Stream of Consciousness — Realizations by the water
I remember sitting by the lake, watching the sunset with my high school sweetheart. I was in my last year, final exams ahead of me. I had gone through hard times at school and found love as a pleasant distraction in between exams and silent desperation. Leaning my head on his shoulders I felt the warm summer breeze caressing my skin. All of a sudden he backed off and asked me about my dreams, future hopes and wishes.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m sure there’s something…?” he said, and I wasn’t sure if he meant to be encouraging or if he was trying to hide his disappointment.
“Not really, no,” I answered unimaginatively.
The look on his face is something that I have not forgotten to this day.
“What’s yours?” I asked back, not sure if in defence to myself or out of actual interest.
I don’t remember the content of his answer, only that it was long-winded and ever so slightly irritating because it kept me from watching the most beautiful colours chase the sun. Back then I didn’t like to think about the inevitable existence of an unforeseeable future, I rather spent my time coming up with stories of an alternate reality; it helped me escape from temporary struggles and find inspiration and beauty in everyday life. It must have been hard to understand for a guy who was studying interdisciplinary science, someone who liked facts and realities and who would only try to solve and understand mysteries of the universe rather than finding bliss in the unknown.
The next time we met up again by the lake we weren’t together anymore. We had just missed the sun and although the descending arc was gone, left behind were the traces that always follow along. I was in the middle of my gap year, had successfully graduated from high school and gone abroad for half a year. Realizing that the world was bigger than I had imagined I had stopped coming up with stories in my head and started exploring the possibilities in real life. I supported my neck with my hand, ignoring the goose bumps on my skin from the heartless wind that kept blowing. He still had the habit of talking too much whenever he felt uncomfortable, which was understandable because I still had the habit of barely talking whenever I felt uncomfortable. I told him what I had been up to and how, even though none of it had been my dream, future hope or wish, everything had turned out exactly how I wanted. He told me that he was still studying the same.
“Do you know what you want, yet?” he asked.
I ignored the icy atmosphere and answered: “Communication.”
“It’s probably going to be exactly what you wanted,” he said, and the sudden taste of bitterness in the air made me want to puke.
“It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what I really wanted,” I remember telling this new guy I had met about my past relationship. I was abroad for an internship during summer, mid way through my studies. I had continued going with the flow and had ended up somewhere I hadn’t planned, which was great because I met him along the way.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said and we smiled at each other.
I hugged him tightly, ruffled his hair and breathed in the smell of a warm, unwashed male who had been up all night — not unpleasant. I pulled him closer and together we watched the sunrise and how its first rays created a beam of glitter on the water.
When we first met I was in my pyjamas eating crackers with cheese in the middle of the day. When we first talked we were swimming in the ocean and he didn’t want me to get out until I had answered all of his questions. When we first kissed he had decided to stay despite the fact that his friends had left and we danced all night. We often sat by the water, holding hands and watching the moon reflect in the gentle waves of the ocean. We also liked pizza for breakfast and talking about silly things like our futures. He said he wanted to graduate from college and start his future even though he didn’t quite know what that meant yet.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said and thought that at least we both understood each other.
“Do you know what I mean?” I remember asking the new guy I was dating, knowing that he didn’t.
“Yes of course,” he said. “We can just go with the flow and see what happens.”
We were sitting by the lake, the same lake I had sat by some time ago near my hometown. Sitting away from him I watched the waves crash with what seemed like subliminal anger against the rocks at the shore. I was in the last year of university and had realized that going with the flow would not always lead me where I wanted. For the first time in my life I had started to think about what I wanted before deciding afterwards whether what I got had been what I wanted or not. I had felt stuck in the present, impatiently wanting to graduate and start my future even though I still didn’t know what that was even supposed to mean. As we sat there in silence I thought back of moments I had shared with him: Jumping up and down screaming our lungs out at a concert, receiving paper hearts of different colours and sizes every time we met, climbing ropes and sitting on his shoulders at a children’s playground. I turned my head towards him and felt the weight of my body supported by the rock underneath me.
“I just don’t have time for distraction anymore,” I told him and looked up towards the sky.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the sun before I could see clear, but I breathed out in self-assurance: He had been what I needed but not what I wanted.
“I don’t need this,” I remember thinking as I gazed through the leaves of the big tree above me at the endless sky.
“I don’t need any of it,” I thought and touched the grass I was laying on.
I closed my eyes and listened to the beat of my accelerated heart.
“Let go,” I thought and started slowing the speed of my heart down by synchronizing it with the speed of my breath.
I sat up, took a stone and threw it into the water. I watched it sink and create little circles around the water, causing it to look beautifully unsteady. I took another one and watched how the same thing happened. I imagined throwing my worries into the water and how they would sink, too, disappearing into oblivion without a trace. I had just survived my final exams and had come to the lake by myself. I had learnt how to find comfort in real life instead of the alternate reality by giving up my self-absorbed ways and focusing on the world around me. I didn’t need someone else to keep me distracted from myself anymore, and I certainly didn’t need to worry about what I should have done or should be doing. I had learnt that my heart had cracks in it, and that every day a couple more would show up. I had lost loves, watched friends turn into strangers, fallen down and got lost countless times. Still, I had come to realize that my heart was beating, it was loving, and I knew that I was meant to go on.
