How it went

I see her with the baby is her arms. Here you are, she says, and your hair is red! Yes oh... so cute, she is beautiful! And I hug them. I'm nervous but the excitement of being around them is far more intense than my own tension. It's a good feeling, I am not unconfortable. We sit on the couch and start talking about her pregnancy, the birth and how she is. You look great, I say, and I mean it. She is slim and fit, it makes me feel as I had a baby! She has a flat stomach and a milky breast which is just perfect. If I had been pregnant for 9 months (of course!) and breastfeding for three weeks I'd look like moby dick.

She asks about my life, my job and my partner. They met more than 10 years ago and I'm not sure she recalls him. I don't know how you've done it so far, she says. You've never lived together, it's amazing. Our paths have been very different. She moved to Milan several years ago and lived alone for a while and then with her husband. I know she thinks that I'm not as "complete" as she is but I'm fine with that, this thought doesn't ruin the meeting.

She brestfeeds the baby in a way that is very natural to me. Unlike me, she is definitely born to be a mom. It took me years to realise that I have maternal instinct but yet I'm not 100% confortable with a baby in my arms as I am with ... a puppy! Perhaps I should dedicate my life to animals instead of dreaming about babies. I take the baby for a while and I glimpse in the mirror. Am I ready? I look like a teenager with her dolly.

We are relaxed now, the conversation is easy even if the air is filled with unspoken words and emotions. It seems we haven't met for a short period of time but it's been 6 long years. It's time to go and she wants to walk with me to the underground station. Thank you, she says, I really wanted to see you because it's such a crucial moment to me and it seemed wrong not to reconnect. It seemed also wrong at my wedding and you know what? I cried when I got the flowers you sent me.

A close hug before I go. We don't cry but our eyes are far from being dry.

"There are many things that I would like to say to you

.. but I don't know how".

I'll see her (my shadow, my emotional knot) this afternoon. I can't escape, we have arranged to spend few hours together and I also have a present for her baby girl. I didn't sleep much, more or less 5 hours. I wonder if it's going to be as intense as it is my head.  I'm not concerned I'm just, I don't know, excited and sad at the same time. How will it be? Am I ready? Probably yes, I am ready now but I'm far too nervous to be natural. 

Earlier, on the train, I'd thought about "forgetting" the present on a seat and text her that I'm too busy today. After few seconds I realized that I have to deal with this sooner or later and it's better now than when we'll be too old for this kind of reunions.

I'm finishing The Hours and it crossed my mind that perhaps I could give it to her. I am too as Virginia Woolf, dying on a bed of roses as everything looks great in my life but I feel like all my energies were drying out. I should feel, at the age of 34, full of hopes, my head filled with plans and goals to achieve. I can see professional goals at the horizon but I can't see the contours of other utterly important personal achievements. No matter how hard I try, I cannot see that further. And honestly I should blame only myself  instead of my mum because she is not happy, my dad because has just remarried and is too happy and so forth. This is a common trend, I think, blaming someone else for being unhappy. I have to stop that as I'm am responsible for my own frustrations.

My past, an important friendship, a new person... will materialize in few hours in front of me. I'm not quite sure how to deal with my emotions, her feelings and a brand new baby. She will help us, though. 

Wish me good luck!

Snow

The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver. If this were the beginning of a poem, he would have called the thing he felt inside him the silence of the snow.

O. Pamuk

That's what I call the thing I feel inside today too. Silence after the yesterday's storm. I only have to catch up with my sleep now and I also have to let the snow wash my brain, my emotions and my dreams. I'll be brand new, I promise.