colibri

 

We used to kiss on red lights.

Every set of two will have a little quirk, ours was kissing whenever we were stopped at a red traffic light. Looking back, most of the memories are sour, but this one is sweet. Even though our story is often tainted by the lows, there are still some memories that are worth sharing.
So, it was an unspoken agreement, whenever at a red light, we would kiss. Whether we were in the middle of an argument or in pure bliss, we would would always share a peck. It was worth something. It still is.

My mother still laughs at my dad’s old jokes. They’ve been married for over 25 years, and he will recycle his jokes every once in a while – even I have heard them over a thousand times now – still, every time, she’ll laugh like it’s the first time she hearing them. It’s endearing. I wonder if she’s laughing with him, for him or out of love. Maybe it’s all three combined. My mother is the most beautiful when she’s laughing at my father’s jokes.

I think love is made out of little things. I say think, because my understanding of it is quite limited. I’m not the best at spotting it either. I used to think love was meant to be easy. If it wasn’t, it couldn’t be love. If it wasn’t easy, I didn’t want it. I’ve changed my mind a bit on that, it does require some effort to work out, but you’re never supposed to try to love someone.

I think love is meant to be this organic feeling that comes to you easily. You barely notice it coming up to you. When you see it, it has already been there for a while. It will lodge itself in your heart, snuggle up with your thoughts and once you notice it, it’s too late already. You’ll find yourself in love without having to try. It’s all fun and games at first. The real trouble begins when the feeling stays with you.

I never looked at love as this sequence of grand gestures. I’ve always believed it was about the little things, like someone waking up earlier to prepare your coffee; driving out of their way to get your favorite pastry and cooking your favourite meal even after a long day. These are just some examples, I understand it sounds that somehow I believe that love is related to someone feeding you. It’s not just that, obviously. But it is about the little things. You see it on the daily efforts not on occasional actions. No matter how big the gesture is, buying a chocolate everyday is worth more than getting a box once in a while.

I’m always looking for the smallest signals. Whenever involved with someone I will always ask myself the same question. You see, I like my sleep and I like waking up without an alarm. Getting out of the bed in the morning is one of the most difficult tasks I do daily. Would I be willing to wake up everyday 30 minutes earlier to prepare breakfast for this boy? It’s a big effort. If I was to do it out of obligation I would get very cranky and eventually resent the poor thing for it. So far, whenever it was time to ask myself that question, the answer has always been negative. So, no luck so far. But I do have hope in the fact that someday I will be willing to wake up early for someone and be in a good enough mood to prepare some pancakes and coffee.

There’s still time to find that someone. I’ll panic when I’m thirty.

I’ve been told that I’m emotionally lazy. I can see why someone would think that. I live my life in a medium temperature, very rarely will I get excited about something and upsetting me is so difficult that those who succeed should earn an olympic gold medal for achieving it.

I don’t know exactly when it was the first time that I just gave up on feeling, but I do know that I’ve been doing it for a while now. If it was a sport, by now, I would be a pro. It’s not like I gave up on feeling, actually, one can’t simply decide not to feel anymore. That’s not a thing that happens. But I do became numb to a lot of things. At least, I’m numb at first sight. Eventually all this first sight disregard will catch up to me but normally I’m the only one present when that happens.

But yes, being emotionally lazy, emotionally unavailable, is my thing. There’s an going joke amongst friends with the fact that I don’t have a heart and that I have to google what certain feelings are. To be fair, it’s not completely untrue. It’s no secret that me and my feelings don’t keep a close relationship, however, I can’t help to wish that people would encourage a different behavior from me. More people in my life have told me to burry it down, rather than to own it. So, why would I do otherwise?

I also feel like I’m not entitled to my feelings, so I’ve learned to shrug them off whenever they could provoke any damage. I’ve kinda lost track of what I’m aloud to feel nowadays and I go on without feeling a lot. I’ll even shut down things that are completly harmless, just out of habit. I’ve showed emotion before and was told I was not entitled to it. Maybe I wasn’t. Still, for someone who doesn’t do it a lot, to be told you shouldn’t feel whatever it is that you’re feeling takes a tool. Specially if you’re vulnerable when you hear it. You’ll become very self aware of the feelings you chose to express.

I’ve grown very protective of my emotions, I’ll show them at very rare occasions, and only if I can’t help it. For better or worse, whether they are more or less pleasant, I’ll only show them if I’m left with no other choice. I always think it’s a big mistake and I’ll regret it later. Normally, I’m right. I always end up regretting sharing what goes on inside this seemingly empty shell. I would have given up on this terrible habit only if life proved me wrong once in a while. It doesn’t though.

The worst part of being emotionally lazy is the fact that often people will forget that having feelings is actually something I’m capable of. Most of the times it’s alright, I’ll forget it too. But sometimes it’ll hurt. And I don’t know what to do with it when it hurts. Because being hurt by something I was told is also not something I’m entitled to feel. Funly enough, knowing that, doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I don’t wanna show so little that people will think I don’t feel at all, that drives people away. I also don’t wanna get told off for feeling the wrong thing, that also drives people away. Growing old completly solo is also no ideal, however it seems to be the only thing I’m good at. Driving people away is my forte. I wish it wasn’t.

So that’s that. My perpetual cycle of struggle: how to procrastinate less emotionally while sharing only what’s truly needed and don’t end up completly alone in life. Seems hopeless.

Happiness is a difficult concept to grasp. Mostly because it is constantly changing. You can single out a moment and say it was a happy time, but it is pointless to try to recreate a certain event to experience the same happiness you once felt. What brings you joy today may fail to do so tomorrow and you may find yourself smiling at a moment that once left a sour taste in your mouth. This is way being happy can be a bit of a struggle, you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. Hopefully you’ll eventually stumble on something golden but most of the times you won’t know how happy you truly were until retrospective gives you a glimpse.

If you’re lucky, you can look back in your life and pinpoint the happiest moments. However, even happiness can be quite sad when it’s only a distant memory.

Sadness however is something very easy to embody. All you need is a brief moment with yourself and all at once the world goes dark. Even a happy souvenir can be easily tainted by a small quick thought. It really just takes a second to shift an entire day. It’s upsetting how fragile our mood is. It’s upsetting how our spirit can be broken with the wrong word. It’s truly upsetting how it’s so easy for darkness to overcome the light and how unfair that there is no switch to turn the light back on.

Most of the days will start off grey, some cloudier than the others, but consistently gray. Sometimes the clouds dissipate as the day goes by, however, night eventually arrives. Some days are summer days and the sun will shine unapologetically for many hours and night will take it’s time to come; others are more like winter and there’s only a little glimpse of light during the day, night arrives quickly and you have to make your way through life with a little more effort. You see, it’s quite hard to look forward in the dark, it’s equally as difficult to look back to where you came from. You can sit still and wish for the best or keep moving and hope you don’t stumble. Either way, you can’t succumb to it, you can never dare to become a distant memory of yourself.

Truth is there can’t be one without the other. And if it is a fact that darkness eventually comes, it is also certain that there will be light again. You just gotta hold on to that belief, even when you can’t see.

I’m waiting for a colleague to pick me up, we’re going to small work gathering and I keep thinking how the hell did I got myself into this. Not in a bad way, I really don’t understand how in the world I can fit into this equation. If you were to tell me three years ago, that I would end up going out to have dinner with this set of people, purposefully, I would have laughed out loud.

These two fools at work like me. I have no idea why, but I know they do. Or maybe they don’t, and they’re just pretending they do, if that’s the case, props to them, making me believe someone actually likes me is an achievement on it’s own.

Either way, I know they do. Maybe it’s because they’ve gotten to know me, maybe it’s because they don’t know me well enough. It’s actually not fair to say they don’t know me well enough, since I’ve shared with them some things that I never taught I could share with anyone. I really dislike myself when I’m stressed and when I mess up, they’ve seen me at both and chose to like me either way, so I guess I can’t be that hopeless after all. There are some people who question their liking for me, I’m right there with them. Hey, I hear you, this is nuts. But I guess a couple paragraphs into this and we already came to the conclusion that there’s nothing either of us can do to change it. Move past it.

There are a few more people at work that kinda like me. I think they have their days with me, sometimes they’ll like me, sometimes they’ll tolerate me. That’s fine, most of the days I don’t have a heart, so I can’t say it affects me much. But when I forget to leave my feelings at home, it gets to me a bit and sometimes it get to me a lot, and when it does, I’m a crying mess at work. Which is never fun. What can I say, I wanna be liked. I wanna be perfect in what I do, and when I’m not, I cry. Yes, I’m adulting like that. Don’t judge me.

I guess I’ll be second guessing my place in this cast the entire evening, it’s just something that I do. People haven’t been really this inviting towards me, well, ever. It might be because I’m really not accessible to begin with, I don’t talk much and I’ll often refrain from being part of a conversation. I swear, these two idiots in particular really insist. I have no idea why. But they ended up getting to me. And now I like them. Ugh.

I don’t really wanna go anywhere anymore, although I fail to comprehend how, truth is I feel like I belong. Most importantly, I don’t feel like a broken dish anymore. I’m whole, still split, but whole. It’s confusing I know, but it’s just a side effect of life.

I still can’t help to feel a bit miscasted. Like I’m sort of a fraud and there are at least 20 other people who could do my job and be more pleasant to be around with. Being a better company than me is not a difficult task whatsoever. And I think there’s a chance they’ll still realize this before it’s too late. I wish they don’t, I’m kinda of attached to this two fools now.

 

My cousin’s daughter is 12 years old. She’s this sweet tiny girly girl that moves with caution at all times and bates her eyelashes a lot when she’s confused. She giggles loudly and gets embarrassed easily. She has an easy smile and it’s quite a pleasant girl, it’s nice to be in her company, she’ll talk a lot about her pre adolescent adventures when she’s comfortable. I like her a lot. I want the world to be kind to her. But twelve is a weird age to have. You’ll start to become aware of yourself; start to feel the need to be a bit more independent; and your friends opinions will become more important than your parents.

I remember being twelve. I was quiet, tall and skinny, had very long hair and was cute enough. That’s a fair description. My friend group consisted of loud, pretty, popular girls, who were all in the gymnastics team, so throughout my teens I would never be exactly in the shadows. Never really stood out on my own either, but was always a part of the group that did.

I remember the first time I caught a boy’s attention, it was also the first time I was told I wasn’t pretty enough.

I felt this boy’s gaze on me while I ordered my lunch at the cafe, it made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t uncomfortable because he was staring at me, it was uncomfortable because he was cute. Later that day he asked a common friend if she could ask me if he could have my number (if is sounds complicated, it’s because we were twelve). She was very excited about it when she told me and teased me a bit for it. I taught it was funny and cute, it was my first teenage love affair, and I dared to dream a little. That dream must have lasted ten whole seconds. Another girl in the friend group would quickly shatter my dreams of living a high school musical romance with a nasty comment about my appearance. It made me feel like he must have been mistaken, it wasn’t really me he was interested in, no one could ever be interested in the boring plain Mariana.

The worst part wasn’t that she said it. The worst part was how she said it so surely that it made me believe it. Girls learn to be merciless at a very young age. I know now that it came from a place of jealously, it wasn’t really felt or even thought off. But it stayed with me nonetheless. We were all dealing with first periods and unexpected boob growth and to make it even worse, the boy craze fever will never be as high as when you’re a teen. Twelve years old girls go through a lot, they often say and do things they’ll regret later in life. So, I don’t really hold her accountable for it, I never could. Karma was on my side, the boy went on to become my first kiss and we dated for a whole two weeks before summer break, so the joke’s on her really. Specially because a couple years later I would level up to her in meaness. It’s important to say I’m not proud of it. I wasn’t the nicest teenager, being a part of a group brings you a certain type of confidence that can easily become cockiness. From twelve to sixteen I did a lot of things with my girl friends that don’t really match up to my branding today.

I’m a firm believer that the devil is a teenage girl. And I once embodied it.

All that to say that I can’t bring myself to look at my cousin’s kid and see how she could ever relate to my experience at twelve. She’s so innocent and cute, how could she even dare to kiss a boy at such a young age? And her friends, I hope they are nothing but nice to her, she doesn’t have a bad bone in her and it would pain me to know that someone could ever comment on her appearance in an unkindly way. I hope she’s alright, kids nowadays either grow up too fast or are too sheltered. I hope she takes her time with the  boy fever. And that she won’t carry words that were said to her today to the rest of her life.

I’ve never met any of grandfathers, they both passed way before I was born. I don’t know much about them, only that they were loved and missed. It’s interesting to me that both my parents have a much sweeter image of their fathers than their mothers. But understanding the reasoning behind that is none of my business.

At 11 my father was left fatherless. He stopped being a child on that day. I can see the impact it had on him on his actions today.

My favourite thing I ever discovered about my father came to me a few years ago, on a Christmas Eve afternoon, while we all baked in the kitchen. He told me about how when he was a child, every Christmas, his father would buy a straw mattress and they would all sleep in the kitchen on Christmas night, surrounded by the empty wrappers of little chocolate cars. My father was the oldest boy of 7 children, but never went unnoticed on his own fathers eyes.

I was lucky enough to be his only child.

Growing up I was always told I looked like my father. I took that with pride, being compared to him was my greatest achievement, and to think I only had to be born to accomplish that. We were always similar on our lack of social abilities, I remember how every sunday we would go and visit family, due to my mothers insistence, and while she shared a cup of tea with her sister on the kitchen table, my father and I would wander off to wherever it was that the people weren’t. He would teach me words in French, talk about life before me and ask me questions about my own struggles. He always had a very subtle way to approach me and he’s one of the few people in the world that managed to poke my brain successfully.

The reason why he was ever able to do that, probably comes from the fact that we are too similar. Like me, he also fails to voice what he feels. It’s interesting to me that my father is the one who doesn’t truly seem in contact with his emotions and yet, out of the two, he was always the most affectionate. He will often put himself on hold just so that others can have enough room to feel whatever it is that they are feeling. He doesn’t need to have the loudest voice in the room, and if he can go on without having to do any small talk, he will.

He always did what it was required of him to do. Looking back, I realize that he spent an awful amount of time working far away from home. I didn’t really notice it growing up, guess he was really good at being present when he was indeed home. I remember being half asleep when he came into my room early in the morning and kissed my forehead before heading out to work. I remember him shaking my foot to annoy me wake me up when I would refuse to get out of bed to go to church, every sunday morning. I remember him, seating on the edge of my bed on a very dark sunday morning, and breaking some terrible news to me. I remember how he stumbled on his words and told me that I could lay in bed for a little longer if I wanted to.

My father never asked for more of me than what he knew I could give.

He had to grow up quickly but independence didn’t quite came with it, so he had to fight for it. In his early twenties he would follow is big sister’s footsteps and move abroad. She was always the one he admired the most, that ended up rubbing of on me, she would go from his favourite sister to my favourite aunt. I don’t think we should be admitting to that, but it’s only true.

My second favourite thing about my father that I ever discovered, was how he would write my mother a love letter every week while he lived abroad. You could argue they were just letters, but my father does not write without love. I got that from him without even knowing it. I recall being very good at essays in school way before I ever found out he wrote as well. He once told me that he wished I could fulfill his dream and become a writer myself.

Writing too much and photographing too much are two of his traits that I was lucky enough to inherit. There always had to be a camera on our household and I was one of the few in my class that would be allowed to take the photography camera on a school trip. Way before me, my father would photograph weddings. My mother says he was good at it, she also say he lost his business for being too kind hearted. I can see that happening. My father doesn’t really bother to see the evil in the world, he’ll see them in movies and laugh at their stupidity, but somehow has a blindside for them in real life. So he’ll just live his life never truly believing someone can be out there with nothing but his best interest at heart. Never really believing he is relevant enough for someone else to try and take his place. While being absolutely indispensable.

He was always the first one I would fight with and, simultaneously, the first one I would agree with. I remember being very little and hearing my mother say that I got my bad temper from my father. I get it now. We argue in a very specific way. We both hate confrontation, so we’ll just give up on the fight while sticking to our argument and it somehow looks like we don’t care while inside we are cracking to cope with how we feel. Don’t quite know a lot of people like us. Thankfully for the world. I can see why my mother would frequently get frustrated in our household.

He was always the one to encourage my independence and always made sure I had a stable safety net. He would kick me out the window and be right on the floor to catch me if I failed to fly. But he always made sure I knew how to fly first. My father knows that we can love from afar. And doesn’t take my emotional distance as a personal offense – like my mother often does – somehow, he understands me. I must have been made in his own image, carved from inside out with his features. He’s always been kind to me and showed me the most love when I least deserved it.

He turns 54 today and I think he deserves a break. I’ve always been very protective of my father. Do you know how often girls will seek protection in their fathers arms? I’ve always wanted to be the one person who would give him a break. Life wasn’t easy on him, from losing his own hero at a very young age to being separated from the one’s he loved the most several times in is life, I’m one to think it’s about time he catches a breath.

I could write about him for hours. But I probably should stop writing and give him a call instead.

Happy birthday dad, you will always be my hero.