Sunday, January 14, 2007
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Tengo un papelito guardado en mi maletín de la oficina. Lleva ahí más de seis años, fue escrito en Octubre del 98. Es la copia de un e-mail que le mandé a un perfecto desconocido con el queme conecté muy bien en línea, y con quién tuve largas conversaciones virtuales, pero a quién nunca conocí en persona. Un gringo, de quién no recuerdo mucho a estas alturas. Por alguna razón lo guardé, los sentimientos que tenía en ese momento eran intensos, había pasado algo queme dejó descorazonado, y estoy sorprendido de lo familiares que esos sentimientos me resultan aún hoy. Pero también me doy cuenta de un error que llevo años cometiendo. El de pensar que ya pasó la vieja, que ya no vale la pena el intento..., que lo que me tocaba en la vida ya se fue. El e-mail está en inglés y así lo transcribo, con errores y todo, a ver si otro día lo traduzco.
“I know the feeling. I know what you are going through. My life is a mess, although it appears wonderful to everybody. I wish I could move away and live in NYC with a guy who does something similar to my work, e.g., my buddy in Tokyo. I am torn about leaving my children, I could not handle seeing them go wrong because I´m not around to guide them, I could not handle their resentment for leaving them. Still, I know I should be sharing my life with another man, and in the past six years, since I have been fully comfortable with what and who I am, some wonderful men have been available for me to start a long term relationship, but I have killed those relationships before they flourish, afraid of the consequences. The brief period while I was separated I was too involved dealing with my guilt to spend time developing the budding relationships I could have. There´s a wonderful man who lives in a cottage by a lake in upper Westchester county in New York, he´s about my age, a journalist and a teacher, sophisticated, yet a jock, generous and kind, great cook, loves dogs. Educated, speaks Spanish, great skier, he was a ski bum for a period in his youth… Had a summer romance with him, we spent long summer weekends canoeing and swimming and loving each other at a time I was all alone in New York. Come Fall, and when my kids returned from vacaction, I killed the relatiobship and turned it into a friendship. We are in touch and now he has found another man as wonderful as he is…
Then there is Steve, my love in Tokyo, I met him when he was an MBA student at Columbia. A long story, but eventually we fell in love with ach other, he is 12 years younger… but very mature. Beautiful man, German stock from California, high IQ. Physics major prior to his MBA, speaks fluent German and Spanish, now some Japanese. That relationship put my marriage under a big question mark, at some point I was prepared to leave and live with him but he had to go for a semester overseas, I visited him in Switzerland… We broke up, he came back to New York, I was no longer ready to move in with him, but now he was. We continued our relationship with some drama and passion, lots of misunderstandings and pain, he eventually got a banking job in Tokyo and moved there in mid 1994. It’s almost four years and we still talk on the phone at least twice a month. We got together for a ski vacation in January 1996, I saw him in March of last year when he had a business trip to NYC. He now wants to move back to NYC, if he does, what?? He also talks of marrying a woman, following my footsteps… I tell him not to do that.
Then there is Greg, a lovely tall blond boy rom southern Mississipi. Met him overseas by chance in 1995, staid in touch for a long time over the phone, he’s a kid, just turned 24 this past Monday. He fell in love, came to see me in NYC when I was separated, I was such a mess that I hurt him, he understood and forgave me, clinged to me and I let him. He moved to NYC to do his graduate school work, but I had moved to Chile to keep my marriage together. I visited him a couple of times in NYC. Every time I managed to hurt his feelings, he was getting the raw end of the deal… A few weeks ago he finally cut me off for his own sake. Asked me to never contact him again. He begged me not to call him, saying that he doesn’t have the strength to turn me away. I miss him, I don’t know if I ever loved him, it’s all so confusing when I am resisting love.
After looking back at all this, I get the impression that the wonderful men I was going to have have passed and I have turned them away. They will make their own lives and I will stay in my mess, will try to get comfort loving my children and sharing life with my wife who is an amazing woman who still loves me very much. But something tells me it does not all end there.
Now, after all this, you may realize that I am the anti-romantic stereotype in the way I behave, but I am hopelessly romantic at heart. How long can a man handle such a split and contradiction in his life without breaking down? Don’t be surprised if you hear about me being interned in a nut house some time soon…
I am still ok, but my soul carries a huge weight. My heart is in an unknown place. My mind is functioning and staying the course on the basis of rationality. But there is a huge pain that is killing me.”
¡¿¿Hasta cuándo sigo con la cantinela??!
¶ 9:03 PM |
Tengo un papelito guardado en mi maletín de la oficina. Lleva ahí más de seis años, fue escrito en Octubre del 98. Es la copia de un e-mail que le mandé a un perfecto desconocido con el queme conecté muy bien en línea, y con quién tuve largas conversaciones virtuales, pero a quién nunca conocí en persona. Un gringo, de quién no recuerdo mucho a estas alturas. Por alguna razón lo guardé, los sentimientos que tenía en ese momento eran intensos, había pasado algo queme dejó descorazonado, y estoy sorprendido de lo familiares que esos sentimientos me resultan aún hoy. Pero también me doy cuenta de un error que llevo años cometiendo. El de pensar que ya pasó la vieja, que ya no vale la pena el intento..., que lo que me tocaba en la vida ya se fue. El e-mail está en inglés y así lo transcribo, con errores y todo, a ver si otro día lo traduzco.
“I know the feeling. I know what you are going through. My life is a mess, although it appears wonderful to everybody. I wish I could move away and live in NYC with a guy who does something similar to my work, e.g., my buddy in Tokyo. I am torn about leaving my children, I could not handle seeing them go wrong because I´m not around to guide them, I could not handle their resentment for leaving them. Still, I know I should be sharing my life with another man, and in the past six years, since I have been fully comfortable with what and who I am, some wonderful men have been available for me to start a long term relationship, but I have killed those relationships before they flourish, afraid of the consequences. The brief period while I was separated I was too involved dealing with my guilt to spend time developing the budding relationships I could have. There´s a wonderful man who lives in a cottage by a lake in upper Westchester county in New York, he´s about my age, a journalist and a teacher, sophisticated, yet a jock, generous and kind, great cook, loves dogs. Educated, speaks Spanish, great skier, he was a ski bum for a period in his youth… Had a summer romance with him, we spent long summer weekends canoeing and swimming and loving each other at a time I was all alone in New York. Come Fall, and when my kids returned from vacaction, I killed the relatiobship and turned it into a friendship. We are in touch and now he has found another man as wonderful as he is…
Then there is Steve, my love in Tokyo, I met him when he was an MBA student at Columbia. A long story, but eventually we fell in love with ach other, he is 12 years younger… but very mature. Beautiful man, German stock from California, high IQ. Physics major prior to his MBA, speaks fluent German and Spanish, now some Japanese. That relationship put my marriage under a big question mark, at some point I was prepared to leave and live with him but he had to go for a semester overseas, I visited him in Switzerland… We broke up, he came back to New York, I was no longer ready to move in with him, but now he was. We continued our relationship with some drama and passion, lots of misunderstandings and pain, he eventually got a banking job in Tokyo and moved there in mid 1994. It’s almost four years and we still talk on the phone at least twice a month. We got together for a ski vacation in January 1996, I saw him in March of last year when he had a business trip to NYC. He now wants to move back to NYC, if he does, what?? He also talks of marrying a woman, following my footsteps… I tell him not to do that.
Then there is Greg, a lovely tall blond boy rom southern Mississipi. Met him overseas by chance in 1995, staid in touch for a long time over the phone, he’s a kid, just turned 24 this past Monday. He fell in love, came to see me in NYC when I was separated, I was such a mess that I hurt him, he understood and forgave me, clinged to me and I let him. He moved to NYC to do his graduate school work, but I had moved to Chile to keep my marriage together. I visited him a couple of times in NYC. Every time I managed to hurt his feelings, he was getting the raw end of the deal… A few weeks ago he finally cut me off for his own sake. Asked me to never contact him again. He begged me not to call him, saying that he doesn’t have the strength to turn me away. I miss him, I don’t know if I ever loved him, it’s all so confusing when I am resisting love.
After looking back at all this, I get the impression that the wonderful men I was going to have have passed and I have turned them away. They will make their own lives and I will stay in my mess, will try to get comfort loving my children and sharing life with my wife who is an amazing woman who still loves me very much. But something tells me it does not all end there.
Now, after all this, you may realize that I am the anti-romantic stereotype in the way I behave, but I am hopelessly romantic at heart. How long can a man handle such a split and contradiction in his life without breaking down? Don’t be surprised if you hear about me being interned in a nut house some time soon…
I am still ok, but my soul carries a huge weight. My heart is in an unknown place. My mind is functioning and staying the course on the basis of rationality. But there is a huge pain that is killing me.”
¡¿¿Hasta cuándo sigo con la cantinela??!
¶ 9:03 PM |
# posted by Huracan @ 11:42 AM 
