If I had only one adjective to describe you, it would be “different”. Different. That was my word when I talked about you. Somehow different. I’m not even sure if you were that different or just how you made me feel that you gave me in our long conversations—your way of keeping me from just letting the conversation fizzle out at some point. Your words were on my display every day. for weeks. Every day. Until today, I was at the Escort Agency when I started to realize.
Your Words were on my display every day. for weeks. Every day. Until today
So today is the first day without your words. Today is not a good day. The last few days weren’t that good either, but today is particularly bad. Because today is probably the legendary day when there is simply nothing more to say. There are simply no more words left. For an escort girl, who deals with people everyday, it’s pretty hard to have a frustrating relationship.
I had to let you go; there was no other way
It was my decision not to want to read your words anymore. To tell you that it doesn’t work that way anymore. That with the terms and that with us. Our thing became more familiar and narrow, although it was clear from the start that it would only move up to a specific limit. I just had to move the border forward. I was anticipating you so you don’t keep worrying every day that we reach the limit.
You say the timing is terrible. But is it really the timing? Or does the timing not matter when the real thing is in front of you? Won’t clocks then become obsolete? Apparently not. At least not for you. You keep looking at your watch, and you might lose sight of the big picture. Yes. You’re somehow different. At least you were honest in another way. Like when you told me just before our first meeting that it wouldn’t happen. Because before our contact came about and deepened more and more every day, you met someone else. But it has happened.
I just wanted to know who is behind the lyrics that put a smile on my face in so many moments
Our meeting and further intensification. I just wanted to know who is behind the lyrics that put a smile on my face in so many moments—just a quick look. Like a solar eclipse, where staring too long is not allowed. Because he does damage. I just wanted to take a quick look. But my gaze got stuck.
I knew from the start that we were both getting out of our matches and starting to play wildly. We eventually lit candles, made a campfire, and switched to arson. Now everything is on fire, at least inside me. Experience has shown that there is a high probability that the flames will eventually diminish and then die out entirely over the course of months. But I already know today that the clouds of smoke that form the word “different” will be in the air for a long time.
A little earlier and everything would have been different
You say that if we had met just a little earlier, everything would have been different. You say that there might be a restart under entirely different conditions in the future. But even with this restart, the soot particles from all this would still be in the air. I should keep coughing from it. Even without cigarettes.
This is the end of our story. The other story, which in the future is the same. Because there is no happy ending
I’d have to cough that I was just your backup plan. So I don’t let this hope arise in the first place. Here and today. The first day without your words on display. This is the end of our story. The other story, which in the future is the same. Because there is no happy ending. I have to do without the cliffhanger. Even if it were your wish, I could no longer keep in touch with you. I don’t want to read simple words from you and think you are sitting next to another human being. Plan A. Who set his watch right.
Unfortunately, none of this changes the fact that this decision not to read your words anymore was made exclusively by my head because my stomach is still so interested in your comments. And your thoughts. And you. Because he still believes that you are different.
I’m not hungry, and I can’t think – except for what might have been
So now the head hurts because it was in the decision-making process in a very atypical way and the stomach. I’m not hungry and can’t think – except for what might have been if I hadn’t lost my watch so long ago.
Signs of our love: of love poems and separation boxes
The last few months have been like a reverse mating season in my little social bubble here in Berlin. There were so many “closing lines” that I also wondered if relationships at my age should last and how to deal with so much change and confrontation. What remains at the end of such a relationship?
The nostalgic separation box
There is currently separation chaos in Berlin. That’s what happened to one of my closest friends a few weeks ago when she called me heartbroken, and I could hardly understand a word because of the tears on the phone. Two weeks later, I can finally hug her, and there is a new person in front of me.
The sadness about the sudden end of the relationship is still dormant somewhere in her, but she smiles at me; she exudes self-confidence and strength and is one of the most challenging people I know. I can only imagine how much mental work is behind this development. We’re standing in her new apartment two weeks later, surrounded by old mutual acquaintances who only recently went through a similar situation. They all have a different effect on me, radiate a new power, move more self-determined and look at me in a new way.
The relationship lasted longer than it should have and was so hard to let go that I never thought it would be possible one day.
I’ve only had one absolute separation myself – that of my childhood sweetheart. The relationship lasted longer than it should have and was so hard to let go that I never thought it would be possible one day.
I forced myself to pack the separation box: a box full of love letters, souvenirs from school days together, poems about him, souvenirs from vacations together, the last shirt that no longer smelled like him, and the previous shopping list we wrote together had. The box is with my parents, and now and then, I catch myself opening it when they visit. And then I hold in my hands one of the few tangible proofs of our time together.
Lovesickness – for all who want
I don’t know if most people pack boxes like that in their lifetime – and if I would do it again or if I just needed it after my first breakup. After all, most relationship remnants are intangible, incapable of being packed up, and not quickly put away.
In my opinion, breakups don’t hurt as much because we’re afraid there’s no one else out there, but we know there’s never the same person again. Never the same relationship again. We mourn the uniqueness of the person we loved and ultimately who we were in the relationship. Breakups don’t hurt as much because we’re afraid there’s no one else out there, but we know there’s never the same person again.
For some people, the “tangible” witnesses of their past – like those in my separation box – are more important than others. My girlfriend didn’t pack a box after her breakup, but the song her ex-boyfriend wrote for her is on her Spotify playlist. It’s the same song that many people turn on at Sunday brunch at some point, not thinking about it, not knowing about them, but filling it with their feelings, their memories and daydreams.
A poem for you
I recently entered a writing contest with a short poem about my relationship with my boyfriend. This morning I had an invitation in my inbox to recite the nominated poem at the award ceremony. I suddenly thought to myself: Hmm, what a strange feeling that must have been for my friend that I am reading a text written for him and by him.
What a bizarre notion of how much that is intimate one carries to the outside world. And at the same time, this notion doesn’t seem strange: Isn’t everything that we artistically express, write, paint, sing, dance, create or think emerge from an original spark of our own emotions?
Isn’t everything that we express, write, create or think artistically originate from an original spark of our own emotions?
So this public reading feels like a revelation for me, which makes a small piece of my heart understandable for other people. It doesn’t matter whether they understand a completely different meaning behind my words and whether my poem possibly arouses completely different associations and feelings in the listeners than in me.
Even if the words stay the same, I’m sure I’ll read the poem in a year differently than when I wrote it. I’ll reread it in a few years and think back to that time and what my life and I were like. Maybe someone else reads it and thinks differently.
However, it is transformed. It always remains a product of my feelings about that one relationship with an extraordinary person at a specific time in a particular place. For me, it remains another tangible witness of its time.
The immaterial witnesses of our love
How can I comfort my partner after the breakup? I’ve asked myself this question repeatedly for the last few weeks. I think the thought of the immaterial witnesses of time is constructive (at least for me). When you feel lonely and alone in the world and once again have to learn that you can only rely on yourself at the end of the day.
I’m not implying that different partners help you get to know yourself better and better understand what you want out of a relationship. No, I’m thinking more of “learning to love” and of all the skills that we are taught by our partners, that we understand, or that we teach the other person ourselves.
I could say now: My boyfriend taught me how to cook curry, introduced me to strength training and rekindled my love for nature. Or also: Through our relationship, I have become more patient, resilient and careful. I have learned to be more self-confident in dealing with my fellow human beings and stand up for myself more.
No matter what happens to our relationship: The experience of our feelings for each other and the memory of our time together will shape the rest of my life.
I’ll tell my partner if he wants to talk about it. He, too, will carry on this relationship and the memory of his ex-girlfriend, and not only in his heart but quietly for himself alone.
But out into the world, namely with his personality, his charisma, his actions and all the decisions he makes. And it’s not essential to narrow down and pinpoint exactly where that one person’s influence begins or ends. After all, this is a matter of interpretation, and everyone can make of it what they want and create new meaning from it.
Happiness is not posted on Facebook, just as love does not grow with the Likes received
Did you break up? But why? How so? Everything looked perfect in all the pictures on Facebook and Instagram. I can’t believe you broke up. – this is the typical answer of a friend who just found out that you are now alone.
The truth is that all these photos do not mean or describe the whole relationship. They only reflect one moment, not every moment.
We must not compare our relationships with those of the people around us. We are so different. The more we try to be like that couple who looks happy and cute in the photos they post every day on Facebook and Instagram, the more focused we are on posting to show people how comfortable we are. But we forget the meaning and essence of being with someone. It’s not about looking happy together. It’s about being EFFECTIVELY delighted together.
