Into the Cold by Maria Fokas

This constant thought that there must be someone better out there could be as fraudulent as cotton candy. 

The younger you are the more overwhelmingly fluffy and beautifully pinkish it seems at first sight. You become intrigued with  both hue and feel; stickiness I mean. Once you taste it, you want more. You don’t care that you’ve got your hands clammy until you get your tummy full. Then you look around searching for someone to help you get rid of it.

What if the idea of better had to do more with coming across someone who respects your weaknesses and admires your darkness? And what  if you didn’t have to search the whole world to find that person; but it just happened by chance when you were least expecting it.

In the beginning it was a rush, like a sweet sin you wanted to succumb to; a deep ocean of emotions so intense you gave into it, and promised each other eternity – But along the way you began to question your happiness – and fell into the trap; you are driven to feel reluctant to believe that this could be possible. Maybe that automatic thinking we all hate to listen to but eventually become convinced by its superficial plausibility, rooted in the idea that only fairy-tales have happy endings. The voice which says – you can’t possibly be so lucky – yes, that voice which specializes in planting doubts. And so you decide to just cross that person out, or  jot the experience down to a mere coincidence of myth . . .because god forbid if it ever were the real thing and we did something stupid to lose it, how would we ever forgive ourselves?

And you become cold again.

You take a break for a while and eventually when boredom kicks in,  you go seeking for that someone better out there again.  And when a haunting recollection instinctively visits you; a reminder of  how good it was with that one person you had crossed out,  you tell yourself that true happiness cannot be acquired so easily, hell you’ve been contaminated with this thought even before you were born –

No! What you had experienced was too good to be true – not the real thing at all; echoes in the silence of your head – and eventually you succumb to the rationality of your fears. You trigger your self-fulfilling prophecy and ultimately give permission to yourself to drift and fade, and then it is finally over . . .

Years later, you may wonder whether you were wrong –

Would you say, oh hell . . . life is funny sometimes, let’s go get some cotton candy . . .the sticky pinkish kind, everyone adores – or would you go back in time searching for that person knowing you will never find them –

 . . .

 

If only he had known that she loved him more than she needed her freedom, things would have worked out.

When he felt comfortable enough to open up to her, he said –

“When we first met, I thought you were easy.”

 And she replied,

“Yes, and I thought you were difficult.” 

But they were both wrong.