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- Do I have bad breath? Am I smelling? – I laughed raising my arms and smelling my armpits. But deep down I knew very well what that meant.

Each human being has different reasons for accepting and refusing something. It’s not always about me.

66 – LOVE WITH GUILT

It was late dawn, almost 4 am when I arrived at  the hostel and went straight to bed without changing clothes. When I woke up, I looked at my cell phone and saw a sequence of deleted messages that I had sent to Laurent’s number.

After I regretted sending the messages, the cell phone battery ran out and I struggled until the phone went back on and I could erase it without him seeing it.

Two days went by without any news from Laurent and my anxiety only increased. What could have happened? I couldn’t quite remember what kind of messages I had sent. But I managed to erase it in time and figured he hadn’t seen it.

- I miss you. I hope you haven’t seen my drunken messages, – I wrote with an emoji crying with laughter.

- Hi Paula, I’m at a wedding. I am sorry I can not speak. I saw your message. I’m sure what I feel for you is very beautiful, but I can’t talk about love right now.

I felt dizziness darken my eyes. I could not believe it. I pulled deep into my memory and the text didn’t come exactly, but there was the word: love. Shame was the only thing I felt at that moment. A deep and crushing shame. I wanted to go back in time to undo that stupid message.

I remembered my coach advising me to look for the learning that a difficult situation brought, but there was no learning there. I already knew there was no point in sending him that kind of message. Of course I didn’t love him. I didn’t even mean exactly that. I was just excited about everything I felt about him. Love was too much for any sensible person. I had already written about those feelings in my reflective journal and knew it to be a ridiculous and exaggerated rush. Even so, it was done. Once again, I couldn’t go back in time and that feeling consumed me.

I apologized. I explained that I was a bit drunk that night. I said that I was also not ready to talk about love with anyone. All in vain. Laurent never answered again.

I spent all day consuming by guilt and shame. By then, I wasn’t even worried about not speaking to Laurent ever again. I was embarrassed to have played a teenager in front of a boy 10 years younger than me. I was worried about his judgment of me. That was it.

I walked four kilometers to the shore of the Bosphorus strait, the channel that connects the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea and marks the border between the European and Asian continents. The day was cloudy like my heart and it was windy. I jumped the wide concrete wall and walked balancing on the rocks until I found a flat rock where I could sit.

I wanted that regret and shame to leave me alone for just a few minutes. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, concentrating on all the noises around me. The sound of the water hitting the rocks and the boats moored a few feet away from me. The singing of gulls flying over the fishing boats and the horns and the roar of the car engines behind me. People talking far away in a language impossible to interpret and a distant radio playing a lively song. The wind blew across my face and also made a particular noise near my ears. I kept quiet, searching for new noises until I felt that my guilty heart was calm. The self-judgment finally paused and I heard my inner voice.

- It is better to love than to hate. No matter what you say, each person will understand the message one way. This is not within your reach. No matter what love means to him. It only matters what love means to you. Because your feeling exists only within yourself. This is your chance to find out what real love is for you.

I cried silently and with deep peace. I had just gained the opportunity to use “I love you” much more sincerely next time. It was strong what I still felt for Laurent, but it had more to do with a longing for love.

67 – ENDLESS TEARS

In Izmir, I was comfortably staying at Mariana’s house, who I met in my first night in Istanbul, and her husband, Murilo. They had a contagious energy and they took me on fantastic walks in Ephesus. In Izmir, I finally managed to buy a new backpack, since the makeshift seam I made on the straps of my old backpack was about to break.

I arrived in Cappadocia more emotional than ever. It was after midnight and I went straight to the bedroom. The shared rooms were next to the individual ensuite in Fairy Chimneys, as the rock formations in the Goreme region are called. There was a large porch excavated at the base, and my room was a deep tunnel, with several open-topped beds in the stone walls, just like I had dreamed of when I thought of Cappadocia.

It was very cold at dawn and the 3C degree cold made me thankful for not leaving my snow jacket along the way. Before arriving in the European summer, I had last worn the black nylon goose-down overcoat in Canada on a date with Jordan. I spent the entire European summer thinking of a way to send off the dead volume to Brazil. In Portugal, I had the best chance: my friend would travel to Brazil in less than a month and I almost sent the coat back through her. I could only attribute the decision to keep it to what they call the collective unconscious.

The breakfast was not the most exciting. Tomatoes with cucumbers were definitely not my favorite breakfast in Turkey, and in Cappadocia I gave everything to Fadila, the stray dog that lived in the hostel. That morning I fed Fadila with the vegetables and had only chai, accompanied by an old bread with butter. Then I walked to the top of a nearby mountain.

When I reached the top and saw the endless horizon from the Fairy Chimneys, I felt an indescribable happiness to be there. I’d never imagined I could get this far. When I saw some scenes from the famous Brazilian soap opera set in Cappadocia, I could have never imagined that I would be there in person one day.

I let that cry of happiness and achievement wet my face and exploded painfully and intensely from inside me. Alone on top of the mountain, I sobbed and tried to understand where those tears came from. Was the break-up with Laurent hurting more than I imagined? I couldn’t say. The freezing wind tore my face exactly where the tears ran. I was trying to name that confusing rollercoaster of emotions but I couldn’t.

Since I was born in the south of Brazil, in the coldest month of the year, I thought the cold could be connecting me with some emotion from my childhood. Combining the misunderstanding with Laurent, the joy of being in Cappadocia, and the anxiety about getting to know to the unfamiliar Thailand, I realized it was just the sum of many events.

I walked the region admiring the handicraft, the unique architecture and the landscape. At a café in the evening, I checked my cell phone and realised that the weather conditions for the next day were not favorable for the famous balloon ride. It was supposed to snow that nightI. So I booked a tour in the mountains, canyons, and Selime Cathedral, the largest cathedral carved on a rock on the planet.

I had a traditional kebab for dinner paying under $20 and ran to my cave to shelter myself from the cold. The only two jeans I had in my backpack weren’t enough to warm me up. Good thing I had my jacket, affectionately nicknamed the bear, because it wrapped me in a single, comfortable hug. “I’m glad I didn’t let you go, Teddy bear.”

68 – CHATTING WITH THE UNCONSCIOUS

I could only see a blue door slightly open. I knew what was inside and that was the reason why I was afraid to come in. I was tormented and scared, but I couldn’t make any noise. No one could know I was there. I walked slowly and found a dirty dark bar with overturned metal tables on the burnt cement floor. My father was injured, lying next to a dead man. That was what I feared to see.