“Her name was Anna Maria. She was a lot younger than what she actually appeared to be. – Her eyes are like burned wood. Dark as the night. It brings that kind of mystery one can only hope for in a person. – She doesn’t talk much, but today she told me she wanted to die.”
This was how our conversation started. The conversation between me and a person I can now call a friend, but at that moment, I honestly thought I had just encounter a serial killer. I will not name names here. Anna Maria is a pseudonym for someone real. It was late night. I think he was drank. Or maybe just desperate. Sometimes the two come together.
I am probably one of those people you can just say anything to. People trust me the weirdest things. Maybe I have a familiar face. Or maybe a crooked look that says “Trust her, she has her own twisted stories, she will not judge you, she will not widely share your story, she will be a cheap therapist“. But guess what: a good friend of mine said I should write on the computer – and I thought, if I’m giving the trouble of typing I might as well just post it somewhere. I am following the advice, taking the risk of someday, the people I write about, find about this little internet corner and stop trusting me their stories.
However, on one side, at the end of the day, most of those people never stay in my life for long, on the other, the new people who come along the way always see me writing on paper notebooks and when I ask permission to write about them (which I almost never do) I think they assume I’m writing only for myself in a journal.
Either way, names are always changed or omitted.
We were on Mainz main train station. I can’t remember the time, I know I was late so I lost the train. I saw a group of young people going to the same track as I was. I lingered there, but then all of them went away except Anna Maria’s ex-boyfriend. He had a picture of her in his hand! (Who carries pictures around these days? I thought). He was not crying, but he looked worried. In a weird kind of way. Relaxed, but in a fearful way, if that’s possible.
I looked at him. No, I stared at him. I am not that kind of person who avoids eye contact out of fear or who’s afraid to be alone in a train station with a stranger (which, for the record, was not the case, there were other people there). I’m the one who says “Hi” or stares or offers almonds. This time, I did absolutely nothing! Maybe my curiosity was written all over my eyes.
He said “Unglaublich…“. And in that empty space he was leaving before saying anything else, that moment you are not supposed to interrupt because someone is clearly preparing to say something cause it’s still their turn to speak not yours, I said “I know, it sucks!“. I thought we were talking about missing trains. Apparently, we were not on the same page there, and we were far beyond that. That was when he told me about Anna Maria.
He told me how they have been together for more than 2 years and for the last 3 months there was nothing but fighting. He told me that everytime they were arguing about something she would just leave. That she never said what was wrong, but then he would found her crying with her head between her knees on some corner in the house.
One day he said he had to go. He couldn’t take it anymore. He wanted out. That was the day he lost his train from Mainz to Frankfurt because she said she wanted to die. So he waited for her roommate to make sure she didn’t hurt herself and that is how we ended up in the same track waiting for the same train.
I could understand then, the heavyweight he seemed to carry, looking at that picture. The “Thank God it’s over” vibe, with the “I’m afraid of what’s next” line of thinking. He was happy, though not completely. He wanted a easy way out. Instead, he got an ultimatum.
I can’t tell I’ve been there. I can hope for never be in that situation. I have no idea what would I do. Would I stay? Would I compromise my own happiness for someone else, even if that made us both miserable?
I am also terrible at giving advice. I’m that kind of person who says “Man, you have to find your answers within“. Cause that’s how I do it, so I assume it’s everyone’s formula. I’m still learning that it is not. Or maybe it is, but people don’t see it quite like I do. It doesn’t really matter, the point here is: I had a say this time! And I thought Big Magic!
I had just been reading this book I fell in love for the cover. Yes, it’s that simple. I couldn’t take my eyes of the cover and I had the feeling the inside would not let me down. I knew the writer. She had written a widely known best-seller which was turned into a motion picture staring Julia Roberts. Yes, Elizabeth Gilbert, the writer of Eat, Pray and Love.
I was fascinated by her easy approach on how to live a creative life. As she put it, not living as an artist essentially but to “live a life more strongly driven by curiosity rather than fear.” I was in a kind of mood that every problem I could find, I could solve with some good Big Magic.
Totally out of my league there, I said: “You have to face all this situation like the romans and their geniuses.” I explained how the Romans didn’t believed someone was a genius, but rather attributed the outcomes of one’s work to some external entity responsible by jointly create together. Instead of being a genius, people had genius. “That makes all the difference“, I said hoping I had made myself understood and not look like a complete lunatic.
The bottom line of my advice was, point all disgrace that had just happened into your own genius. Just tell the universe you were not acting alone and it’s not entirely your fault. Which, for a fact, it really isn’t because you were not alone in a relationship. It requires two people and when shit goes down the fault lies on both sides. To end I said: “Please please live a little more creatively and you’ll see things will get better.”
I know. It was not the best advice. I also know that I didn’t even mention the heartbroken girl who was probably crying her eyes out at that moment. Which looking back, I think of myself as somewhat mean person with awful choice of words.
But this is what I believe in: If we all live more strongly creative lives, we would be living more fulfilled lives, where that kind of drama brought by insecurities and miscommunications does not occur. If we focus our energies in our curiosities when passion gets all fuzzy and doubtful, we can go through the flames without dragging someone along and make our struggles their responsibility.
That boy was never the reason Anna Maria wanted to die. At best he was what was holding her at the surface. But at the very worst, he was just one of the many little things dragging her down, and letting her go was the right thing to do.
He read Big Magic. He offered the book to Anna Maria. They are friends now. She changed her major and moved back with her parents to Heidelberg. He graduated. She enrolled in painting classes. He took some shitty job and says he’ll quit until summer.
I have never talked with Anna Maria. I am not close friends with him. We talk rarely, but when we do, I make sure to always ask: “Do you (still) have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?”.
Credits:
Featured Image from melhadteam.com
Sisyphus Dreams 
