Private Story
Marienhölzung - غابة ماري
Our relationship is a relationship of constant change.
When I think about that weekend in December, I have the most different memories and feelings. Crazily, that’s not my mind fooling me, but actually how it was. I remember being super hurt and deeply in love. Maybe that’s actually how life and love works – at least in our case. Maybe we only work in extremes. Maybe we can only be super happy in one moment BECAUSE we know that we are only a blink away from being desperate and sad. And maybe we always have to go through this vast range of emotions because whenever we see each other, we have the goodbye ahead of us: We need to go through everything within a weekend, which other couples have weeks for. So when I think about that weekend, I don’t know which memory I should keep, which memory I should let go. Should I remember the moment of you judging me for something you should never judge me for, of feeling completely misunderstood? Or should I remember the moment of lying on the floor, feeling deeply connected to the person next to me and telling you things I had never told anyone before?
That brings me to the question of how to deal with the past. Which past do I want to remember? And are the memories vital for the present? I guess that was the main topic of that weekend as well. Understanding what had happened to us, what had separated us, how we hurt each other. But through the talking about the past, we also found back to each other in the presence. I really wonder whether it is possible to not forget but really forgive the past and not let it influence the present. To recognize it as something that shaped us in a certain way, but not letting it dominate our behavior. Not falling back into old patterns. Because yes, the past shapes us. But maybe that’s also a trick we can use: By deciding which past we want to remember, we can also decide which kind of people we want to be in the present.
The beauty of that weekend: I learned so much about me by listening to you. And I discovered how great it can feel to open up to someone completely.
I think two of our main problems have always been: We are both so busy thinking about wanting to be seen and heard by the other and wanting to be loved unconditionally, that we sometimes forget to actually see and hear the other person. Forget to love in an unconditional way.
After not meeting each other for weeks or months, we always pretend that we still know each other. But we don’t. Within such long time spans, people actually change – maybe only gradually, but they change. We have never given each other the time to rediscover, to be excited about meeting someone new again. Because it is really frustrating to say: Hey, you are my partner, I have no fucking clue who you are, what you’ve done and what has moved you.
And I think the only way we could actually ever work again is by having time: To go through emotions, to develop our own rhythms, to find our ‘groove’, to learn from and with each other.
Love,
Marie
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