked:
- Is it your laptop?
(a short silence)
- Your husband’s? – I continued
- No… It’s ours! – she said with a sincere smile and a bit of surprise on her face.
And then I realized. They had been together for years so why would the laptop belong to any of them only? It was their common property and it was obvious. As much as I am into relationships (especially mine) I have no concept and idea whatsoever on merging assets. I don’t know how you do that. It is so weird me for to live in a flat that belongs to two people and not to one of them. It is so awkward to posses the common things. It is so normal to lend/borrow some money and then give it back/claim it. I cannot understand how it works.

Is it possible to learn that? Does it come with time? Do you need to have some agreements?