What Could Have Been

I see you there, standing on the front porch of our house- a house we painted ourselves-  with our baby in your arms and our toddler hanging on your legs. The smell of the breakfast we cooked together still hangs in the air around the house. I put my hand on the small of your back, our bellies touch, I kiss you on the lips, and you wish me luck on my audition. Our hands touch for a few moments; the insides of our palms say I love you to each other. I walk past our peonies and get into our car, and I look at you again, standing there with our kids, in front of our home. You look perfect; you are and always have been perfect. 

This is exactly what we always wanted. The comfortable relief of having it is palpable.

This is the world I escape to when I’m in line at the post office, when the dairy products in the grocery store all look the same to me, when I’m in the subway and the world surrounding me has too many details for me to take in, and when I’m alone in my bed at night, staring out into the darkness trying desperately not to ever forget what his chest felt like next to my cheek.

It is the world of What Could Have Been. It is make-believe and fantasy; it does not exist.

I know I must let it go. I do not want to—I want to hold on to this world forever, I want to return to it many more times, but I know I cannot.

So, I am walking away today. I do not know how long it will take before it is out of sight, or if it ever will be, but I am starting my journey now. I am leaving it behind. I am leaving him behind, along with all my dreams of what could have been. It is a difficult and slow walk. I often look back and see him there, standing tall and handsome, and I want to run back, fling my arms around him, kiss his perfect face, and bury my head into his chest. I want to say, Let me stay! Let me live here a little longer! Don’t let me go just yet!

I know I have to go now, though. 

Saying good-bye to him and to the life I had created for us in my head is really difficult and painful. I am leaving because I have to, not because I want to. We cannot be, and what I dreamed up for us will not come true; I must accept that and I must move on. 

It’s not going to be us this time around; it’s not going to be you and me. It’ll be you and someone else; me and someone else. We will live separate lives, love other people, and become the people we are meant to be, without each other.

For a while, it was a path that corresponded with reality. I saw our lives running their course, together, for the rest of our time here. I am walking away today, but a part of me walked down that path with him and will always live there, in that pretty house with a front yard, where our kids grew up in a home made of love. It is beautiful, because dreams are beautiful. 

I let it be beautiful for now. I know that one day we’ll look back and this dream will have faded; we'll be lost in the past, upstaged by other stories, and our paths will seem to have just barely touched. 

It is sad, because reality is sad. 

7 years ago

While looking under my bed today for a lost sock, I found a box of old diaries. I opened one of them right on a page that was written exactly seven years ago. It was my last night at home before I left for New York. I didn't know that it would be the last time my parent's house ever really felt like home, and that I wasn't just going off to college, I was going off to the next part of my life and the person I would become. I didn't know how hard that first year in college would be, and how well I would get to know loneliness and longing.

August 24th, 2003

Hi Beth, (I name my diaries)

Well, yesterday I went to Ibiza (a club in Sao Paulo) with G* and I got drunk and I kissed F* and then today I had a hang-over, and so last night was fun and not that fun at the same time. Tonight is my "last" night, tomorrow I'm off to college, wow. We just had dinner at the Outback. I'm not ready to leave Sa yet Beth. And my room.... so much... But I'm excited about college. Real excited! I'm nervous about having roommates and all that. I also talked to B* today. He's so nice. And he likes me a lot Beth. And J* wrote me an email. But I'm still into T*, who's stopped emailing me, and dealing with the end of things with R*, who's still contacting me every day. How confusing. And my friends are still kind of mad at me and siding with R*, which is messed up. I can't wait to leave it all behind. Will there be any boys at Sarah Lawrence? Like, datable boys? I'm so in love with my tattoo. I can't believe I got a tattoo. I'm glad I have a tattoo as I go to college. I'm currently obsessed with Cyndi Lauper and American Dreams. I miss Spain. Europe was so fun. Well, I'm tired and I wanna sleep a lot... Good bye Brasil, college here I come!

Good night,

La

Throughout the next couple of years, I would find datable boys at Sarah Lawrence, I would forget about most of the boys mentioned, I would get three more tattoos, I would stop watching television, I would miss home terribly, I would make many new friends, I would miss my old friends, I would drink a lot, I would travel to Europe a few more times, and I would make New York my home.

Me, in college, with my long hair dyed orange at the tips, writing poetry on the grass.

Leaving

leave —Synonyms
1, 2. abandon, forsake, desert; relinquish. 9. forbear, renounce.10.

ignore, forget. 11. bequeath, will; devise, transmit.

(www.dictionary.com)

I thought today about the day I left Brazil to move to the U.S. for college. I had only packed two suitcases. I didn't want a lot of things. I was ready to leave. I was eager for change. I had been in a relationship for a year that had worn me out completely and had resulted in some strains with friends and family members when it ended badly on account of an infidelity on my part. I was tired of Brazil's sexism, danger, and lack of support for the arts. I had been in the same school for 14 years and I had never lived anywhere else. I wanted to get away, I wanted new friends, I wanted to act, I wanted my own life. With all this in mind, I thought it would be easy to leave.

When my dad said, "Ok, time to go to the airport," I ran to my room to get my bags. And then, as I looked at the room I had grown up in, with its purple pillows and white clouds painted on the blue ceiling, an understanding of what I was about to lose started to dawn on me. I took a deep breath and turned away from my room, not quite willing to get sad, but then saw the living room, with the big blue couch that my brother, my cousins, and I had sat on to watch movies thousands of times, always arguing for half an hour before deciding which film would win that day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guest room, where my brother and I slept (we each had our own rooms, but we liked to stay together at night, so we slept in the guest room because it had two beds and less mosquitos- I know, it's the cutest thing in the world). I couldn't fight the sadness away anymore, and I stood there for a few minutes taking it all in, and then my dad called me and said we had to go, so I whispered, "Good Bye" to my home, ran down the stairs and out the front door.

I sat in the car with my parents and my brother, my aunt and cousins in the car behind us, watching my city go by a little at a time, struggling with these feelings I hadn't expected to have.

The next thing I knew I was getting ready to board and was saying good bye to my family. I looked at my darling cousins, Ga and Toca, whom I had spent my life with, and as I hugged them I felt a part of myself being left behind. Then, I looked at my brother. My best friend and my favorite person in the world. What would Ferret do without her Waldo? We were two pieces that made a whole, we were Bu and Zu, Ferret and Waldo, La and Sa. I fell apart, and so did he. As we hugged and cried, and our whole family around us cried as well, we knew we were losing a part of our hearts. I touched my nose to his nose and said, "I love you little one". I turned around, my parents and I boarded, and I looked back only once, to wave good-bye and see them there, standing and waving, watching me go.

Snap. I felt my roots being cut from beneath my feet. I'd have to grow new roots now.

I cried the whole plane ride to New York. I had left my home and my family in a different continent. I wouldn't be there for their birthdays anymore, I wouldn't see them on the weekends for movies and milk-shakes, I wouldn't be near them when I was sick, I wouldn't hear my brother's voice before I went to bed every night, I wouldn't be able to share in their every-day lives, and, on a lighter note- but not that much lighter- I wouldn't be watching the World Cup in Brazil with my family and friends anymore.

My life was about to change, which was what I had thought I wanted.

Leaving Brazil was one of the hardest things I ever did. There was a loneliness that came with leaving that stayed with me ever since. Like a plant that has been moved from the earth on which it first grew, I have been able to grow new roots, but I have never forgotten where I came from and what my life was like then.

It's hard to leave home. It's hard to leave people. It's hard to leave our old selves. We are left a little bit more alone every time- making space for the new, but still knowing that in that space there used to something or someone else. I left that day knowing I would next return as a visitor in a place that held old memories but where I no longer created new ones.