Tea made me remember...
I just got some food at the Lebanese place on K'Rd. While waiting for my food, the guy behind the counter put a tea cup in front of me on my table.
Like this one. It smelled so good, and with the smell, instantly a whole lot of memories came back to me.
Of this place, above. I first went to the MTC for an after show party by a band called The Bates. I remember having coke and bourbon and not liking that at all, so I started having cherry juice, which made people assume I was drinking something fancy and exotic, while I really wasn't. The Yeti Girls played a set and it was such a good party with so many nice people, and also a few worries about someone bleeding out of their nose, which was pointed out to me was because he snorted that much cocaine. He later died from drugs, very sad stuff, he was well loved.
The nicest thing about the party was that for the first time in my life, someone seemed to like me better than everyone else around. I was always the ugly fat chick in my circles, I mean, I had kissed someone before, but while that was exciting, it wasn't quite the same. Here someone actively said, hey, let's leave the famous/cool people and talk outside, just us too! It was raining and we sat and just talked for hours and hours and it was so nice to feel like I was special. That was all we did that night, just talk, but it meant the world to me.
In years to come, I'd drag my friends to the kebab place on the opposite side of the road a lot. We discovered that they give you free tea while you wait, which we felt was pretty special. IN Germany they don't necessarily give you as much as water with your meal, you know. I'd sit there with my friends and stare at the ledge outside the shop where we sat and talked and it somehow gave me strength. That all sounds so cheesy, but I just needed to hold on to the thought that I could be special to someone, and cool, and funny.
Which takes me to this satellite image of the place where after 5 years of unrequited loved, Valeri told me he loved me too, and kissed me. It was ice cold and it was evening and we had just turned around from Cologne Central station because we decided to walk over the bridge across the Rhine to the next train station to get home. The steps were wet, it wasn't a nice day at all, sort of a mix between rain and snow. Half way up, he started stammering around and my brain must've turned off, so I wouldn;t understand what he was trying to say. Something about how him and Thomas had these conversations about how to tell me, but that it was so hard, or something like that, I barely even remember. I just remember that I said "I don't know what you're trying to say!", because it was so ingrained in my mind that he would never love me, and then he said "Well, let me show you then..." and then he kissed me, on the stairs.
I think I burst into tears and my mind started playing tricks on me, thinking he was just trying to be kind to me because he knew what a terribly hard time I had at home. But here he was, kissing me, so I went along with it. It was the most unrealistic outcome of the day that I could have possibly imagined. 5 years is a long long time when you're 17 or 18. I fell in love with him when I was 12.
Ho hum.
Few days go by when I don't miss him. This February, I've been in love with him for 21 years. It's a different love now, one of those that'll probably never go away, but it has changed a lot, and of course I still wonder what the hell happened to all of it. Could we have saved it? We were so smart, but neither of us had any clue how relationships work, and that you need to talk more and be more respectful sometimes and all sorts of things. I think about this so much. Not being together never felt like a matter of a lack of love. If being together makes you angry and upset all the time, when you feel like someone is doing so much for you, but the one thing that really counts - listening to you and hearing you - isn't happening...
I'd like to think that if I had stayed when he asked me not to go to New Zealand, I'd like to think that I would have been unhappy in the long run.
That's the only thing I can allow myself to think.
For the better part of it, I've been so happy here! But because my mind is a cruel bitch, the happier I get here and the better things go, the more it comes up with ideas to torture me, like missing people and places.
A few nights ago I vividly dreamt of the way we used to fall asleep every night. Just that, very innocent, just hugging each other.
I wish i could make the memories go away. I wish he was around again, as my friend. That would make new memories, different ones, rather than dwelling on the ones that shouldn't stick around.
And I'm being so good. Even when I thought that asteroid might just hit us, I didn't write him an email, even though I really wanted to. Glad for it now. Phew.
I wonder if he's a dad now... I hope he's good. I hope he's happy. 21 years. Fucking hell.
I took him to the turkish place one time. To remind me that I can be special to someone. A bit sad, right?
Like this one. It smelled so good, and with the smell, instantly a whole lot of memories came back to me.
Of this place, above. I first went to the MTC for an after show party by a band called The Bates. I remember having coke and bourbon and not liking that at all, so I started having cherry juice, which made people assume I was drinking something fancy and exotic, while I really wasn't. The Yeti Girls played a set and it was such a good party with so many nice people, and also a few worries about someone bleeding out of their nose, which was pointed out to me was because he snorted that much cocaine. He later died from drugs, very sad stuff, he was well loved.
The nicest thing about the party was that for the first time in my life, someone seemed to like me better than everyone else around. I was always the ugly fat chick in my circles, I mean, I had kissed someone before, but while that was exciting, it wasn't quite the same. Here someone actively said, hey, let's leave the famous/cool people and talk outside, just us too! It was raining and we sat and just talked for hours and hours and it was so nice to feel like I was special. That was all we did that night, just talk, but it meant the world to me.
In years to come, I'd drag my friends to the kebab place on the opposite side of the road a lot. We discovered that they give you free tea while you wait, which we felt was pretty special. IN Germany they don't necessarily give you as much as water with your meal, you know. I'd sit there with my friends and stare at the ledge outside the shop where we sat and talked and it somehow gave me strength. That all sounds so cheesy, but I just needed to hold on to the thought that I could be special to someone, and cool, and funny.
Which takes me to this satellite image of the place where after 5 years of unrequited loved, Valeri told me he loved me too, and kissed me. It was ice cold and it was evening and we had just turned around from Cologne Central station because we decided to walk over the bridge across the Rhine to the next train station to get home. The steps were wet, it wasn't a nice day at all, sort of a mix between rain and snow. Half way up, he started stammering around and my brain must've turned off, so I wouldn;t understand what he was trying to say. Something about how him and Thomas had these conversations about how to tell me, but that it was so hard, or something like that, I barely even remember. I just remember that I said "I don't know what you're trying to say!", because it was so ingrained in my mind that he would never love me, and then he said "Well, let me show you then..." and then he kissed me, on the stairs.
I think I burst into tears and my mind started playing tricks on me, thinking he was just trying to be kind to me because he knew what a terribly hard time I had at home. But here he was, kissing me, so I went along with it. It was the most unrealistic outcome of the day that I could have possibly imagined. 5 years is a long long time when you're 17 or 18. I fell in love with him when I was 12.
Ho hum.
Few days go by when I don't miss him. This February, I've been in love with him for 21 years. It's a different love now, one of those that'll probably never go away, but it has changed a lot, and of course I still wonder what the hell happened to all of it. Could we have saved it? We were so smart, but neither of us had any clue how relationships work, and that you need to talk more and be more respectful sometimes and all sorts of things. I think about this so much. Not being together never felt like a matter of a lack of love. If being together makes you angry and upset all the time, when you feel like someone is doing so much for you, but the one thing that really counts - listening to you and hearing you - isn't happening...
I'd like to think that if I had stayed when he asked me not to go to New Zealand, I'd like to think that I would have been unhappy in the long run.
That's the only thing I can allow myself to think.
For the better part of it, I've been so happy here! But because my mind is a cruel bitch, the happier I get here and the better things go, the more it comes up with ideas to torture me, like missing people and places.
A few nights ago I vividly dreamt of the way we used to fall asleep every night. Just that, very innocent, just hugging each other.
I wish i could make the memories go away. I wish he was around again, as my friend. That would make new memories, different ones, rather than dwelling on the ones that shouldn't stick around.
And I'm being so good. Even when I thought that asteroid might just hit us, I didn't write him an email, even though I really wanted to. Glad for it now. Phew.
I wonder if he's a dad now... I hope he's good. I hope he's happy. 21 years. Fucking hell.
I took him to the turkish place one time. To remind me that I can be special to someone. A bit sad, right?