Sam Chevalier - The boy with the sad eyes

In essence, I am so shattered and there are so many fragments of me, that some got lost never to return. And maybe it’s better this way. I know it is just the beginning of something much bigger, of a permanent change, something that will certainly make me find my way. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that this time it leads me towards the right person.

—It won’t be someone perfect, but one day we’ll be happy or at least we’ll live to tell a good story, even some sad ones aren’t so bad with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

There are things that break you, there are lumps that stay in your throat like when something big breaks and gets stuck in your soul and it becomes difficult to express.

What we don’t say at the right time escapes from our eyes, the tears escape, they rip the chest to leave and we need a sigh, a sunset of those that make us reborn.

For this reason, many of us are short of breath when we are broken in such a way that we cannot rebuild ourselves.

“Some molds cannot be repaired”.

Yes, sometimes I feel short of breath when I remember.

And it is because they didn’t tell me, I lived it. To continue is to destroy, it is to erase and rebuild, and it is to leave a blank page on which we can write a better story, without so many timing errors. It is burning memories, breaking the lips of pending a “I love you”, it is suffering and laughing knowing that we will not go back and that the end is the beginning, that we aren’t defeated and we were never small, that we are much more than we imagined: we are great, we are invincible, we are magic when we raise our heads and decide to write new chapters, and every day will be better, I know it.

I also know that one day someone will knock on our door to make us feel like children again.

You’ll realize it at the least indicated moment and the most imprecise place, and yet you will feel peace... at that moment you’ll understand that you always belonged there, to those arms and to those eyes. And in that second you’ll understand that you wouldn’t change it for anything.

On certain occasions we return to where we were happy once, regardless of the fact that it is the same place we were broken into a thousand pieces and where we suffered the most silent voids of our soul. We usually think that trying again is a sign that things can improve, but one once we break, nothing is the same again, and a black hole remains, a memory that kills us, a stray bullet that hits the heart directly. And although the wound has healed and we survive in spite of ourselves, the scar prevails, the war marks remain for life.

I have been to various places, as far as anyone can imagine. I have wanted to change my routine and tea for coffee, I have tried to find a reason that makes me happy, but I have not yet been able to, I have not found myself yet.

I’m here, in this storm of emotions that we feel when we are aware that something is coming and that something will change our lives completely. That gentle breeze of a “there I come again” comes back to my mind and the heart beats louder and even with great fear it wants to dare, to surrender once more.

However, there is so much to live for... Perhaps it is peace, perhaps a hug of those that have never been given to me, or a smile of those that brighten life. I know that the person who is capable of giving me that fire, that brightness and that color my life is missing so much, is on the way. But it isn’t our time yet... life hasn’t put us together yet and it must be because there are still many wounds to heal and many lessons to learn.

When that person arrives, I know the dark void that I carry here will turn into a rainbow. Meanwhile... the gray will remain embedded, and I will continue not knowing how to get them out of my center.

But I won’t give up, really giving up doesn’t exist in my dictionary... So here I go again, no matter what happens, whatever the purpose of this trip, it will be better than standing here with crossed arms and this emptiness.

“I have to get out of here”.

If I am sure of something, it is that magic lives in memory, sad as it may be.

And it’s ironic, we usually cry for happy memories. Some make us cry with joy, others open wounds that never heal, others teach us the way and others remind us of who we are so we can go on.

Sadness isn’t far behind; we learn the price of happiness by merely tripping and it tells us a thousand times where we don’t want to be again…

Cold is natural, powerlessness too, but if I’m sure of one thing is that love and despair go hand in hand, just like coffee and sugar, a pinch of one complements the other. And that is how we humans are; we mix with each other in search of that tasty touch that we call happiness.

And yes, I reached a breaking point where the slight and fleeting memories of when I was happy return to my mind. For that short period of time I admired the breeze caressing the leaves of the trees as I walked through the streets of my neighborhood. Back then I was still innocent, I believed in happy endings and that stupidity of ‘’ if you love them you must let them go, and if they are meant for you, they will come back’’.

I’m impressed by how naive I was, I had the one I loved the most in life and, for a short time, I was very happy. Every day was magical and there was color in my life, a color that hasn´t been around for a long time. That color that I almost forget when it rains in my eyes and the days turn gray.

If I have learnt something over time, it is that sadness is that feeling that reflects what we long for and that we don’t have when we want to.

That sometimes sadness and the lack of someone go hand in hand or at least in most stories. In mine, it is that man from the park waiting for his wife with flowers on his back while she is going to break up with him; it is that hummingbird that didn’t find the flower. In my story, sadness is saying “I love you” to that someone and seeing that in their eyes a ‘‘I no longer love you’’ as an answer. Such is life, a labyrinth with a thousand thorns, a river with a thousand rocks and you still have to swim upstream.

“There are memories that make you fall in love in spite of their sadness”.

And there are no words when the pain and the wounds are deep inside you, there is no medicine to cure the despair of the soul, there is only an anesthetic called time.

It is difficult to trust, it is easy to love, it is wrong to hurt and it is impossible to forget if you love with your entire soul. Now you will understand that it is not so easy to find someone with whom you can actually share your heartbeat and dance to the same rhythm. Many times you’ll think you’re on the same page, but not really. You will not even be in the same book, much less in the same world.

You’ll understand it when they walk away and only a thousand questions remain on your mind and you want to break your lips full of sincere “I love yous”. You’ll understand it when your heart is so broken that you don’t even know where its parts are. And that hurts like there is no other feeling in this world, it hurts so deep inside and it’s so cruel.

But it hurts even more to know that there was no reason, that the meaning was completely lost and that you will not find the answers that flew with their departure in other lips. And once more it will hurt when you lie down and cry into your pillow, asking for answers that will not come, hopes that were lost in the wind... like their words.