A story

Every fairytale begins with a damsel in distress, a prince and an evil witch.

But what if the prince’s intentions are not as noble as they seem? What if the witch’s envy is not the only force at play? The prince saves the princess from an old witch who is full of envy for the princess’s youth. They live happily ever after. Or do they?

While reading those fantasies, no one realises that they are just words. We use words daily, and we are full of them, such as promises, threats, and confessions. They are full of words. But words truthfully don’t mean a thing in our reality, and they are just fantasies. In the modern world, word exchange is a tradition that we adapt to our needs. Social media, messages and emails, no one writes love letters anymore. Remember you promised to write me a letter that never got written—another empty promise, full of words that don’t mean anything if not followed by action. My prince never got to rescue me. In the modern world, people don’t want to save anyone, but sadly, they don’t want to be rescued. Every advertisement, every message, and every book is about self-help. You have to save yourselves, and no one will come to you to take all your troubles away. To hug you and let you be vulnerable and cry just because an old witch hurt you or you got captured. We had to grow up from those fairy tales. Sad, isn’t it?

Our history, stories, and dreams are what hold us together. It’s a bit of a pity, but what can we do?

Who will hold you if not yourself?

People come, and people go; it’s a structure of life. Will it be death or circumstances of their will of choice - it doesn’t matter in the bigger picture. It may bring you solace if they didn’t choose it, but then the grief comes. Pain is present nonetheless.  I find it rather cold; I don’t know why I am called per se; would that be that summer in England is non-existent or that I didn’t eat properly today, or for the past few days, maybe my body is crushing, or my brain is in a dangerous need of fresh air. Maybe if I were closer to nature, it would soothe my ache and restore my body.

I am just a passenger, a no one if you want to have a name, a girl, an ex, a friend, a daughter, a sister. You may find me in a coffee shop drinking hot - initially, now cold coffee with a random book in my hand to avoid thinking or obsessively writing something on any surface. It may be a digital or an old-school journal with too much coffee or wine stains. On my journey today, when I dreaded returning home to not wanting to go out and force myself out to the gym, I saw a beautiful picture. A group brought some kind of boombox and started dancing on a lovely chilly summer night with a view of Tower Bridge. They danced and fooled around; I saw a couple of big guys dancing with fragile women laughing at him, stepping on her foot and a couple where a man was the one being led rather than leading - no one cared to be filmed or looking silly. I loved every aspect of that image, memorising it in my memory. I would put it in a small treasure box and store it in the cabinet of my mind.  Maybe that’s love.

I am not talking about love between lovers, secret confession of love in the shadow of the night after making love, nor a parent telling their kid that she loves him at the end of a long-distance call. I am talking about the love of life. Not many people have this passion for love. Realistically, we don’t love our lives; we always find things we dislike or need to improve. When I was six, I told my father I would like to study at Cambridge and become a homeless artist in Mont Marter.  I think you can imagine how scared he was. But that was my dream. That was my love. Some people are open about their love. They scream their affirmation words and give promises they don’t intend to follow up.  Some people, like me, don’t give any promises and are too afraid not to follow up with consequences.  They called me a cold loner, indecisive and emotional cracker. The last one was my sister, and it kinda stuck. In my head, I won’t give you my word for anything if I don’t mean it; I try to. That’s why I talk less than an average teenager, woman or human being.  It’s hard for me to focus my thoughts on answering about what I feel or want or if I even dream anymore.

People talk. People feel and act.

They share their secrets, worries and dreams.

I remember one time I was travelling with my friend after I graduated from university. And we found ourselves in a little trattoria in the south of Italy. We had a beautiful meal and some wine, and in my tipsy mind, I shared my dream with my friend. I hadn’t dreamed since I was a child as life wasn’t how I wanted it to be, and in my early teenage years, I was stupidly disappointed. But there, in the south of Italy, under the influence of a warm summer night, I craved. I dreamed of falling in love, feeling love and being loved. I craved this feeling to understand what you feel, as I have asked anyone I know how they feel or at least recognise it. I was scared to lose this moment to understand if I love someone. I was scared that I wasn’t able to love anyone. Little did I know back then. Little did I know. Be careful what you wish for, little me.

I fell in love with a kind and spontaneous man whose life was always an experience. He had this drive inside of him to feel everything possible to be whoever he wanted, and he was a dreamer who followed his dreams. When he spoke, any room was his, just as I was. I couldn’t fight it. I wanted to be his; magically, he found something in me and fell in love. Would that be the love you carry for a lifetime of a spring fling? I never got to know as he left my life as abruptly as he came to it. We spent the beautiful two years of our lives together. I felt as if all my dreams I dream so secretly crashed. Sadly, I didn’t even realise when they started to disappear daily. I guess you never know until it comes to that moment of conversation. I’m lucky I had a conversation, to begin with. To be honest, in our modern life, words that break your heart can be just a message. I’m lucky; I had to receive news face to face, be cared for, and be listened to. I told you he was a kind and amazing man, and I’m sure he still is.

All those moments we shared would never be enough for me; I always wanted more of him, which pressured him. You can’t always get what you want. You can’t make a bird love its cage no matter how much you care and love the bird.  I would love to write a book one day and dedicate it to that part of my life. I want to write about us, what he taught me, and our adventures as vividly as I have stored them in my soul.  Maybe that would become my last love letter to him. I would talk about our meeting, how I felt, and how much I loved him. To my future self, I would say, as a person who struggles with not being enough, try not to fall in love with a man who always seeks something more in everyone, even himself. You would never be enough for him, and that would slowly but surely kill you. I would tell him at the end of the book full of words of our love story that there are so many more things I would want to tell him, but the only thing I will know is that I will cherish that moment with my locksmith. I think I heard those words from a lyric of a song I don’t remember now, but they stuck with me. Maybe I knew he would leave me, as my last present to him was something symbolic that he may never carry with him, but I wanted him to have it. It was a message - to remember that we traded love, and that’s forever. I deeply care for him, more than I ever did for anyone. It’s hurt too much to care. I still have so much of him in my heart.

But don’t forget that at the end, those are just words, and nothing else.

Be careful with fairytales; they are usually staying just a fairytales.