cara Esther,
I am writing to you on a Sunday morning in February from my studio flat in Milan, with a withered vase of tulips in front of me to ask you for an explanation. Let’s start from the beginning, May 2022, first outing with a my 28 year old age to forget one bitter disappointment that occurred a few months earlier. It was there right away understanding, to which were added appointments with ever closer frequency, which were repeated until last weekend. Everything happened over time, with the utmost transparency and without haste. No need to put labels on it, to speed things up, and to get to know each other calmly, with the agreement of both parties. There is talk of an enriched frequentation, made up of we spent away, of a constant presence even when we weren’t in the same city to return to our respective countries of origin and with constant updating of what happened in the daily life of our days, but no introduction of his friends .
But let’s get to the point, that is, from my need to understand for a moment what turn our “attendance” will take because it had not yet acquired the famous “label”. After almost nine months, I’d say it’s time to do it, and understand if we were on the same wavelength.
He tells me that he manages to make long-term plans, because he still doesn’t know what his plans are for the future, and he certainly intends to move abroad. But apart from this, always upon my request for specifics on his feelings about him to date, he tells me he’s taken, he’s fine, but the his feeling has remained firm, has not evolved, such as to define himself in love as much as I am.
Initially I accept this condition for the first 5 days, but then I decide to close everything, and we do it through a cold 10-minute phone call on Wednesday evening. I also write him a message in which I tell him that I miss him and that if he wants he will find me here. But I get no answer…
As I write this letter I cried again and I ask you for enlightenment. Is it really possible that her feeling hasn’t evolved as much as mine? In my imagination with him this scene had never occurred, because I did not imagine it could happen.
From past experiences I have learned that the feeling does not evolve after a couple of months, but not after almost a year. And why close in such a detached way? It’s an attitude that I never expected from him who always wanted to talk closely about all possible misunderstandings.
I hope to receive your answer dear Ester,
Your
TO.
Esther Viola’s answer
Esther Purple
Dear A,
Every now and then – indeed often – the emails I receive in the newspaper mailbox have a sort of Linkedin appendix. And therefore, even without wanting to, it is difficult not to notice who you are and where you come from. You who pretend to be Dido but are of a different cloth.
You come from beautiful places. Beautiful in the sense that you get there for studies, for skill, for relationships. Ernst & Young, Accenture, Deloitte, Kpmg, fierce law firms and accountants, multinationals.
And so some Mondays everything becomes comfortable, in this section. It takes me to give sentimental answers, even a little shameful. It seems to you that if one has made it this far, on the board of directors, she doesn’t know what to do with the stupid wreck she complains about in the letter.
And that it will never be a wreck to manage…
You are right on all points, A. Let’s find a place where we live in safety without anyone dragging us into disappointments and we go together. Life is foolproof, to displease.
Bad relationships, but which ones aren’t?
“The most powerful discoveries are reserved for the end,” he writes Philip Roth. You have the habit of overly logical conclusions: what happens, often happens in spite of what the intelligent have been waiting for. When has the future ever gone in only one direction? Our?
You wouldn’t even ask that much, just to understand something. What was it that had to evolve? The tomato plant? Evolve how? Those would also be my questions.
The sentiment has not evolved. Dumb phrase equal to dozens of dumb phrases that – like silence, worse than silence – serve the untranslatable goodbye. Like the ones who disappear and we call it ghosting, and we’ve made it semi-criminal. And instead it is only a legitimate concern to avoid that they hear – on the other hand – a “I don’t feel like it anymore” looking into each other’s eyes.
It would be useful to look at things from the building opposite. Don’t ask every love that slips away ′′ why doesn’t it work?
Happiness, the most beautiful gift in the world, if only they didn’t wrap it with the guarantee of losing it.
You know the rest of the matter, I certainly don’t have to tell you another time.
Or you know the old story, but you want to hear it again. Here it is, then: do you know when destiny stops cheating, A.? When will a premise be followed by the consequence we liked best? When are they going to deliver the half hour of things that come easy and straight? Maybe once, or even never.
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