Dare to be happy

!This story contains some swear words!

*****

Everything's so hard. One more sleepless night and I go crazy. 

All I can think of now is why did I do that? Even though I'm always the one who ends my romantic relationships, I was clearly out of my head. I wish I could figure out yet why I'm afraid of commitment or what's wrong with me in my brain when this fear makes me split up with people over and over. People, who are utterly perfect by the way. 

Perfect in an unconventional and unique way that cannot be copied. 

Perfect like this polka dotted heart-shaped chocolate box I found this morning when I finally got myself to clean up my flat. 

Perfect, like this post-it note in it with Matt's handwriting. 

Periods are red,

I know you're feeling blue,

Just eat this box of chocolate,

And please don't say 'fuck you'.

My mouth curves up in a sad smile while I re-read it for the fourth time today. It makes me giggle to remind myself that Matt is a literature teacher. I remember the day I received this box with the poem from him. I was badly craving some chocolate because I had my period and could not move the whole day from the pain and he rushed to my flat with it. 

This is his cute and unique way of being perfect, always taking care of me in surprising ways I wouldn't have expected but always loved so much. 

Everything reminds me of him lately, even the apple crisp granola bar which I had for breakfast. You see, this flavor was the only flavor I really hated when it came to granola bars and yet it became my favorite. The cute little story behind it makes it another great example of how caring he was and I swear by my life it happens to be the moment, too, when I fell in love with him. 

I remember I had a busy day with no time to eat anything decent. He could tell it from only one glance at me when I let him into my flat in the late afternoon. So he immediately turned back from the door pointing behind his back while asking what to bring me from the store but I insisted it's okay and nothing's really needed. We almost had a fight about it because he wanted to feed me and I insisted I'm on a diet anyway. But he left in a hurry and after fifteen minutes or so when he was back already, he brought me a huge granola bar with the only flavor I could not stand - apple crisp. When I confronted him about it, at first he just shrugged silently but then with utter facial awkwardness he admitted that after some struggling hesitation he just ended up looking at the nutrition chart on the packaging of all different kinds of granola bars and this was the most nutritious of all, hence he brought this to me. I winced because the feeling struck me hard - I am in love. 

Because I knew from that moment that he cares about me deeply even to the smallest degree, even the smallest things matter if it's about me. And I swear by my life, I instantly fell in love, not only with the flavor I aversed so intensely until that moment, but with him too - infinitely and inexorably, forever.

I‘ve been missing him so much, but the more I wait for his text messages to arrive the less probability there is that I ever receive one again. 

He introduced me to so many things I haven't ever thought would interest me up to that point, let alone entertain me. With time we've developed our little traditions, too. My favorite of all was to close the week together which basically meant that every Sunday around dinner time we went out to eat fast food. I can't remember how it started but I'm pretty sure it involved something weather related... I always liked to eat fast food when it rained the whole day and everything was just sad outside. It's definitely a comfort food, so maybe this thought made me transform it into a "thing", into our "thing", because being with Matt is absolutely comforting. 

I even started to learn creative writing by his influence because a) I really wanted to impress a literary teacher and b) I wanted to be able to somehow express all that was in my head, in my heart and well, let's be honest, in my pants, every time I got to spend time with him. All kinds of thoughts and feelings were orbiting in me twenty four-seven just like clothes in a nonstop laundromat's washing machine. And his constant care was the fabric softener that made my heart so soft and warm. So my heart spinned for hours and hours and weeks and months. 

And then suddenly something broke inside of my brain and my heart's washing machine refused to work any more. I guess I just was my usual self so I broke up with him after one and a half years, when I sensed he's about to ask me to move in together. I honestly got scared. I always get scared when things start to be comfortable and familiar and slowly become a routine. 

This fear of commitment makes me absolutely miserable but I can't do much about it. What if something bad is about to happen? Things cannot be perfect for long, is what I've learned during the past years and I was too scared to just sit and wait out what will go wrong and when and how. 

I was unable to put together my fears in coherent sentences because I was too scared to even think about them and rationalize it in my head. 

I could not have explained to him what my problem was and I was annoyed as hell when he offered to help me put it into words. I don't need his pity, or his help to form sentences out loud, it would make me feel like a kindergarten-aged child who just started to learn to speak. 

Just because he's a literature teacher and has a bigger vocabulary it doesn't necessarily mean he will understand what is going on and what scares me about it. It's bad enough to say I'm a major fuck-up, so I couldn’t stand the thought to imagine him scrolling through the thesaurus for the word “fuck-up” just to find its definition being only a single picture, of me.

What was different about this breakup is that this time none of my well tried coping mechanisms helped me to forget Matt like my previous lovers. Wherever I went on Sundays, or whatever I did to while away time, he constantly invaded my thoughts. When I went ashore last week and the wind brought me the smell of salty seawater I immediately got Matt-sick because his hair and clothes always had the same scent. He was terribly missing from my fast food evenings, too. Every week I wondered what he would eat and I imagined conversations between the two of us.

And then after a while it was not only the Sundays anymore that reminded me of him and our happy times. He started to be there in everything I saw, during the weekdays, too, specifically in the hazelbrownish tinted things, like his eyes are.

There are so many things which are hazelbrown, like the gasoline stain in the puddles, a poorly washed plate, the number 64, awareness of my own cruelty, saying cunt, or spelling the word 'fork'... 

When someone you love was kind enough to you beyond measure, you can miss them so much that you write their name out on a teared off piece of paper and just stare at it until a point you put it into your wallet so they're with you in a way, all day. 

The more time passed the more miserable I started to get. I low-key felt myself as a creep whenever I paid for something and saw his name in my wallet. 

And the last five months were a real nightmare which I really don't understand because whenever I broke up with someone before, everything got better and better with time and then eventually I didn't need them anymore. 

But with Matt it is completely different. I still dream about his wavy hair and salty seawater scent until I get seasick and my stomach twitches. Today I barely had the strength to get out of the bed and do something meaningful. 

And although I did not cut him out of my life completely, our casual text message exchanges got rare and short, he started to reply to me with only ‘yeah’ or ‘hm’ or something similar every time I messaged him and eventually he just stopped replying to me or sending me anything on his own. His last reply to me was only a 'ha' to a joke I sent him about literary agents about two months ago. 

There's been silence ever since.

"Tell me, what to do?" I ask the empty chocolate box pining, my fists are straining.

And out of nowhere, my phone buzzes. 

His name glows up on the screen and my eyes are wide open. 'Did you see this?' the message reads and there's a link to some article about a new cinema opening up. 

My heart is pounding crazy. After months of complete silence he's the one who starts any kind of contact. It's a very general message if I consider it but he was always reserved and cautious so it makes sense. 

I miss him so much, I almost caress his name on my phone's screen.

Okay, that's it. I don't know if it's because of the adrenaline my heart is pumping from the happy shock over his message or if it's the misery of the past months. Maybe it's because of the three morning coffee I had, to gain some strength to get through the day but I need to see him. I need to talk to him, I need to be around him so badly it hurts. This message from him might mean he misses me just as much as I miss him. 

And then it comes to my mind. 

It's Valentine's Day. 

This must be his own little way to tell me he still cares... That he still thinks of me… Or have I really gone crazy?

I need to meet him. It's my time now to show him that I care in a creative and fun way. This contemplation actually gave me an idea on how. 

So I quickly get to work.

Three hours later it's almost sunset when I arrive at his doorbell and ring it. My hands are shaking with the polka dotted heart-shaped chocolate box. 

"Hello?" Matt asks suspiciously through the entryphone, his voice doesn't sound as if he was waiting for anyone to arrive.

"Can you... come down?" my unusually thin voice trembles together with my knees. Just to hear his voice makes me so happy.

There's silence and then seconds later I can hear him clearing his voice.

"Of course." he sounds surprised, distant and hesitant. Only two short words, yet so many feelings.

After a couple of minutes the entry door opens and first he sticks his head out of the door, followed by his upper body. He is speechless when he sees me. 

"It's Sunday!" I scream a little louder than I wanted to and push the open box in front of him. Half of it is full of french fries and the other half is a selection of sauces poured into the little boxes which once contained chocolates. There's mayo and ketchup and curry-mango and four other different sauces.

"Is it really?" he grins astonished and I swear tears well up in his eyes for a moment, though maybe it's just me dreaming that up from my own tears that meanwhile melted everything into a blurry, colorful blob.

"Remember our week closing tradition?" I somehow still can’t control my loudness.

"How could I ever forget?" he says softly and tries one of the french fries with the salsa sauce. 

His deep laughter echoes in my ears, in my head, in my heart and well, let's be honest, in my pants. He pulls me into his arms and kisses the top of my head real long while holding me tight in his hug. I can smell his comforting salty seawater scent as I slowly push my face into his chest. 

My eyes are shut and I hum happily. 

I don't remember the last time I felt so content and comfortable. 

I'm finally happy again, after five months of misery. 

First I thought I'm settled for, but it's not the right word because one is only settled if it can't get any better, though it could be. But I really am happy because this is all I ever wanted. 

And because I've decided to go for my own happiness and face my fears. 

Because I've decided to dare to be happy.