I read (or swallowed:) this book called My Favourite Wife by Tony Parsons and I am still under mixed feelings evoked by it. Feelings were many, different and sometimes even contradicting each other…

Don’t think I am naïve, or didn’t know all the below mentioned before reading the book, but the novel was so well written and strong, that it made once again strongly feel the unfairness of this world, unstably shaky environment of people’s psychology and the dirt of today’s reality.  

I was extremely disappointed and sad, when I realized that even very stable and special families get “third” person in between.

I was very annoyed to realize that the “third” person was getting more love/attention/time and sacrifices, than the one, who has been close and supportive in most difficult times.

I was terribly irritated to see that the author described a banal affair in much stronger colors, presenting it to be one of the most impressive, influential and strongest experiences of man’s life, leaving the exceptionally happy marriage on the background, as something dull, too simple and normal.

I was almost sure that what that poor man did for his mistress he would not do for his wife. I wonder why though… somehow the first answer, which popped in my mind, was “because his wife was stronger”. It brought me back to the permanent debate of whether women should be strong against all odds or stay weak as initially decided by nature, in order to wake man’s instinct of acting protective…after all strong women don’t need protection, they need admiration/appreciation/devotion and 100 other things, which only strong man can provide…

On the other hand, I was happy to see that “practical women, or permanent girl-friends” – (that is how the author was calling Chinese whores) were not able to buy happiness through their youth and bodies and their well plaid act of pretending love got out of disguise.  

There were many different values touched on different pages and no solution or value was given to any of them. The decisions and opinions about each of them were given to the reader. 

Somehow the book leaves that feeling that all you dreamed of is just a bubble… empty space… a moment comes and all your goals become extremely senseless.

In general it’s a negative book with scarily realistic picture of the reality…so realistic that people may not want to know about it.

Talking about the reality…if you all knew how terribly strong I don’t want to go to work tomorrow!!!!! 

At the same time it’s both – scary and powerful tool in her hands. She can dictate the future and correct her mistakes. But on the other hand, does she have the right to do so?

Besides, she has another additional pressure while writing… Now she has some permanent readers, whose expectations she does not know and to be hones does not want to know. But at the same time, she does not want to disappoint them. 

She has no idea, why are those people reading her and what would they like to read. Who are they and how did they end up being in her blog. But she realizes that if they are reading, they care… which means that maybe she should care too.

She went back in memories, when like now, she was sitting in balcony, while everyone at home were sleeping and was sipping beer looking at the stars. That’s what she does now…
Back then, the person who was with her would not be in a short while…the one who would like to be with her, will never be…and the one who will become her one and only, did not meet her yet…

How ridiculous… She thought that the future was so predictable back then. But as a result, now she knows, the future is will become exactly as she describes in her writings…and from now on, she will be very careful about what she writes. 

She was sitting at the balcony, under the stars…thinking.

Her brain was full of thoughts, her soul full of mixed emotions. She needed to empty some space in both for new things. There was impression that new things are waiting to get in but the space is full and before she re-evaluates what’s inside and take out some stuff, those new things standing in line to get in will not be able to make it.

What need to stay for sure are the memories. They won’t take too much space, since she had kept only the most precious ones. Memories, which were not impressive or strong enough had been deleted already during the previous re-evaluation process…
What she will take out first, are the regrets. She had only few left and all for things she hadn’t done. They can leave now, since what was not done back then can not be done anymore, so what’s the point?

The difficult part is with the hopes. What to do with them? Sometimes they help her stay optimistic but at other times, they make her lazy and put her in passive mode. After few minutes of thinking, she kissed the hopes good bye, sent them to ones who needed them more and replaced them with faith. Faith and belief… they seemed stronger and more productive to her…

Her plans were asked to leave. No matter how hard she worked on her plans to become true, they either took too long to be realized and by the time it was done she did not enjoy their results anymore, or something/someone were changing them and she couldn’t keep them unchanged…

From now on, she will plan the upcoming 24 hours only and maybe it will be easier like that. Maybe it will save her few disappointments and she would enjoy the upcoming day more… who knows?

So she was left with her memories, which were squeezing tight to provide some space and welcome her faith and the upcoming day…

Now she will close her eyes, breath deep the fresh air and think of all the things she wants tomorrow… only tomorrow, because she promised herself not to go further than that…

Tomorrow morning she wishes a breakfast in bed and kiss on her lips. As for tonight, she wants sweet and quite dreams.  

She hugged all her worries and started crying….
He opened the bottle of beer and squeezed it in his fingers…
She was counting her worries and wiping them off with each single tear she cried…
He was thinking of her and longed more with each single sip he made…
When her tears dried out she thought of him and her lips made a bitter smile…
He picked up the ring she threw at him and recalled how nice it looked on her finger…
She recalled the day when he came down on his knee and proposed… how happy she was back then…
With each sip he felt her closer…
With each memory she regretted about her thrown ring stronger…
Two young people had their longest night in their lives…
Before they re-met again…
 

The inspiration comes and goes, thoughts get mixed up in mind and the keyboard is impatiently waiting for my fingers….but…

There are so many things I want to write, so many thoughts I want to share, that they all push each other behind and at the end I become confused and don’t know where to start. 

I guess it’s just my humble excuse of not being able to write something valuable since ages. Now I can partly understand writers, who chase the muse and use all means to stay inspired - be that alcohol, love, sex, drugs or all of them together…

I do remember what it feels like, when you write by impulse, when the muse is sitting next to you and whispering the words in your ear. In my happy teenage years, I was waking up at night, sitting at my desk and half asleep writing a poem, which felt as if someone else was writing instead of me. Words were pouring out from deep inside, and I was starting to write without knowing the subject in advance and discovering the final of the story as if I was reading someone else’s writing…

Unfortunately those days are gone. Life is too fast these days, work- too time consuming and love – too personal to write about. 

These days the muse is sitting next to other teenagers, who are hungry for love, unfamiliar to usual life and free to dream and fly…
Be happy and fruitful my muse…. Wherever you are!

2. Being on a birthday, where most of the participants are 10 years younger, and where I remembered some of them in their preschool age, I felr mature, old and somehow different….

3. When I looked at people who just felt in love, people who have no obligations, responsibility, worries for future and serious thought, I felt a slight envy… It’s always so intense and interesting, when things just start, when it’s the beginning, when you can smell the freshness of the emotions…

I came back home, turned the key, opened the empty apartment and felt the strange sadness coming down at me. I felt everything I felt, before I had found the island where my soul rests now…before I found the most precious person in my life and gave birth to even more precious one. 

I felt what I felt when I was free but lonely. But in between those feeling I felt something opposite to that… I felt tied with love and longing for freedom 

I felt so many emotions contradicting to each other and my soul had so many different inputs from my brain that I decided to stop thinking and wait for the ones, who changed my life completely.

They will ring the bell, I will let them in…and the life will get back to its familiar path, with calm and stable pace 

“I’m losing her. We rarely talk. I mean REALLY talk. I don’t event recall when was the last time we laughed together”. He looked lost and sad. He looked like a man, who struggled to get back what was impossible to bring back…and deep inside he knew that too.
They were sitting in the pub and drinking beer. That’s what they did every Friday after work in the past 15 years. They’ve been best friends and supported each other in all bumpy times. This was yet another bump one of them was trying to overcome…

“ Nothing is as it has been before… I don’t even remember when we went out together. Yesterday I found the printed e mail messages, which he wrote the first month we started dating. 10 years have passed since then and unfortunately I have the feeling that much more than years have passed…”. Her eyes were becoming wet and she was hugging her favorite pillow. Her best friend was far away and she used skype to pour out her problems, thoughts and worries in foreign language, which these days did not feel foreign to her at all…

“The sad thing is that your situation is much better than many others. These days many don’t even have the luck of staying together for so long. Most of them shout, break dishes and move apart with a baggage of insults, hatred and tears” his friend was trying to help, although he knew how impossible it was. In fact he was one of those with the heavy baggage himself.

The screen showed the worried face of her friend. She was silent for a while, then she left and came back with an album.
“Hey, please look here….” And the screen showed their photos from different parties, their past careless lives and happy faces.
“Do you know what was the most important thing I learned from you then?” She had no idea, so she waited for the answer.
“You told once that if there is something worth fighting for, then it’s the love. That’s the only thing which makes you feel alive. Of course you were fighting for the wrong guy back then, but I think you were right”
She smiled through tears. Even then she had been very romantic. And no matter how things turned she still is… though with less enthusiasm these days.

Men paid and left the pub. It was fresh air outside and the light rain was gifting its small drops. In short it was his favorite weather. He decided to walk, so they parted next to his friend’s car.

He was walking, breathing the fresh air and in his thoughts getting back to 10 years ago. He recalled them kissing under the rain in his old red car, he recalled when and where she kissed him for the first time and what kind of look she had in her eyes, when he told that they had to part. Then he thought of how many things he would miss if back then she would have not protested and they had parted.

After she switched off the computer she went back to swim in her memories. “Fighting for love”, she smiled to herself thinking how smart she had been in her 19s. Maybe much smarter than she is now… She recalled how she “fought for her love” when out of nowhere, just when she thought all was perfect, he came and looking very serious and convincing told that they had to break up.

What if she agreed and moved away then? What kind of life would she have? She thought, recalled and felt… and at some stage she lost the sense of time and was back in the “10 years before” again. Once she got there she felt how much she’s missing him. She even felt the pain of longing for that passionate, honest, somehow strange and very sensual guy from “10 years ago”.

She opened a bottle of beer, started drinking it straight from the bottle and cried with a second wave. That’s what she loved doing most these days…drinking beer and crying…

He was walking home faster with each step. He hoped she wasn’t asleep by the time he gets back. He missed her. Missed the girl she was when they met for the first time, missed the woman she has become after those 10 years… he suddenly realized how close she was, how “his” and how irreplaceable…

She went to the balcony and stand there watching the stars… She already knew what to wish for in case one of them falls.

On his way back he stopped by a cyber café, where mostly teenagers were stuck in social networks, hugged by the illusion of what they longed for. He took a computer, received different strange looks and typed his e mail log in and password. He opened a message window and started typing everything he felt and thought of. He wrote for half an hour and without even reading, he typed her address in “To” field and pushed “send” button. With victorious face he paid and left the zombies.

The star fell and she immediately thought of her wish…

Something made her get back to the computer. She decided to check her mail and see if her friend had already sent her the photos she showed in their skype conversation, as promised. There was only 1 new message in her inbox and it was from him… He hadn’t written to her since 10 years already… strange.

She opened the message and started reading. She read and cried… The message reminded her of his messages which were 10 years old already. The wish was granted by the star…they were back to the times when it all started and their feelings were back too…

She jumped from the door bell. She went to open the door.

He was standing with the same boyish look in his eyes. She opened the door and fell into his arms. He held her tight and felt exactly the same he felt in his old red car….

I have changed the numbers on my watch,
And now perhaps something else will change. 
Now perhaps 
at precisely 2 a.m.
you will not get up
and gathering your things together
go forever.
Perhaps now you will find it is 
far too early to go, 
or far too late,
and stay forever. 


- Brian Patten –

Passion, kisses, naked bodies hungry for each other… silence, sighs, wrinkled sheets…
He’s sleeping and she looks at him and swallows back the tears.

“Does he feel where he sleeps, at home or with me? Does he feel any difference in his sleep?” she thought and sighed. This was a completely different sigh from the one which came out of her mouth 20 minutes ago. This sigh was heavy, tired, weak, sad and unwelcomed by the quite silence of the room. 

No, she never felt used. It was her free will and her soul’s choice. Some people love and feel happy; some others feel the pain… She didn’t know if the pain was stronger than the love by now. 

She didn’t know many things, but in one thing she was certain. Exactly in one hour his alarm clock will wake up waking them up too. She’ll pretend that she’s half asleep, although she will not close her eyes just before the alarm sets on. He will wake up slowly. His face will show relief when he’ll see that she’s sleeping, he’ll kiss her cheek, put on his clothes and slowly disappear. Like a dream, like a nightmare or simply like a married man, who was visiting his mistress… 

Every time she’ll torture herself imagining what happens once he gets home. Each time she’ll make a new scenario and feel the dull pain… 

Every time she’ll promise herself that this will be the last time for the alarm clock waking up at 2 a.m.

And every time there are new 2 a.m’s …. and always the same unkept promise

It was Valentine’s Day… almost evening.

Couples were walking in the streets of Paris and the restaurants were packed. Flower sellers, no matter weather in love or not, had a happy day. In the air there were love, roses, candles and whispers…

She was walking parallel to the river, wrapped in her black coat, dragging her feet with heavy boots. She was in the most romantic city of the world on the most romantic evening of the year… alone.

With each passing kissing couple new tear was born. She did not fight the tears back. Today they had the freedom to be as many as they wish, as strong as they wish and last for as long as they wish. She was alone, but her tears were in pairs. They were kissing her cheek and each other, while sliding down and dropping to the pavement. Later couples’ boots will step on them and they will die. 

She had read so many books about this wonderful city. She imagined so many things about the time she’ll be there. And today, as opposed to what she imagined, she shared her company with her colorful dreams and tears. She felt like a woman stepped of a book written by Remarque… but unfortunately there was no Ravic to bump into.

Something deep inside told her that that’s how she will always feel. Her romantic desires and plans will stay in books…some written by her, some by others. That’s where she will hide her dreams and tears, that’s where she will keep her memories and feelings. To many they will be just typed words… for her they will always stay sacred, pure, intense and feeling-full. 

Maybe that’s why, even now, a decade after that Valentine ’s Day, she still does not admire the “romantic Paris”. Maybe someday they will meet again and things will be different? Maybe she’ll have the chance of seeing Paris the way many others, who made it a Romance symbol see it? Who knows?

Or maybe it’s not about the city? Romance lives in hearts and souls and there are romantic couples in every city in every corner of the world… 
And when it fades away… it fades away even in Paris. 

She was finishing up her work day. The excel files were closed, the drawers locked and she rushed out of the room. She took a full mini-bus and spent 15 minutes in it, tired with thoughts rushing from one place to another, memories taking her from one place to another. Since few weeks she had this feeling that she doesn’t belong here… When she thought “here” she meant the whole meaning of the word…the country, the workplace, the boy-friend, the lifestyle, the goals…her whole life in general. Many years will pass and she’ll understand that this feeling will be visiting her often and it’s not scary….but this was the first time and she was scared…

Her boy-friend’s friend’s birthday was in half an hour and she had few minutes to go home, take off that smart suit and get back to her real self. Her boy-friend will come and wait for her next to their building as always and they will walk to the restaurant... Everything with him was so predictable…everything had become a habit and that was so against her real self. She was entering this transition period when she had to make drastic changes…but to which direction, when and how was something she was trying to decide. In any case she thought that since she had to go to this party she’ll try to spend good time.

They were the last ones who came. All were at the table already. She looked so different from how she looked at work. Her make-up was intense, jeans tight and heels high. She acted careless, but only she knew how many thoughts she had in her tired mind. Those people thought they knew her…but they didn’t…and they will never know that they didn’t.

Maybe from aside she looked strange… She was the only one who didn’t eat and sliced lemon on her plate to have something to eat on top of the vodka she was drinking. The vodka did match neither the hot summer weather, nor her look… but still.

When she had a decent quantity of alcohol and could relax a bit, chase away the worrying thoughts and actually not care, she had few dances. 

Then he took her home, she opened the door with the key, not to wake up her mum and bro and got in. She spent few minutes looking at her image at the mirror.

“Hey, there! Is this how you’d like to live? Senseless… empty…with people who don’t know you…following the habit, simply because it’s comfortable???”
She looked at the mirror and saw a new look in her eyes. Look of determination, look of maturity ….and the upcoming change”

That’s how it all started… and few months later, when she was ready, she took the final decision, made the required steps and changed everything.

She was attending other gatherings, next to her she had completely different man and her new life brought completely different thoughts…and completely different problems…
New problems to be solved affront of the mirror…