37 Sense
37
Sense
Miranda
Waking up feels strange but gentle. I’m awoken by the light streaming in through the half-open blinds. The light is coming in from the left, but there’s something different about it. I’m even more confused when I sit up in a springy, supercomfortable bed, but I don’t recognize the bedroom, not even in my memories. It’s a large, pretty room that’s still a little shabby chic, with beautiful, original hardwood floors. Across from the bed, on the left, there’s an old but restored double door painted white, with beautiful golden knobs, open to the rest of the house; between this door and the window, there’s a banana tree in a very nice wicker pot.
“What…?”
I get out of bed, where the blankets are only mussed on one side. The floor is cold, and on the right side of the room, there’s a large built-in closet. There are boxes with a moving company logo stacked up in front of it; some are open and half-empty, and the others are still sealed. I see another door in a corner that I open stealthily and timidly and discover an updated bathroom. It’s huge and has a really cute, vintage vibe. There’s a clawfoot bathtub and a shower. Sorry…a clawfoot tub? That’s going overboard.
A practically nonexistent hallway connects the room to another door, which leads into a much smaller room filled with boxes where someone has scrawled the word BOOKS in screaming capital letters. The only thing in there is a light-wood, slender-legged desk with two shallow drawers pushed up against a wall and already housing…my computer? The walls sport wallpaper with a print of eucalyptus branches in a subtle green.
The living room is another chaos of boxes and mismatched furniture, including a very loud pink armchair and at least seven framed pictures waiting patiently for someone to hang them. A bar connects it to a kitchen that also looks like it was recently renovated while trying to maintain an echo of past decades. I smile when I see the fridge; it’s one of those retro ones, impractical for a family but perfect for someone like me who doesn’t cook much and lives alone.
Light is pouring in from two balconies overlooking a plaza, which I find out when I throw their doors open.
“What the hell is going on?” I smile.
Two more doors, near the entrance, enclose a small, nice, and practical half bath and a nice closet for storing coats and out-of-season clothes without them getting wrinkled.
I really like my apartment, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is pretty much my dream home.
A picture framed in very pretty turquoise wood catches my eye, and I go over; it’s the gang. Well…me and the gang: a mix of all my best friends, the ones from the neighborhood, the ones from work, the ones from life. And I’m in the middle, smiling, in a black blazer and a lacy bodysuit, basically lingerie, underneath. I’m wearing red lipstick and eyeliner that must’ve been the work of a professional, because there’s no fucking way I could’ve pulled it off. It’s flattering, I look good…probably because I look happy. My mouth is open, like I’m laughing, surrounded by all my friends, who all look very glam too. Ivan, next to me, is looking at me complicitly, laughing.
It’s a happy scene. I know you should never trust photographs, which are just a two-dimensional depiction. Sometimes we get hooked on images, aspirations, dreams, and we cling to them like they are stills from a movie…and we idealize everything that happened around them.
I contemplate this as I flop down on the couch covered in a sheet with the picture in my hands. I don’t want to idealize it, but the best part of it, the most special, is that it’s a glimpse of something that hasn’t happened yet. And in it, in the future, I’m happy.
Marta is holding up a bottle of champagne; it must be a celebration of something for the magazine, but my friends from the neighborhood and Ivan are there too. Some are laughing, others are looking at each other, and some seem to be calling to someone off camera. In the background, Rita is blowing one of those bubble wands for kids to create a beautiful backdrop. It’s nighttime. Everyone looks beautiful, happy. I feel something inside, a tingle from seeing us. Together. Happy.
No. Tristan’s not there, but now is the time to accept that he started leaving a long time ago, that the goodbye stretched on for too long. The best part of us isn’t always the most beautiful.
In the fridge, there are two different bottles of wine, good ones with a red cap, and in the freezer, there’s a tray of Eiffel-tower-shaped ice cubes and a bottle of Larios. I start laughing. Definitely Ivan’s work…
I wander through the house looking around, not knowing what to look at, what to think, what to do, but there’s a calm feeling in my chest. I go back to the bedroom. I flop back onto the bed again and open the drawer on the bedside table, where I find a torn envelope holding a handwritten card. It’s Ivan’s handwriting:
I told you everything would turn out okay, and you didn’t believe me, so now I can be the proud messenger of that shitty phrase that for once gives me pleasure to say: “I told you so.”
Congratulations. Everything you have is yours. All this happiness. All this light. It’s all yours and only yours. Take these two bottles, and share wine and fire with all the people you love. Now that I think about it, you’ll need more wine.
Fire, you’ll have plenty of.
I love you,
Ivan
P.S. To new beginnings.
In the end, it must be true what they say about time: you can’t expect it to heal wounds without lifting a finger, the bastard. Even if we try to rush it, even if it hurts like hell, even if the word “time” sounds like a placebo to a broken heart, there’s no other answer. Let it happen, let it heal, let it soothe you.
That reminds me of “Lodo,” the song by Xoel Lopez; it must be true that the tallest flowers grow out of mud.
I wish I could look much further than these four walls to find out the details of how my life is going or what day it is today, but maybe it’s better like this. Just a glimpse, a ray of hope, just an exhale, a small, short moment of lucidness, where the words “everything will turn out fine” make sense.