‘City As Canvas’ Exhibition and the Willingness to Let Yourself Become a Graffiti Artist

#LifeAsACanvas: Is it worth fighting for the ‘US’

letters_to_antoinette
#LifeAsACanvas: Is it worth fighting for the ?US?
Happy Friday lovely! As a continuation of my latest post in which I touched the idea that life is indeed a white canvas on which we do
art, I’ve decided to start new series on LTA under the name #LifeAsACanvas. To mark the beginning of this new and more candid chapter of ‘Letters to Antoinette’ today I’m talking relationships.

A Relationship… Have you ever tried to imagine its shape,
colour, scent? It’s precisely its intangibility, which makes it so precious
and luring, so unpredictable and yet immensely enticing.
Imagine yourself standing right in the middle of a railway
station, a huge one! Think Grand Central Station – New York City, King’s Cross, London.
grand_central_station
Yes,
you’re standing right there, observing the passing-by strangers always rushing in unknown directions. Your body – a stationary figure with only its eyes moving and inspecting everything that’s daily occurring.
Some of them come near you, brush against your body.
Others pause their rhythmical course for longer, in need for some time before proceeding onwards in their hope to catch the train.
Yet, there are always also the third ones, the ones who feel enticed by your luring ambiance. The ones who irritably break through the crowd
with the only hope to find YOU! To start a conversation with YOU! Intimate, elaborate and deep.
And with the approach of the midnight hour the station’s
spirit somehow dies out. The station’s daily liveliness quickly gets replaced by the late-night ghostly emptiness. You feel your heavy eyelids drop over your eyes and through your misty vision you somehow notice that there’s hardly anyone left. Probably the one who’s earlier fallen for you is still there waiting for you on a bench.
Maybe a few other strangers with whom you’ve spoken, shared
the occasional tear, and actually established some sort of a bond are also
there… waiting down the hall in hoping to get the chance to chat with you again.
The rest are gone. For good.
Yes, over your entire lifetime people come and go. People storm into
your life and storm out of it at the speed of light. And the thing is that even when you invest all your energy attempting to uncover the reasons behind their decisions, you often end up miserably failing. You
judge, you blame – be it your choices or theirs. You cry and then giggle in hysterics. In some occasions you feel itching pain just beneath your chest… in others fulfilling relief takes its place… But what you always try and do is justify the inexplicable ending … to give yourself some answers and find some inner peace.
 I’ve been through a few ‘break-ups’ so far – be it
with boyfriends, be it with friends. And I’ve certainly been through the pain, missing them, thinking about them, trying to reveal the answer
to the Why?.
Today I’ve come to the striking realisation that this question is actually quite redundant, as you know? Sometimes it’s not really
the people you actually miss but rather the habit you’ve managed to establish. You miss the activities you’ve done
together, the situations you’ve been through. You miss the
laughter
, not the voice. You miss your personal happiness rather than the mutual one. You miss the late-night cuddles – not the person himself, you miss having
the opportunity to incessantly engage in late-night conversations rather than the person you’ve held them with.
ego
Yes, the line between what you think you miss and what you
actually miss is quite fine. And the thing is – your EGO
doesn’t really help; if anything it adds to the frustration and anger..making you incapable to find out the true reasons behind all that’s happened.
And a great question worth posing to yourself is ‘Is it
really worth it? Is it really worth fighting for the ‘US’?
Let me tell you a short story...
Almost two years ago my best friend and I ceased talking.
Just like that. It was at the exact same time an ex and I split up and I felt
as if my world was falling apart. Since then I’ve had many occasions to
mull over the situation and analyse it. My feelings kept on going from one extreme to another. First the sadness came, then the anger followed. Sometimes I’d be confused and then extremely annoyed that I’d let my heart suffer so hard.
And I was feeling so lonely though I was surrounded by many.
A few days ago M. and I met up for lunch. We touched the
past and uncovered the reasons behind our falling apart. It was indeed a huge misunderstanding and if I’ve ever known what the true reason behind our fight was, I would’ve reached out to her long time ago in my attempt to save our friendship. And you know? Despite the two years during which our friendship was put ‘on pause’, the two years during which I managed to established some unique and worthy friendships, today while looking back I apprehend that I’ve also missed her a lot. The conversations with HER. The rational advice we’d always offered one another. The support. The fun. The laughs. The mojito nights. The long hours of goofiness. All of it. And while letting the words roll out of our mouths I was both smiling to her and to myself. It seemed as if we’ve never been apart – we were comfortable
enough to talk about our lives, to share what’s taken place, both curious to reveal to what extent the other one has actually changed.
And you know lovely, over these two years I’ve seen her countless
of times in my dreams and every time I stumbled upon a mutual friend I’d stop and ask for her. I’ve never managed to turn my back and walk away no matter how hard I tried. We both are still smiling from the photos on my shelf. And today I couldn’t be
happier that we got the chance to talk. That we discarded our EGOs and gave each other a chance to clear the air and genuinely smile at
each other again.

And in this sense it doesn’t really matter whether we talk
about a partner or a friend. Up until now after a break-up or a quarrel I’d sit down and mull over the situation asking myself ‘Could I have done something else to change the course of the events? Should I keep fighting for the ‘US’?
And then it hit me. If the other one is not ready to fight, to swallow their pride and switch off their ‘ego’ – well, do you really
have to do that yourself?
It takes months, years to establish a relationship. It takes
time to start feeling comfortable with one another; to get rid of your masks. And the candid truth is – if one of you can mindlessly give up on it all – then the best you could do is to actually move on. To close one door and give a chance for another one to slowly open. This happened with B. and I. We gave up on each other and we chose to start walking in the opposite directions. We didn’t have the guts, the strength to fight for the ‘us’ and now looking back I guess that’s for the best.
Yes, some doors get slammed in your face and all you need to do is shift your attention to the ones that are ajar. And life certainly has its own ways to point you to the right one; to let one person walk away and give a chance for another one to walk back in.
I?m glad and certainly relieved that M. and I did manage to leave to door to our friendship half-opened, as seriously, we would’ve both missed out on a hell of a good friendship, right, M?
Have a lovely weekend!

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