At some point, when i was here in the other side of the Atlantic, when the cold was still burning my 34 years old muscle mass underneath layers of clothes, when i had just arrive, like, yet arriving, after some months but still the first months, when the days got by as the autumn came, then the winter came but seemed never gone and some weeks seemed to be forever, when i was just attending the demands of the time, the schedule and the clock, but still not sure about what i was doing, not even a little, i felt very, very fragile. I felt very ugly, very weak, very old, very small, very dirty, very vulnerable, very sensitive, very emotive, too much. Very dumb, very slow, very tired.
Even then, when my wife and my dog came and i was with my family complete, i walked the streets with her and i was ashamed of being a man. In the narrows sidewalks of this medieval city, where you can not walk side by side, i always let her go forward. And as i looked at her from behind, i just seen my reflection. A reflection of a man that maybe did not want to be a man. That was so tired, so sick of being a man. A man that hated men. A man that did not feel part of nowhere, represented by nobody, no culture, no religion, no color, no image, no song, no saint, no god, no scent, no nothing. No shoes, no coat, no clothes, no food, no handwriting. Nothing. I didn't want to be the one to be followed, so i kept myself behind. But i felt guilty. As if i was a coward just using kindness as an excuse to hide my shame, my weakness, my look, my self, that i hated, and hated to hate. I doubted myself.
I wanted to be represented by that woman in front of me, but even then didn't want to overwhelm her, so i got into a war, between the salvation and the defeat of a world that i idealized, a perfect, not quite perfect, but very beautiful world, that i wanted to build up, but was so paralysed and incapable to even accept the way i put my feet one in front the other to barely walk back home from the supermarket.
I am sorry. I feel much better now.