One of these nights I was in a bar alone drinking wine, when I noticed a guy in an orange cap looking at me from the other side. He wasn\’t a stranger to me, I knew I knew him from somewhere, maybe from there. I asked the manager, who is a friend of mine, if the good guy was a regular customer, to which he replied that he was. I thought well, doubt cleared, I just hope I never spoke to him!. It would be a little embarrassing to have to tell the guy I didn\’t remember his name or any conversation we might have had, actually lol.
After a few minutes, the bartender arrives with a glass of wine offered by the young man. I immediately took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice: what the fuck! I don\’t like to accept drinks from strangers (or people I don\’t remember, for that matter), but I\’m against wasting lol, so I decided to raise the glass in the direction of the good guy as a sign of thanks and that\’s it. And it was just time to lower the glass that the one approached and sat down at my table without being invited.
Despite the small talk he was trying to unravel, I could see one thing: the need for a companion, in this case a female one. He was also alone at the bar and soon after realizing that I wasn\’t giving him the attention he expected, he left and went to talk to two other girls.
I started thinking about people\’s need for belonging and attention.
I receive some messages from men, who don\’t even know me, on the Facebook page, but they approach me as if I were a friend, saying Hi, how are you?.
A couple of months ago I announced in a What\’s up group a room for rent in the apartment I was living in. A guy replied, he went to visit the apartment, but he didn\’t want to stay. However, when he was leaving, he told me a good part of his life, the problems he had been going through and, even today, at one time or another he sends me a message inviting me to do something.
It really seems that the feeling of loneliness is very close to that of emptiness in many cases. It is in these cases that having someone to talk to, in fact, to identify with your pain is really important and apparently I was born with the phrase talk to me written on my forehead, so that people in need, attention, or empathy , can see easily.
It really is a law of attraction, because I like to listen to other people\’s stories, talk about everything and make others smile and this must be evident in me in some way.
I\’ll never forget the bus trip from Extrema to São Paulo where an 18-year-old guy told me the whole story of his relationship, his girlfriend\’s pregnancy and his future plans. I was only 9 years old. I remember my grandmother looking at the back of the bus looking for me and when she saw me talking and gesturing she just rolled her eyes and turned forward as if to say there she is, safe and sound, just being her lol. I honestly don\’t remember what I may have said to him, but I sure did and asked a lot.
When I remember moments like that I\’m sure that when I was born I laughed the hardest and let out a I\’m here, guys!, really happy. The only problem is that the doctors still don\’t understand baby language and they only heard me cry.
But it wasn\’t just the doctors who could only hear me cry. I too could only hear myself cry for many years. I could only feel my pain, so strong that nothing or anyone outside the tower where I was placed was able to reach me. Even Mom, who knew better than anyone that I was still in there somewhere, couldn\’t get me to eat or pull me out of one of my worst episodes of depression. I couldn\’t look out of the window of that inner tower.
No, it wasn\’t the Prince who saved me. In fact, it was myself and the super perfect marriage with him that put me there. And, at a given moment, he made it very clear that he wasn\’t going to take me out of the tower, after all, taking me out would be freeing me to be myself and not him anymore.
I was the only one who could do it. And I don\’t know how, but I did. I always had help, that was fundamental. But my will to live was there all along. That 9-year-old girl was there outside the window asking for help, screaming for me, because she needed me to play, laugh, make mistakes, do shit, get to know people and the world, be happy and happy again.
She gave me several signs.
Once I went for a Colonoscopy exam and the anesthesia ended up releasing the voice of the little girl inside me, who invited the doctors responsible for the exam to have a beer, justifying the invitation by saying I love making friends. The only problem is that the doctors hadn\’t even removed the blessed device from my c\’ when the invitation was made lol. And a mixture of laughter with embarrassment when I left the room, not quite understanding if that had been real or not, invaded me, being intensified with the laughter of mother saying probably you said that yes lol.
It took a lot more than that to start listening to her. But it was only when I started to do it (no need for anesthesia lol), when I could see it, that I managed to leave the top of that tower.
Maybe I didn\’t need to suffer so much, I didn\’t need to punish myself so much just for being
happy for being myself, even if others might not like it. But everything I\’ve lived has only taught me that every time I start to get away from myself, that tomboyish, naughty, shameless and daring girl will remind me that taking life so seriously is not for us!
It scares, scares to admit many things about who we are. Assuming who we are, taking ownership of it and, if necessary, fighting against what we\’ve always accepted as truth to defend our true spirit is not easy. But there\’s nothing more liberating than looking out of a window, feeling like you want to be there, living the beauty of your being, grabbing those braids, knowing that there isn\’t some crazy boy waiting for you down there, thinking that he alone is enough for you, and when you feel the wind outside, the texture of the grass under your feet, cut that shitty hair so you never have to go back.
So start looking, Rapunzel, your tower has a window…