Chapter 54
Greta
Saying goodbye to Amsterdam isn’t just leaving a city behind, it’s leaving behind the girl I was on those canals, walking past those narrow houses.
I never knew this version of myself before, the one who could lose herself on tiny streets and not freak out as she worked her way back to the hostel, the one who could sit down and read wherever and observe the colored boats swaying in the water, the one who started keeping a diary because she needed to talk to herself.
Writing is the best way to get to know yourself. When a piece of white paper’s staring back at you, you can finally preserve all those words you don’t dare say aloud. Every day starts like this: Today, I feel, and then I try to look deep inside myself and put my feelings in order.
Amsterdam is so full of cheese, it’s almost obscene. They offer you a little taste of it in every store you enter. I can’t stop thinking about how much Will would have liked it. We could have rented an apartment, boiled spaghetti in a big pot, and covered it with tons of cheese.
But now there’s an ocean between us, metaphorical and literally.
I miss him so bad, it surprises me sometimes.
I never knew I could feel this way about another person.
It didn’t help that I reread his letters to me two days before leaving.
I thought those words would console me, but the truth is, they’re almost painful.
He recommended a few interesting places, like one that supposedly has the best french fries in the world, but a lot of it was practical stuff, embassy phone numbers, what to do in the case of a medical emergency.
It’s comforting somehow for another person to worry about these everyday things you often don’t pay attention to: a massage when you have a back spasm, a cup of hot soup when you’re sick, a hand on the forehead to check your temperature.
These are physical acts that reveal love.
Will’s perfect for me. The problem is, he isn’t perfect for him.
Giving someone up and hoping they’ll return to you is an act of faith. I thought about this a lot walking through the gardens of the Vondelpark, where the ground is covered in yellow, red, and brown leaves. What a wonder, that these trees will be green again in spring.
I guess hope is an act of faith too.
And that’s what Amsterdam is for me, hope, the pleasure of discovering myself, getting drunk on the post-impressionist beauty of Van Gogh or on Rembrandt’s self-portraits, learning to be alone and ride a bike and keep pedaling in one direction.