“And what if, before being, I had never truly been?”
Everyone here is confronted with the mirror of becoming, with its questions, its doubts, its decisions. I was living the life of a man in his early thirties who swore by stability and moved through the illusion of a life model that was never truly his.
After a shocking encounter, I began to take stock of what had brought me to where I was — a first step before leaping into the decision to change my entire way of living.
Existing? is the account of this transitional period, a moment when everything seemed to be slipping away, and when I experienced one of the most meaningful encounters of my life, but also one of the most painful.
Those who have been following me know me mostly through a more poetic lens, and my poems — along with their reflections — will continue to exist alongside this work.
This special series of thirty chapters, which I will publish at a rhythm of one per week, can be seen as a window into a different form of intimacy — one that has shaped a part of the writer I have become today.
CHAPTER I — THE BEGINNING OF THE END
January 8, 2022
“Will you come and see me when I start my studies in Malta next year?” Miss K asks me.
“Who knows what can happen in a year…” I say in a stern tone.
The silence that follows immediately weighs down the atmosphere. I keep my jaw clenched, and despite everything, there is only one thing I want: to get on a plane and join her in Andalusia, where she is currently staying.
“Why so late?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. One word from you and I’ll take the next flight.”
“(Silence...)”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You know my situation. I’ve already told you: for now, it’s not possible.”
“Obviously…”
“I know it’s difficult for you, and I’m sorry. I know all the harm I’ve caused. Believe it or not, it’s even harder for me to realize that I’m the one responsible for this mess. I’ve already told you: I need to sort things out before making the right decisions. I need to find myself again, even if it means going far away. But I haven’t forgotten my promise.”
A sigh escapes my mouth. I am lost in this situation and am beginning not to know which way to turn.
An unpleasant feeling rises within me as I think back on the episodes we have gone through since we met. Since that famous month of June in Calabria, the summer had been like a dream, culminating in that last week of August when she tearfully confessed that she had feelings for me. But all of that was nothing compared to when reality caught up with us at the end of September. Since then, I have felt trapped in a long and painful descent. Once again, I replay that famous scene from two months earlier, tearing my reservation for Barcelona into a thousand pieces when she told me she needed distance after the heated argument we had had.
I try to form a sentence, but only stammering sounds come out of my mouth. Faced with the anger and sadness that have been mixing together since this emotional upheaval, which exhausts me a little more each day, I feel myself spiraling out of control.
“You have no idea what I’m going through. This is one of the worst situations I’ve ever had to face. Since the beginning of your trip with that ‘so-called best friend,’ I’ve felt betrayed, used. I have nightmares about it. I feel like a wanderer in the desert marveling at the sight of a mirage oasis. For months now, I’ve been nothing more than a sad ghost, sucked into a black hole that is pulling me away from the cheerful, funny, and optimistic man I used to be. I cry for no reason, yet I have to stand tall and respond calmly whenever you deign to give me a sign of life, when in reality I’m just acting as your therapist, having to listen to your adventures and your arguments with that other asshole before you go back to him.”
I should have seen the famous “it’s complicated” coming from the moment she told me about Diego—who had unwillingly become my rival—and who now seems as much a victim as I am in this circus she has dragged us into. This time, enough is enough.
“Do you understand how much I can’t take this anymore?”
After a brief silence, she replies cautiously:
“You have to do what’s best for you.”
What’s best for me… what a joke.
“Now I’m the one who has to go far away from you.”
“I never hid the fact that I wasn’t emotionally ready. I’m even less ready today. But I’ve always been sincere with you. If you think I’ve been playing with your feelings, I’ll say it again: I’m sorry.”
Without a second thought, I delete the conversation and the photos. I gather all the things of hers that I had accumulated like little relics since I met her before throwing everything into the trash.
Only one step remains: pressing the “Block Contact” button, written in red, as if to seal the irreversibility of the gesture.
What if she was truly sincere? What if I was the one being too impatient? And yet, everything tells me that this is nothing more than another act in this sordid masquerade. It is now time to put an end to all of this.
CHAPTER II — BEFORE LOOKING BACK
FEBRUARY 22, 2022
It was in this way, after these various turbulent episodes, that words began to flow from my fingertips on February 22, 2022, at 9:49 p.m., to be precise. I wonder, moreover, whether this palindromic date had—or will have—any particular significance, other than this epiphany that came from playing the writer and putting singular moments of my life down on paper in the paragraphs that follow.
I was there, in the middle of this dull room filled with moving boxes, staring at a point in space without actually looking at it. The deafening noise made by the old stove acted like a hypnotic signal, blending into the limbo-like atmosphere in which my contemplative mind had become lost.
A notification on my computer made a sound that pulled me out of this dreamlike state. A blank page with a blinking cursor was still open. As bedtime began to creep closer, my night-owl tendencies started to itch, awakening my creative side. Timidly, I began tapping on my keyboard:
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Well…”
If being the second speaker in a dialogue with myself seemed like an interesting idea, this first question was far too broad. Since I had always loved the dialectics of Socrates, I decided to answer that question with another:
“What brought you to where you are today?”
If I take into account the most significant recent events, a year had now passed since my separation from Miss C. The house we had lived in had now been sold, and the final page of the book of our “romance” had indeed been turned. It must be said that you didn’t need to be a prediction expert to bet that our relationship was going to fail, no matter what happened.
Why did I buy a house with her when I knew the dice had already been loaded from the start? I admit, it’s a fair question. I think I like putting myself in complicated situations. Isn’t this latest episode with Miss K another telling example?
“And now, what comes next?”
Where am I going? Perhaps that was the heart of the existential questioning that had been accompanying me for several months now, if not several years. I lean back from the keyboard for a moment, and a whole flood of information, flashes, and memories overwhelms me. I realize that it has been a long time since I started asking myself many questions about the way I live and constantly wondering whether my life truly suits me.
I realize that lately, a permanent feeling of unease has been gripping me and turning me gray, like an itch that keeps scratching at my mind. This kind of feeling gave me the impression of being a prisoner of my own life. What a paradox when one has nothing to complain about, isn’t it? Being aware of my own good fortune, yet feeling permanently incomplete.
All around me, I see inspiring personalities and I envy them—I would even say I am jealous of them, perhaps unfairly. Who knows? Everything is a matter of standards or convictions. But after all, who has never been impressed by the shadow of those models of success surrounding us, reflecting back at us our own mediocrity? That contradictory dissatisfaction of wanting what we do not yet have, or almost...
Then I ask myself a very simple question:
“What will my life story look like when I look back on it?”
“Oh, you know, I did the same job my whole life. I saw the same people, the same friends over and over again, the same ones I love talking shit about behind their backs. I’ve always lived in the same region, in the same country. And as for love, well, I’m paying off the mortgage on the house because I just got separated again. That idiot woman is even asking me for child support on top of that, for an ungrateful child who never does what he’s told.”
The thought terrifies me because I could go on in this tone for a very long time, so familiar does everything I am describing feel...
I remain motionless, staring open-mouthed at the screen. What if everything that had happened to me until now had been nothing but a series of bad choices, while I believed I was fulfilling the illusory prophecy that would give meaning to my existence?
I then think back to the year that had just passed, during which I felt as though I were coming back to life, stepping into a new era whose every aspect I did not yet fully understand. One thing was certain: it seemed to give meaning to my life by going against the current of everything I had experienced until then. Not to mention that famous encounter that changed my life forever and which I had had to bring to an end for my own salvation.
And what if, before being, I had never truly been?
And what does this beginning leave echoing within you? I’d be delighted to hear about your feedback.
Peace & Bliss,
Aaron.