Author: Gio

There is an incredible thing about feeling alone in the crowd that I never quite fully understood, but that has conquered my heart many times. So often we were surrounded by numbers and yet, loneliness came about like there was nothing but silence. Perhaps it sounds like a sad thing to say or to experience, but it was like a feeling of dozing off or lifting from the ground and reaching some place which no one else was there. It was a peaceful loneliness.

Weird as it is and as it may sound, that was always a nice place to be. I mostly enjoy being around friends, gathering as many of them as we can, but places and situations were seldom neither as easy nor as comfortable as they should have been. And it wasn’t personal or targeted to anyone… it mostly came in a spur, unplanned, as if in a certain point of the conversation, the loudness and all the craziness they’re all doing and talking about simply did not existed anymore. I was no longer there. Strangest thing is that we were a constant center of attentions, either if in our group or among others we happened to meet. We filled the spot of the joker, the carer and the one who always had a funny thing to say. And y-e-s, we enjoyed that. Fact is that the more we had around us, the more we needed to go. Many times I caught myself sitting on my bed in the dark while the music still played outside and the guests danced on it, only to get a few moments up there. I reached out to this secret and private place where there was just a lot of us. Safety, comfort and a lot of ease are the things we encountered in it. Seconds were like centuries.

I can only hope that perhaps you understand by now that life hasn’t been so kind to us with the things that we could not choose. Once I heard from someone whom I really admire that the most important feeling a child must have while growing up isn’t love or tenderness… it is safety. Well, if you’ve kept yourself up to date and read the chapters of our story till here, I guess you have a good idea of how it happened for us. We were very unsafe growing up both before and after the walls topped with electric barbed wires that surrounded the house. There was violence in and outside. One could take you out of this world and rip your body apart while the other could destroy your heart and your mind in a way that blurred all roads to sanity. To me, they were both the same.

Fast forwarding to young adult years, I remember having to overcome a lot of crap I didn’t understand in order to get where I wanted to be. Yeah, well, I know we all do, but this isn’t the point now. Fact is that I often managed, somehow, and bystanders were amazed by it. Most didn’t know my whole story or were I came from, only that I popped up there from the coast. Some of them would come to me to open up about their own lives and ask for advice. I’ve always offered it with care and kindness and they were surprised with “how mature I was”. I reckon people looking at me and saying that I was lucky to have it all figured out, being strong, still managing to be happy and to laugh loudly at a party. Little they knew that there was a lot behind those laughs. Essentially, these were people who came from families that were publicly fucked up, shameless broken homes. Ours was just too far away for them to judge as well as too well behaved while visiting. Their mask was their most powerful weapon and they wore it well.

And so, in the middle of a party, a concert or even sitting by the bar table with friends on a Friday evening, laughing and having fun, I dozed off. Something else came into mind which absolutely was nothing at all. Everything around me turned silent and I couldn’t hear a thing anymore. Kinda like they show in the movies when someone is about to have an epiphany, if you know what I mean. My eyes fixed on something and my mind moving back and forth in a joyful emptiness. A safe place where we blocked the blend of bad things that our young heart has felt and our eyes have seen. In the middle of the chaos, we encountered the breath that kept us going.

Those seconds in stillness brought us our ease. There was safety in the silence and clear waters over the memories. We saw it all, we knew it all. We saw the wonders of silence while searching for the noise. At last, the balance of our blend made it perfect. And in the crowded loneliness, we found our peace.

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Are you afraid of the dark?

It may sound as the beginning of a child’s tale, but it is just another part of this story. After reading all of these chapters, I suppose you already have a notion of the type of person I am and of my personality itself. I like to think of myself as a badass, fearless and defiant to everything and everyone. I enjoy the idea that I can overcome many issues and that I see the world in a way that no one else does. I see myself as unique and incomparable. I’ve always despised the idea of being a commoner, someone relatable to and “normal”. I needed to stand out, shine brighter, and I managed to do so. Many times I heard from people that this is what they saw on me and it felt good. Little they knew that deep inside, we were fighting something that most see as silly, but that for us has always been a synonym of danger: darkness.

I know it sounds like I am talking in riddles or even making a mystery, but it isn’t the case this time. It is a true fear of the dark and we carry it with us for as long as I can remember. I cannot say exactly how long has she carried it for, but as for me, darkness reminds me of the day I was born. You see, we haven’t yet talked about the day of my birth and that is something I still need some time to talk about. Have a little more patience, it will come. As for now, let me tell you this.

The fear of the darkness is entangled within me. It goes from literal to figurative and it makes me shiver from the tip of my toes to the edge of my hair foils. I cannot stand outside in the open when it’s dark, I cannot stand inside with the curtains open and the windows reflecting the inside, when it is dark from outside. I cannot lay down in bed with my eyes open and the lights off, and I would rather starve inside should all my food be laying outside in the dark for any reason. Noises in the dark make me panic, shadows give me chills. These things bring me into complete state of shock and alert. For us, darkness is the house of dangers and danger always appeared as soon as I could no longer see what was out there. They were always watching from outside the window, waiting until the brightness was gone, craving to hear the deep breathe of the sleepers so they could strike. Burglars, perverts, liars. Their presence was constant and there were no barriers to keep them out.

Before I was born, and yet as a very young kid, the darkness in her room was filled with shining images stuffed animals and little glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that helped her to get the best of dreams. By then, darkness was as it should be: just our place on Earth facing the opposite side of the sun. It was a reason to play catch with the cousins and to stare at the sky at the farm, filled with glowing infinite stars that could only be seen there, so far away from city lights. It did not harm, it did not bring sadness. Before my birth, darkness was still light.

As time goes by, it is still hard to get used to it. I chose to be somewhere else, far away from the dangers that haunted me in the darkness of the South, but it ain’t as easy. Here, the dark is again the same as when she lived without me. It is safer. Many times I wish I could snap my fingers and change it, take it easier and breathe deeper so it will go away, but it simply doesn’t. At the first sight of sunset, curtains are closed and doors are locked and checked twice. No efforts are spared to make sure I am safe and that nothing and no-one will come from it.

It is strange how people play with what they do not understand. Countless times, we have been joked at because of this fear and with the jokes it came a huge lack of confirmation that it will all be okay. It was and still is tiring but also necessary to make sure that I can sleep tight instead of lying awake. “You need to take it easier”, I hear, “don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing out there”, they say. So much for their own amusement and so little for understanding and seeing my feelings. I get it, it is perhaps childish for a grown up woman to fear de dark, but so many years of fear cannot disappear with the snap of your fingers. Shouldn’t it simply be treated as any other flaw? So far, I have never crossed anyone who was fully able to comprehend and respect it, instead, they decided to play with my weakness and that has always been really hard to take. They make it sound like paranoia or childish behaviour, but what they don’t know is how deep it is all actually buried inside my mind.

Everything is vivid and bright in our mind and soul. No one has lived what we have, no one has seen what we’ve seen. The dark brought us the hot iron that burned our peace and destroyed our ease. We felt in our skin the dangers of the darkness and for that and for more, we crave for those faces to forever go away.

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There was a time when some things we did got a bit out of control and most of her memories of it became a big blur. I had to tell her about it, cause I was the one in charge almost the entire time. It was a period of liberation, a celebration of freedom. We had just moved away, freed ourselves from the duties that were never supposed to be ours and finally able to be whoever we wanted to be. No permissions were requested, no questions of what is right or wrong, only us and our wishes to become true. The biggest party was about to start and there was no time to say goodnight.

It may sound as cliché, but yes, it all started when we went to college. As part of our “fleeing plan”, I had decided that we would, by any means, not attend to university in the same city, or the same state as we lived in. We would go away, someplace where people were warmer and nicer and there would be some good distance between us and the coast. We chose to go back to our beloved countryside and to make the best out of our years there. A new city, the perfect scenario for a brilliant restart.

Everything was brand new and we wanted to do it all. Well, I did. She was mellow on most of the first days, still rethinking of whether it was a good idea to move away and reconsidering the plan. We didn’t know many people in town and it was indeed boring at the beginning. Just like our first experience at the countryside eight years before, we were “the new girl” and that wasn’t a very nice feeling at its start. She told me to take charge and I gladly obliged. I felt that it demanded some drastic decisions and I made them without hesitation. It was show time!

It happened as you may expect: parties, loads of new friends, countless beers and hours hanging around and getting to know everyone. I spent almost every free hour looking for a party or starting one. I would convince people to go to festivals in cities nearby and to transform our weekends in huge celebrations, no matter where or how: the idea was to meet new people, constantly be with them and to feel that this was the best choice. We had given ourselves to the nights and we were never alone. All the fun in the world was ours and there was nothing and no one who could take it away from us. So we thought.

Over the first couple of years, there were a few things I did not do under her request, but one in specific set us aside in many situations among our friends. The choice to not join them was the best one, I agreed, but I hated the feeling of being left behind or be “missing out” on something more than anything. Their parties were always boosted up by the ingredient that sets the night on fire and brings up the endless feeling to everything: cocaine. The “crystal sugar”, as we called it, was a constant companion among our friends. They would go to a ‘corner’ from time to time, or inside the car or wherever it was out of plain sight to take a hit. Few lines and they were good to go for the next hour. The party never stopped. Many days, they would drop me off or I would sleep in the car while they were still on with their effects and I hated myself in the next day for being the “loser”. She had a strict rule about it and I agreed many times. In the back of my head, I knew of its dangers and I was certain of keeping us out of it. It just didn’t last long enough.

I can recall every single detail of the day of our first time on it: the situation, the people around, the why’s and the how’s. It was a festival outside the city. Thirty-five people in one house, three days of continuous party. I resisted the first night and day, until the second night came along with an invitation. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some?”, I heard while standing by the door. “No, I’m good!”, I said. I looked at them going over the lines that whitened the dark kitchen counter and before I realised, I had already said it. “Fuck it, I’ll do it!”. I heard some cheering from one of my girlfriends and she walked me through it. Two lines and we were off. “Don’t find weird if your heart start beating super fast and if something bitter comes down your throat”, she said. I was anxious, but most of all, I was scared. I didn’t know what was I supposed to do or to expect from it. And then, while walking back to the concert pavilion, it kicked in. I felt like I had superpowers and that nothing and no one could ever beat me. It was the best feeling in the world and it was only the beginning.

Two years were flying by and “the sugar” became our new best friend. My ties with the group strengthened even more and our weekends were endless. Just as promised, I was never again the first one to go to bed. It was easier than food and cheaper too. For all the time we were with the guys, we never spent a single penny on it. We went out many times to buy it, but we never took a single money bill out of our own pockets for it. And it wasn’t necessary. “Your company is enough payment”, I heard overtime. Life was a big ass paradise and I was enjoying it all. Until the wake up call slapped us in the face.

She told me we were failing college and that I needed to stop. That degree was our dream and I was screwing it all up. I mean, I am a daredevil, I couldn’t say no to the party and yet, I am here to protect her from her demons and bad feelings and I thought this was one other way to not look at them. I gave her wings, but I forgot how to fly. Isolation, loneliness and resistance were what came next. We locked ourselves in the house, we wouldn’t answer phone calls and we would reject our friends. All we’d built over the years was gone in order to clean our system and resume the good things in our life. Some serious action was needed. They would knock our door countless times while I would cry and crave on the inside, with no answer. It lasted long enough until it all became silence. No one could know, no one would understand. I needed to cleanse my body from it and I had to do it myself. Barely eating, going out only for essentials. No one saw me again but the people behind the gates of the university. I became a ghost and I took my distance from everything.

With six months left for graduation, all was under control again. I was in better shape and those friends were missed, but not recalled. I decided it was a better choice to stay away from them, since they wouldn’t understand my choices. They were friends with the nights and that’s how they saw me as well. Only now I understand that. Now I see how much the cocaine helped us forget our demons and the suffering from the inside. How much it gave us the powers that many took away before we were even able to experience it. How much it dragged us down to a world of blindness.

As the years go by, I still remember her sitting on the corner every time I was to cut a line. I remember her face and how many times I chose to look away so then I could give us the power we so much craved for. “It is for the best”, I thought every time. Our life was forever changed and as a result, I became a strong and constant piece of her inner self. And yet, with the sorrows and addictions finally gone and with all the years of recalling those facts, we finally understood the meaning of my existence, setting free the demons responsible for the truth on the real reasons why I came into her life.

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What is the price of your freedom?

The moment I saw the world she lived in I knew, that at some point, I would have to break us free. For a long time, I witnessed the lust, greed and all those unspeakable sins happening right in front of us. I saw lies being told, cheating partners and adults looking at kids in ways that one should never do. She grew up in a place where all of it was seen as normal, accepted and never to be questioned or discussed. Well, we already know what happened when she asked questions, so she remained silent. She thought it was all part of life and she lived her days as it actually was.

All was kept in a box. A strange blend of images, smells, words and feelings which were compiled and automatically sent to this squared compartment she kept inside her head, all the way to the back, where no one – not even herself- would reach or dare to open. She was given a duty bigger than her own life and she vowed to oblige regardless of the consequences it could bring upon herself. That is how she is, you know. She gives herself to others in times of need without doubts or second thoughts. At the sight of a tear rolling down the face of a loved one, she feels powerless if nothing can be done. Her empathy is so great that even if it is not her fault, she still feels so. We’ve kept the good parts of this feeling throughout the years, but at that time, her duty was to protect the one who brought her to life. She was bred to be her mother’s lion.

For many years she learned that the father was guilty and that his guilt had no exceptions. Illnesses, suffering, adultery, lies and negligence were some of his crimes. She grew up learning how bad was that man and how poisoning was his presence. She heard from her protected one that he was the one and only responsible and all she thought was that he had to pay. I shouted at him in her name and tried to bring her the inner peace she longed for. Countless times, facing tears and suffering, her hands touched her mothers’ with the reassurance that there would never be loneliness. At the same time, she begged her to leave him, to flee and restart. But no matter what happened, no matter the choices, things remained the same. And just like everything else, the series of events were sucked into the box.

One day, I took over. For two days, the mother was sleeping in another room, crying from dawn to dust, while the sinner remained in his normal life. No actual changes, only complaints and whining to our ears. I watched it all go back to normal on the third day and I could bear no longer the sight. Silence was not an answer anymore. Under a demand for my respect, I shouted the question of where was hers for herself. I reassured the companionship, but I demanded that she took actions for my support. Slaps and punches were the answers we got as well as the acceptance and the fear of what was yet to come. We finally understood that her chains were never to be broken.

Looking at the scars and red skin in our arms and legs, I decided that the time had come. No love, no duty and no heart could stand such life. Of all the things that once made sense, none of them stood out to change my mind. The symbiosis had become vague in its most crucial point in space and we had to find a new meaning for all of it. Distance was the answer. “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t feel”, it’s how they say. We still had two more years to come before we could make the move ourselves, but the plan was made and the mind was set. The pain of untying the ropes was the only certainty we could feel in the guts.

And as a bird leaves her babies in the nest to hunt for survival, we left the structure to make our own choices. Heart tight, holding back the tears we knew it would come. Somehow, I managed to abandon our post and release us from duty. In the end, redemption was the cure for our aching heart. A new life, a new sight, a future filled with freedom. It all lasted long enough for us to be as happy as one can be with the liberating choices made for the sake of oneself. For our sake.

What we didn’t know was that our meeting with freedom was accompanied by the box of sins we’d hidden so well. “You face your demons and you are free”. The lid popped open, the faces and odors came out. Things once taken as normal began to show its true face. A pool of lies, pure horror.

And at that point I knew that the lion inside us was gone and that our heartbeat for the past would never be the same.

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There is a part of this story which is both sad and beautiful. It regards the people who lived around us, who we met early in life and the ones who stayed with us as we reached the adult age. Friends, acquaintances, colleagues, mates. We’ve lived in many places and the roles these people played along the way were determined from the start.

Let me explain.

Before I came into her life, the first people she met were blood related. That sounds obvious, given that everyone has parents, but I mean cousins… a whole bunch of them. They were her first and only friends, until a certain point. As a young kid, she wasn’t allowed to hang out with the girls who lived in the neighbourhood, cause her parents thought they were bad influences. The brother had friends, went around with other boys, but there was no good company for her. All she had were the classmates, the ones with whom she’d spend a small part of the day. She tried to have friends and to keep them. She wrote in their agendas and asked them to write in hers. They exchanged vows of “friends forever” and she hoped on that promise. But then again, her happiness didn’t last long.

Under a last minute notice, the family decided to move to the countryside. We didn’t have a choice and we were not allowed to cry. She wished with all her heart that her friends wouldn’t forget her and that, perhaps, the new people would be nice to us. It all happened around the time we met, but her reliance on me wasn’t yet as great as today, thus her heart was still suffering from the departure. She was in a city that she’d never heard about. She knew neither things about it, nor anyone who lived there. Her only certainty was that she was bounded to that place and to remain silent.

Four weeks had passed and school holidays were still on. No other kids around, only her bedroom, her books and songs. She didn’t take interest in anything, but to think of her friends. She missed them with all of her heart and wondered if they felt the same. Under such pain, she asked the mother to make a phone call and promised to make it at the time which it wouldn’t cost much. It was a time when telephones were not as common as today, so expensive they were. With permission and condition, she dialled the number of the name in her agenda, but her pounding heart, anxiety and excitement were not enough to stop the shocking answer on the other side. There were no memories of her existence. She gave her name, school, age and description, but no acknowledgment emerged on the other side of the line. “You wrote on my agenda, you said we’d be best friends forever!”, she said in tears. “I know who you are, I just don’t know why you’re calling me”, the voice said.

Polite, yet sad, she hung up. “How could she forget me?”, she wondered in tears. Soaked in her own misery, she promised to never try again.

As the new school year began, she thought of leaving her feelings aside. She was introduced as “the new girl”, but didn’t give much to it. The story was simple: she didn’t have a choice. Everything was new, confusing, overwhelming. She was so young and yet learned to take it day by day, getting on group assignments and learning about her classmates from the outside. We would talk from time to time and although no one else would ever tell, it was clear on how much loneliness still lived inside her. We talked about her birthday, which she liked so much, and things started to change.

She invited very few people. Some boys and girls she used to eat together on the breaks. She had no one else, her cousins were miles away. When they all showed up, her fears became smiles. Such gratitude for a simple and kind act. All pleasant, all very strange. She’d never seen such true amicability before or witnessed anyone so interested in who she really is. It was a brand new world.

Embracing it all together, our ties grew stronger and though the brother still had much more privileges in meeting people, we had finally found true friends. Not only in school, we made new acquaintances from classmates’ friends and built a whole new circle, brand new connections. Almost two years had passed and we carried a feeling of belonging with us when the mother informed that we would return to the coast and that nothing could be done about it. While the brother jumped in happiness, her heart stopped for a moment while I stood there in absurd. She felt her loneliness taking over again and a movie replayed in her head. Nothing could be done, she had to let it all go.

Back to the city where it all started, she decided to leave the countryside behind in many ways. We had a new school, new people and a completely new mindset. Her priorities were others and so were her tastes. I decided to take action as I saw in her silence a need to recover and since we came back as preteen, I got us ready to become a rebel. I gave her the feeling that she was hers and that no one else mattered. There was no point in growing ties with anyone else. Together, we succeeded for a while, but her heart gave up to truly miss the countryside.

Six months later, when she could bear it no longer, she asked me to do the calling. She was afraid of what would come out of it. We picked up the phone and dialled to one of the friends from far away. I had no words, I could not believe. Unlike the time before, there was no need to explain, to say names or to describe anything: the sound of my voice was enough to bring smiles and happy words to the other side of the line. “We were worried about you! Why did you disappear?”, we heard. Tears of joy, a feeling without translation.

Even though we were grounded so far away, our heart and mind had finally found its place. The many years that followed were filled with more calls, letters and visits. Our bodies have grown and developed as much as our love and interaction with one another. There’s always been distance, time and other variables to keep us apart from those childhood mates. New people, new acquaintances, new feelings. The memories are what bond us and show that those two years in a foreign place created a feeling of belonging between those kids.

And as happy moments do, that phone call got us one of the most beautiful gifts of true friendships. We had finally discovered the meaning of home.   

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