Missing someone?

Yes, this is the latest question in my head. Few days ago, I was sitting behind a bar talking to Aidan, the only thing I knew about was his name and we started a deep conversation on several topics around life, specifically how a place like Rotterdam starts if not feeling like home, it becomes a place that is special for all the things that happened there and that define you as an individual. After few drinks down, and as the honesty of drunk people develops (Nathan was saying good bye to everyone he knows before going back to Ireland, and that means walking around a lot and talking to a large amount of people that were there just to say good bye to him) he asked: Do you know what is really weird about you? – What? – I asked – Well, that you live so far away from your family and you have like no plans to go back to Mexico or even see them soon and you are cool with it? – Oh, I know it is kind of weird, but I don’t miss people – I said matter of fact – Will you miss him when he leaves? – He said, looking and Nathan – Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t usually miss people in the common sense, I may think of them… I guess I am a cold fish – Aidan smiled – I guess you are.

And that brought me back to think when the last time I had the feeling was I missed someone…

If I remember correctly it was sometime end of September or beginning of October last year, when my back then boyfriend had a week business trip to Finland. I remember I didn’t expect to miss him. I remember he called before taking the plane in Amsterdam. I remember I thought that was sweet, and that very often in the week I looked across the office to his empty desk and wondering what he could be doing. I called it by then “a gap”, and I think that the whole thing was that, since we were working together, we spent lots of time in front of each other, and I was feeling he had left kind of a space behind. I learned how to say I missed him in his language. I remember I was extremely happy to see him as he was back. I remember he said he had missed me (the only “emotion” related thing he ever told me) and he gave me a little souvenir. Same happened when he went to Spain. And those little things I carried with me to every trip until the point when we broke up and they moved to my box of memories. My little gifts for him were left behind when he left equivalent to the bin (which made me feel awesome really – I hope you hear the tone of sarcasm in this, because I felt like shit when I found that sketch among my stuff), so I guess he doesn’t and didn’t miss me. That was a really emotionally intense relationship, at least for me.

So is it that empty feeling what I would say is “missing someone” or does that also evolve? I don’t think I call it missing someone anymore… I think literally missing someone, like I did with that guy requires that level of emotional intensity, a kind of attachment to a person, that makes you feel incomplete when that person is not there. But if after such a relationship I ended up more empty than I was before it… is it really a healthy way?

And the point is that now I think I miss, leaving him on the train station to go back home was sad, but by no means is it compared to the whole classic description from the story above. I think as I can say I miss him, this missing him is not coming from my emotions as it is coming from my brain, not saying I have no emotions, but it is less passionate and more rational. I remember his smile, the fun times we’ve had together, sharing the every day stories with him, laughing, the deep conversations, the honest conversations, the sweet surprise coming from discovering imperfection and embracing it, crying, smoking, the certainty that openness gives you… Don’t know… Let’s say that if in the first case I was feeling a gap left (lot’s of wondering and compulsive thinking), right now I feel… a more peaceful yet strong desire to have what we have together, it is becoming more rather than having the illusion of becoming complete.

Oh yeah, we will be long distance only for few weeks more, the islands are our destiny. And thanks to science, we have the possibility of writing each day and calling 30 minutes each night. I can’t wait till the next time I see him.

Mo chroí, cronaím thú.