A Love Story

   I walked alone down the pitch-black street. My shadow was my only companion. I walked aimlessly without direction. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my steps on the pavement, and that sound marked the minutes. The stars slowly emerged in the sky, drawing a path on which I dreamed I was walking aimlessly, without direction. I walked alone for years and my steps counted the minutes, the hours, the days. The path led me to the river, to the shore, to the pine woods. I walked down the road, thinking that I will never stop walking, I thought that I love the road, more than everything, more than anyone. 

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          On the road, I was happy, spontaneous, alive. The road was my pillar, my home. On the road, I grew up, and on the road, I met you. You used to love living on the road too, you just needed someone to remind you that. You forgot the feeling of being at a new place every minute, every hour, every day.  I reminded you how to live on the road, while you were telling me stories about the life you have left behind. A kind of life I was a stranger to, a kind of life I couldn't imagine living until I met you. You told me about the world, in which people were mere halves, in desperate need of finding other people to make them feel alive. I laughed at you then, I laughed at the need to be with someone else to feel alive - something I didn't quite understand because I didn't need someone else to make me feel alive. I thought you were like me and that was the reason you went back on the road. I couldn't imagine needing someone else to feel happy; just because I didn't need anyone else to feel alive. But that was before I met you.  I was a free spirit and the road was my home until you walked into my life with your melancholy and decided to stay. I helped you remember how to live on the road, I helped you remember the feeling of being at a new place every day. I taught you how to be spontaneous again, and I thought you started loving the life on the road too. I helped you, while you were draining my strength, while I was unconsciously absorbing your melancholy. I slowly stopped counting the days when I was with you; I stopped hearing my steps on the pavement. I forgot that I was meant to be there - on the road. I wasn't used to taking a break at every city, but when I was with you, we stayed a day or two. Until the days turned into weeks, the weeks – into months, the months – into years. We only just arrived in this town yesterday. This was the last stop before embarking on the trip we planned together. I let you convince me that a journey without a destination is not a journey. Today was the first day of our trip, thus I was surprised to see the letter next to me when I woke up this morning. "Thank you for reminding me how beautiful the life on the road is. Thank you for teaching me how to feel alive again. But I can’t live on the road anymore!"- you wrote. “The road was never my home, I need to go back to where I belong. I know that you love the road and you can’t live without it - it is your home. Therefore, I am going back home without you. Forgive me! Goodbye.” “The road is your home.” This thought stuck in my mind the whole day and the whole night. I remembered the first time I met him. I found him there, on the road, and invited him to join me. We found shelter and strength together. Now I know he left his home, not because he wanted to live on the road. The reason was that he wanted someone to show him how to feel alive again so that he can return to his world. I invited him to my home, I gave him everything I had, I learnt to share my life with him. I remembered his story about the world, in which people were living as halves, spending their whole lives searching for their other half, and I laughed at the story.  But now, that he left - alive, free, happy, I stayed on the road feeling empty and lonely; just a mere half, a copy of the people he talked about. He went back to his home and left me behind, trying to find myself again. The road was my home until I met him. I gave my all to him and when he left, he took my freedom, my free spirit, and my spontaneity with him. I had to continue walking because that was what I was best at. Only this time without him, on my way to try to find myself again. And I walked alone, with melancholy as my only companion, following the path we drew together.  ​
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