‘Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him'.
Translation from German by the author
Ever since I got my blog on Medium, I’ve had a hard time picking a topic to write about. Everything in my head, every story and every moment, are connected. I have inhibitions about 'cutting out' the stories from my life as they lose context. On the other hand, the context is as long as my life. And the time I spend writing down the stories and interpreting them through the text, the time of reflection becomes the new context and new textual backdrops. Many stories are reinterpreted and integrated into my thoughts. That’s what I love about writing. And that’s why I want to tell this story, to give it a new interpretation.
This story started on a sunny day. A friend of mine, whom I will call Alexandra in this text, and me were sitting together near the university at a fountain, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. The sun gave us warmth, the water in the fountain glistened and splashed gently. That day Alexandra and her boyfriend, with whom she had been together for 6 years, broke up. It happened by phone, because they had a long distance relationship. Our meeting at the fountain was to help Alex get through her grief. Talking about it always helped her. She told me about the light and beautiful moments in their relationship and what made her especially sad. I didn’t know her long at the time, but gave her a hug and tried to be there for her.
A few weeks later, we were sitting at the same fountain eating falafel. By now Alex seemed to be doing better, we talked a lot about the relationship and their breakup and went out a few times. She met other men and told me about one of her dates. Suddenly she said to me at the fountain between bites of falafel:
‘Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. Sometimes I think of him when I wake up and remember something. Sometimes during lunch I wonder how he’s doing and how he’s coping with this breakup.’
She was talking about her ex-boyfriend. These deep traces that a person can leave in us even though they are no longer there and how these traces continue to grow in us were reflected in her sentence. Our thoughts of a person have a kind of superpower. As I will learn later in my psychotherapy, in our thoughts we can talk to other people, forgive them, or ask for forgiveness, grieve or rejoice until we are done with the person in our mind.
I have been thinking about a friend of mine every day for months. His name is different, but I will call him Tom in my text. Tom is living somewhere in this world right now. In my life he exists only in my head. I haven’t heard his voice in half a year. It’s funny because we were together for 6 years, like Alex and her boyfriend. We met in Heidelberg, on one of the first days when I arrived there. We have a very long history behind us. Thousands of days together, hundreds of small trips to other countries and cities, two long stays abroad during which we maintained our friendship, and routine like relationships, breakups and boredom.
At first we thought we were in love with each other, then we kissed and decided to be friends. He loved art, but was studying something else, and listened to my thoughts about my studies and endured my doubts. We saw each other almost every day and when I called, he was there. When he called me, I was there too. We never talked about it or determined rules of the game: It was like an outspoken commitment that we liked each other and were there for each other. He visited me in my hometown and I visited him in his. We influenced each other in what and how we thought. We managed to grow together. Now, I thought, we also managed to grow apart. We both moved to different cities after we finished our studies. We each had a relationship and an apartment for ourselves or to live with someone. In our daily lives we spoke different languages, but when we talked on the phone, everything was the same. We were growing together with every call, again and again. I sometimes thought that we could even grow old together. This thought comforted me especially when my romantic relationship with someone came to an end, I was disappointed or no longer believed I could meet someone who was right for me. Pleasant thoughts about growing old together: Having a relationship full of discussions and travel. Without sex, without passion, without dramas and back and forth. A quiet and happy life that we kept in mind as a plan in case we were not lucky in our love relationships.
‘We can do without each other,’ he once said to me out of nowhere when we were jogging, as we always did every other day. I got angry. Why do we have to be apart?
And somehow we managed. Completely apart physically for half a year. Otherwise, I think about him every day. Also, I often think of Alexandra and her words back at the fountain, ‘There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.’
This is what the thought presence of a person in my life looks like: Some days I’m angry with him, then I feel guilty. Some days I am very grateful to him for the time together and feel like I am using it to drive him out of my mind. Some days I grieve because it doesn’t work out and because I don’t know if we will repeat that time together. Often I think it’s silly how the relationship fell apart.
Like maybe many relationships right now that fail because of different opinions on things that seem important, our attitudes diverged because of the current situation. While I more or less locked myself up in Berlin, never flew or drove anywhere (except to a small village of 2,000 people), worried about my grandparents in Russia and the recklessness of my friends, Tom had a different plan for the pandemic. We talked on the phone less and less often, until I received a postcard from Vienna from him, which surprised me very much. During our last phone call, he told me about his trip to Budapest and justified it by saying that he would meet too many people at work anyway. ‘It doesn’t matter then. And I can’t sit at home,’ he said. Many questions arose in my mind at that time. However, I only managed to ask him one of them. I asked him how it felt to leave in the middle of the pandemic and meet thousands of people on the way to Budapest. My voice sounded critical. I was angry. He sensed it and said we should talk another time when we were in a better mood. I closed my laptop. End of the conversation.
Yes, I was angry. Angry at myself and at the recklessness of Tom, who embodied the recklessness of everyone traveling on crowded trains and planes. I was angry at the situation where we held different opinions and could not talk about it. About the way the indirect attack got out of control, and also about the fact that we didn’t talk about the frustration and about the situation itself. When I tried to contact him after the conversation, he didn’t get back to me. I called, he didn’t answer. At some point I got a message from him that he was not over the conversation and wanted to contact me himself at the right time. I stayed there, speechless, without voice, without possibility of contact. Only distance between us. More, much more than 1.5 meters.
Probably he saw the situation differently than I did. He wanted to get away, away from the pandemic. He thought he would sit on the train to Budapest, where the numbers of infected people were very low at that time, and he would not see people with masks. This did not happen. Instead of talking about it, we just stopped talking. And now all I have left is thinking about Tom. And waiting to see if he will get back to me. Maybe he thinks he doesn’t need to talk to me, because we always understood each other without words. But I feel how necessary it is now and that is why I am writing this text.
Tom has been living in my head for six months. There he speaks but not with his voice. He has temporarily taken over my voice. I haven’t heard his since the unfortunate phone call. I think it’s a shame that this friendship has taken this dramatic pause in which so much has happened. So much for me and certainly for him too. I think it is a pity, because in these 6 months I had one important person less at my side and one person more in my head, in which Alexandra and my father have already found a place. Because with them I have also no more contact. Some people I have also let go out of my head — I am surprised when I think of them. The thoughts of Tom don’t surprise me, they have become my routine. I find it sad that in the world I’ve suddenly arrived in since moving to Berlin — adult world — making friends is getting harder and harder. People over 24 have their own circles of friends, they have enough contact with colleagues at work, a stable partner. Who can afford one more friend since so many people seem to don’t even have time for themselves?
Tom, I think it’s a shame, do you feel the same way? It’s a shame that we can’t take some friendships into our adult worlds with steady relationships and steady jobs. Why is it like that? Do we lose people because we gain routine, heavy thoughts and worries and lose lightness? Because we are stuck with opinions we think are right? I haven’t found any solutions yet, other than having heavy conversations or letting people live in my own thoughts. Maybe then we need more solid friendships to get through these hard times with us and what’s gone is gone? I have those friendships too. One such friendship for sure. But Tom is no longer one of them. Maybe he’s in Budapest right now, maybe he’s in Madrid or Moscow. Maybe he’s without a mask, dancing in a Russian bar. Maybe he’s been vaccinated. Maybe he had even survived Corona. Maybe he chooses lightness and heaviness weighs him down. These sentences come from my thoughts about Tom, they hold space for him in my mind. Through these thoughts he breathes in me. Whether or not I will hear his own thoughts about this, coming from his head, only Tom can decide. But it’s the Tom who lives outside my head, who is in charge of the decision.
