I never left a note, I never said goodbye, I just left this place, along with many others in my life. I had my break from it all, it did me a world of good. And now I am back.
I found my scribblings on my desk, just where I’d left them. The interrupted story, the words never told to anyone. And I want to get back into the flow, the wave that purges what’s in my soul on paper. Writing a journal will do that at times, help you pour your soul out on paper, face everything again, rethink, evaluate, draw your conclusions.
Some stories are meant to be told, others are just meant to be written on paper. Handwritten, to show your anger, pleasure, pain, excitement in the way your writing changes.
I haven’t really missed school. Not for a second, not even college. And especially not high-school or secondary… It was all a closed chapter in my life. But this year is all different. A couple of weeks ago I was with my mom, walking on the streets of Ploiesti early in the morning. “This feels exactly like the mornings when we left home together, you going to work, me going to school,” I said with a melancholic smile on my face. She was smiling too, remembering it all. Reliving it probably.
Then today, at about noon, while walking by a school, I heard kids laughing and running, I saw the autumn leaves fallng off the tree branches, I could smell the new books and notebooks. I could remember how I felt, challanged to do more. I wanted out, out of the teenage label people had put on me. I wanted to be a grown up, I wanted to start living, I wanted the worries and the adventures.
Now I miss high-school. I miss secondary school. I miss the times when life was a lot less complicated. And as I said, walking by that schoo, I miss the view on the world I had back then. Full of hope and full of dreams. It some how got less colorful as the years passed.
Happiness is a great but weird feeling. We crave for it, it’s not constant and we miss feeling it when it’s not there. When the sun isn’t shining and the birds are not singing and we’re not better at facing the bad and the ugly of the day, we wish for happiness. But being happy helps you enjoy everything more, the simple pleasures as well. A dance class when you’re dead tired and can barely keep your eyes open. A text you only saw hours later, but still made you smile. A song (which is actually a sad one), a few pages in a book, coffee in the morning.I wonder if we’re able to find so much pleasure in simple things when we are not generally happy with our life.
And when we are happy…we can disregard so much! It’s not all perfect, some things could be improved, some calls would be better off not made, it’s not all exactly as we want it. But it’s generally want we need and want, what makes us sleep better, what keeps the monsters in our mind at bay for a while…
But the thing with the sad songs that you listen to smiling is one of the weirdest parts. Here’s for example one of my new favorites. And yes, I always smile.
The more frequent “yes” replies, the excitement for really boring chores, the increased strength, the will to try harder to make others happy. It’s all triggered by this feeling. Misery might love company, but so does happiness. It doesn’t just love it, it’s more like a virus, it needs to infect others as well.
My friend Oana showed me a note I had written to her over 4 years ago. It’s written on a page torn from my notebook. And here’s what it says:
“When the talk is good and the feeling is easy and the laughter is light and the memories are many but the time is short, then you know you’re with a friend.”
