Dear readers,

My last Blog Entry was a story written in German. I hope to give you a nearly correct version of it in English in this Blog Entry. I hope you enjoy it.

Yours,
Aly

About fault and collapse, about life

She always thought she’d live a happy life. But here she sat now, on the lonely wall of a ruin left behind, in the middle of the forest. The with writing covered block in her lap, more words crossed out than readable. The pen had been lying unused for a long time, inconspicuously on the ground between mosses, ants and fallen leaves of once magnificent trees. Ella stared into space. She felt like she was being torn apart from the inside out. How could she feel chest pain when she was physically perfectly healthy? Why did thoughts have so much power? Normally it helped her to write them down, to put them in order, but here she was sitting now and felt only more pain and even more confusion with every word she wrote. She had herself betrayed, her principles were broken. Her almost sacred Principles that she committed to with a clear head and with rational arguments. Through them, Ella always wanted to help herself with emotional problems. Doing right, getting a guideline through dark times. She never wanted to hurt anyone, especially not Philipp. Philipp, who meant the world to her, who taught her life and helped her breathing. She thought of his indescribable eyes, full of facets in all shades of green, framed by long, dark, beautifully curved eyelashes that each of her looks held captive. These eyes gave Ella the feeling of being home. In this memory, she burst into tears off. Her lungs contracted. She wanted to scream. Screaming out the pain until there was nothing left. Her face distorted in pain, ready to repel any emotion. She collapsed, fell silently down. She writhed, no longer perceiving anything but those beautiful eyes, the memories of everything she had now lost. The minutes passed. Her thoughts turned, flung Ella out of control, all she could think was, „Where are you? I want to see you. You left me, NO, I left you. How could I? I’m a disgusting person. . . “ Seconds passed. She was breathing too fast, not right, too much oxygen, her limbs started to tingle. Her eyes burned. So the minutes passed on the forest floor between mosses, ants and fallen leaves of once magnificent trees. Abandoned, lonely, confused. Her mind was jumping, screaming, thrashing and tangling. „Everything ends eventually. You’re disgusting. You betrayed him. Don’t get up, you’ll end up in tears. The pain goes away. He didn’t deserve what he got. How could you?“ Ella just wanted silence. Time passed, it passed unbearably slowly. But as time went by, the young woman also lost her energy, until at some point she was just lying on the floor. Defeated by her psyche. The voices had stopped raging, her ribcage raised and lowered itself evenly again. Every feeling in her was numb. The emptiness in Ella’s head seduced her to reconstruct. She found the pen not far from the damaged block and began to fill a new page with key points. So she could cling to something if the tears came back.
How did everything get so out of hand? Just a year ago, she was probably the happiest student in the whole country. She got a fantastic scholarship place and Philipp, a sweet engineering student, who had fascinated and attracted her from the very first moment, had finally taken the step and kissed her. This kiss touched every fibre of herself, it went deeper than any feeling she had ever experienced. From that moment on, the two had been inseparable, they finally knew that they could rely on each other. Ella could not remember any quarrel, disagreements of course, but they had discussed it and recognized it. It seemed like a perfect relationship, Ella and Philipp, the two who could do everything together. The experience then also showed that they could do everything except for a long-distance relationship. A few months ago Philip’s mother became seriously ill. In addition, the last semester was not going very well for him and he did not want to stand the pressure anymore, so he moved back to his home country to be with his mother and start an apprenticeship as a carpenter. A world fell apart for the couple. Since they now only saw each other once or twice a month, they talked on the phone a lot, but for two people who were used to seeing each other personally every day, doing a lot together and always being able to tell each other everything directly, this state of affairs was an unbearable change. It was not uncommon for them to be silent on the phone, because both of them were sitting at the end of the line crying and did not know what to do. Ella could no longer bear this feeling, the overwhelming loneliness, the emptiness that now prevailed in her life, so she began to meet more often with her friends again and to distract herself.
That’s how she met Jonah, a young bartender who had known Ella’s friends for ages, had an eye on her best friend and had lots of time for crazy ideas. It was summer and the clique spent a lot of time together, but the more time Ella spent with her friends, the less time she had to call Philipp. The seemingly perfect couple grew apart. They loved each other, they knew that, but due to the distance, they were no longer able to show it to each other. The other person became an ulterior motive of security, similar to a home port while travelling the world. The student began to enjoy life again, the thought of loss receded more and more into the background, because she still had Philip, he was a constant in her life, on whom she relied. Between tequila shots, beach visits and card games, Ella got to know a new side of herself and got closer to Jonah. They discovered more and more similarities, spent days and nights together and could talk, talk and talk without end. In an unusual way, they were on a wavelength that made any inhibitions vanish into thin air. Ella was sometimes afraid that he might soon know more about her than Philip, but these thoughts were quickly driven away by the next party. The conversations became more intimate, the jokes more dangerous, but the home port was far away, you are only young once, she would never cheat on her boyfriend, she knew the border.
Ella paused. Leaning against the cool wall, she suddenly wondered whether her relationship with Philipp had not already failed at this point. When the distraction from the pain caused by the physical separation suddenly becomes the purpose of life, would it be honest to say that she still loved Philip with all her heart at that moment? Could she ever even know that? He had been her first boyfriend, what did she know about life? A tear rolled down her cheek. Had she ever loved Philip? She wanted to scream „yes“. To scream out „Yes“ as loud as she could, but if she really loved him as she thought she did, how could she betray him like that? Ella felt the impulse to blame Jonah since he had invited her to his home that night. It’d just be a beer, a little more talking, end the day. But how could she agree with the impulse she had just felt, when that evening, when she had followed even one impulse, had brought her into this agonizing situation? So she skimmed over her confusingly collected notes.
Jonah was also hurt, he had lost a good friend just because she had followed an impulse in a weak moment. Of course, it always takes two – it wasn’t exactly like he had pushed her away – but Ella had made the mistake. She had knowingly betrayed her loyalty to Philip. She was aware that there would be consequences, but she was so hurt that she hardly thought about it. She hadn’t seen her boyfriend for weeks, had spoken to him only a little, she just wanted to feel safe again, less lonely. The next morning she called Philipp directly, she wanted to at least maintain honesty after she had already bent and broken so many principles. When she remembered the silence in the pipe after she had confessed to him in a tearful voice what had happened, Ella’s innermost being contracted. She gasped, her eyes burned. She needed a break, but the memory had become burnt. She heard that smothered „why?“ on the phone, she heard the roar of her ears, through which every word reached her only in a muffled way. Ella heard herself whispering „I was lonely“ and the ensuing argument. The first and last quarrel she ever had with Philip. He wishes she’d said something. He would have tried to visit her more often. Why does she talk to everyone but him? What else does the relationship mean to her? She remembered how she started screaming, she wanted him to know how much he was meaning to her, that she didn’t know what she was doing. But no matter how loud she screamed, he did not believe her, he believed her less with every word. Philip was slipping away from her more and more, she knew that, but she was so desperate that she didn’t give him time to process everything. She forced him not to hang up, she wanted to hear him, wanted to know that he was still there. In Ella’s head echoed his „I can’t do this. Bye, Ella. “ again, she clung to the block in her lap and swayed her body back and forth. A new wave of loss, pain and grief rolled over her.
She felt like the ruin at which she had found protection: disintegrated and abandoned, no one would find her if she just stayed there. But the longer she lay there on the ground, watching the ants continue to work diligently and the sun goes on, the calmer she got. She began to realize that although she felt incredibly destroyed, she was responsible for her own life, so only she could make it better. Time would pass, no matter what Ella did to her life. These panic attacks and wine cramps were accompanied by certainly not the last, she knew that but she did not want to let her life be determined by what her psyche did to her, she wanted the control back. So she just started to sit up, close her block, and pick up the pen. She breathed calmly, in, out and again. What she had experienced was now in the past, she knew it would take a long time to complete. Ella also knew that she would need help, so she slowly got up and went home.