Love in Covid-19 times

I wonder if missing you has turned into physical pain. I feel a new pain every day. 

Yesterday, as I tried to sleep, my back ached. I missed having your arms around me and feeling that feeling of home that I only feel when your skin touches mine. 

I woke up with a horrible headache today. But this is not new for me. What I miss though is having you caressing my hair slowly and telling me everything will be ok. I miss the way you always massaged my temples trying to make it better and a minute later told me I should go see a doctor. How stubborn I am and how much longer would I wait to check this? That I couldn't dare die on you. 

I don't think the headache will kill me. Maybe the heartache will. 

I miss your smile, your voice, your smell. I miss the sound of your laugh and the sight of you covered in flour everytime you cook. I miss the happiness in your eyes whenever the pans are on the fire and that cute little dimple that your biggest smile brings out. I could spend hours just looking at the three little moles and touching your nose. Crazy, I know, but you know I love your nose and all those small things that make you, you. 

I try and tell myself that I still see your smile, that I still listen to your voice through video everyday. How privileged I am to live in a world that has the kind of technology that allows me to see you and talk to you everyday.  Two days ago I swore to myself all I wanted was to hold your hand. If I could just hold your hand for a few minutes things would feel less painful. This is something I try every few days, to convince myself I don't want much. But missing you is making me greedy. I always get tired of the lies and scream back at myself that NO, I want a lot more than just holding your hand. I want to hold onto you until you get absolutely tired of me. God, I miss you!

It hurts. More and more everyday.

Love in Covid-19 times

I've sent him a text in the middle of the night telling him how I felt anxious

How I felt sad

How much I missed him and how I couldn't take it anymore.

The next day I felt miserable

I called him

He said: "You can't let the quarantine beat you. You need to own it. Go back to the begginin of it, when you had DIY projects and things to learn. It doesn't have to be the same way but try to find the energy.

Today you and I are going to bake bread. "

And just like that he brought me back.

And just like that I felt like somehow he was right by my side.

Love in Covid-19 times

He told me: we can make a video call and bake cakes together.

I cried because I miss him, because I'm scared and because I feel loved.

I just want to take a minute to share the fact that my sister took some of the texts I wrote here and turned them into a book she illustrated for me as a Christmas gift. Its been a week and I still can't stop the tears everytime I think about how amazing she is.

Obituary

My dog died last night. 

She was a 17 year old stray dog with a very curious story. My sister was 3 and terrified of dogs so my mother decided she needed to have one to learn that they can be friendly creatures. We all went to a shelter and my sister decided she wanted a black and white dog she could name as a character of a cartoon she liked. So we found that exact dog and she was calm and sweet so we took her home. One week later my sister was in love and the dog was dying. The first vet told us there was nothing we could do. My parents thought it was bs. They called the shelter and they sent us to another vet. We took our dog to the vet every day for a month to have injections. We gave her a lot of medicines and my mom made several soups for us to give the dog as she was too weak to eat. After abou a month and a half she was absolutely fine and we finally discovered she wasn't a calm sweet dog. That dog destroyed 2 couches and other pieces of furniture, broke windows to enter the house when we were out for too long, ate some of my sister favorite toys and loved to bite people for no reason. 

Our dog died last week. 

And it took me a week to be able to come back to write this. I almost gave it up but during these last few days I kept thinking about one thing. You see, before coming to our house, before the shelter, our dog lived on the streets so she was scared of a lot of things. Rains, thunders and fireworks were things that gave her absolute panic. She was also scared of being left alone for a long time and one time we sent her to have a bath she freaked out and I had to help. So the thing is she was alone when she died. My sister and I went to the mall for one hour and when we came back home she was gone. A lot of people told me that dogs don't usually die in front of people. That they move to a secluded place to do it. A part of me believes it, another part thinks I should've been there. 

My family dog died almost a month ago. 

And honestly it's still weird. Even though she never liked me and tried more than once to bite me I still feel weird whenever I enter our house prepared to see her and realize she's gone. Her last weeks were far from great. As a 17 year old dog she was blind and she couldn't walk properly for a while. In the week before she left us she stopped eating and walking. My parents went traveling so me and my sister were the ones taking care of her until the end. We gave her food, water and cleaned her all the time, but it wasn't enough. We took her to the vet and received two options: euthanize or treat her to give her a comfortable ending. 

Due to my family beliefs that life should follow its course we opted for medicating her and taking her home. It seemed unfair that a dog that was so scared of being away from the family should spend her last moments alone. 

While doing what we had to do (work, study, eat) my sister and I developed a routine:

- Wake up,

- give the dog the first medication

- wait 15 minutes

- second medication

- 15 more minutes

- third medication  

- 20 minutes

- food and water (every 4 hours)

- clean her and her bed (when needed)

- night medications

It lasted 3 days, then she left us. 

During those 3 days my 20 year old well of wisdom of a sister told me more than once that she kept telling our dog things like: 

- Thank you for caring for us and protecting us

- Is ok to rest now

- You are loved

- You will not be forgotten

The last one marked me deeply. 

So this... obituary? I’ll name it like this I think. All I know is that this is for her. It's also for all other invisible strays that leave this world everyday despite our knowledge. Here you were remembered. 

A life based on...

I can't translate what I feel/felt into words. Things were nicer than it looks on text.

To my beloved - About Him

My love, today is your birthday and even though I'm sure this will not be the last time I'll write about you this is the last post for this celebration. I've started this a long time ago and you even saw part of it but I hope you like the finished version of it. My list of wished for you today (and everyday) is to big to fit here but above everything I wish for you to be happy and feel loved. Hope this little story about us is enough to cause some of both. Love you.

He would often tell her about her beauty. On some days he would say “you have a classic beauty, like a 50’s Hollywood star” on others it was something on the lines of “sometimes I’m not sure you’re real. You look like a painting… or a dream”. And all the times her self deprecating instinct made the compliments impossible to accept. She would tell him “I can’t see none of this in the mirror” or “I’m pretty regular, nothing special”. His answer was always tell her she was wrong and that he could prove it.

She couldn’t really pinpoint the exact moment in their relationship when the photos began. It started simple, with just random photos. But the more invested he grew in his new developed passion for photography the more she became his muse and in one day he would just make lot of photos of her at once. It was all a lot of “look at me” and “turn your head a bit this way” and in the end of it they would both marvel at the results.

One day she told him “All of these photos, they make me confuse. I look at them and they are really beautiful and I know you haven’t changed anything on me but I just can’t see this woman on the mirror”. This was some form of progress he believed. She pointed one picture and said “This one, this is is totally 50s Hollywood, this I can see”.

She would often tell him how handsome he was, but of course being them so alike, he dismissed her compliments all of the time with a simple “No, I’m not”. It didn’t mattered that she told him countless times how good he looked. Believing that the same thing could work as well she decided to start photographing him but her lack of talent and knowledge made the task impossible. How could she convince him if she couldn’t show him? So she decided maybe she could use her words. Not just any words. He was used to the words she would say on a lazy afternoon or the ones she would whisper in a intimate moment. She decided she had to write about him.

The problem, she found out, was that special people were too hard to describe. How could she translate into words the fabulous set of features he carried on his face? The amazing black eyes that carried fire, intensity and and so much kindness that they could make someone fall in love in one look. The beautiful nose whose presence could never be ignored and that was the center of his face. How could someone describe a smile that made your heart melt? The way the world changed when he smiled and the little dimple near his eye showed up at the same time the small scar in his mouth could be seeing making him the cutest thing in the world. What words should someone use to explain the love they felt for the 3 little moles that stayed together like a constellation near his nose and the fourth lost sister that was hidden so you had to be really close to see it?

So she wrote what she felt. She wrote about the way she loved his voice and could spend hours listening to him telling her anything or whispering sweet nothings. She wrote about their moments of silence, about their connection. Wrote about how the touch of his hands was capable of make her feel love and desire, how it was tender and fierce at the same time. About how his permanently hot skin was one of her favorite things in the planet. She wrote about how she could spend hours caressing his beautiful dark hair and about how she loved the color contrast between their skins when they were together, arms and legs entwined. She did what she could to let her love pour through her fingers and turn into words that she hoped could make him see how every little piece of him was amazing. At the end of it she prayed that he would read it and feel loved.

To my beloved - Words

He once sent me a picture of a quote that said:

If a writer falls in love with you you’ll never die

Then he said “That’s me. You love me so I’m immortal now”

Till this day I wonder: How can I be the writer when he’s the one that melts my heart with his words?

But I guess he’s right. He will live forever though my words as our love is pretty much all I can write about.

To my beloved - March 31st 2019

On the week of his birthday I’ve decided to publish some of my writings about him and about our love. Hope you like them babe <3

It was 1AM on a saturday when he said he needed a glass of water and left me alone in the bedroom. Two minutes later he texted me: 

You have to come outside

He smiled at me when I met him at the backyward “I want to show you something you don’t usually see” his hand pointed the sky.

As a city girl a sky full of stars was really something I rarely saw, so I took my time to look at it. Really look at it. The night was chily enough that our summer pajamas were not enough to keep us warm but we just stood there in silence watching the sky. 

I wondered if this confortable silence we could easily fall into was one of the reasons I fell in love with him. Or was it love the reason we could just be together like this? It occurred to me that it didn’t mattered what came first. We have love, we have confort, we have silence. That’s what matters.

He pointed me some constellations but I told him my favortite was the one formed by the three little moles on his face. I rested my back on his chest and his hands held my waist while he pressed a light kiss on my shoulder. Together we just stood there until it became too cold.

I’m watching him now wondering if he knows somehow that while he sleeps I’m writing about him. Wondering if he knows how much I love him.