MDear Esther,
“But did I really like that thing?” Cit. Returning to the present or to what returns from the past. You who always have the right word and the ready answer, an explanation for this nocturnal madness which, clearly, recurs. I’m E. 39 years old. Childless (by choice), one cat (much desired) who adopted me and a thoughtful boyfriend. I have been in a HAPPY relationship for 5 yearswithout appearances or false illusions, filled with attention and love.
What more could I want?
I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know how and why my first boyfriend always comes back to me in my dreams.
Relationship ended 15 years ago, started in adolescence, true love involving, dramatic and passionate. Gone feeling because we had given everything and lived so much, reducing the relationship to brotherly affection and forcing F. to make the decision to leave me.
Once the period of resentment of the warrior who didn’t fight has passed, for a few years now we’ve been in touch for conventional birthday wishes.
F with two children and a partner, comes to visit me almost every night. A flashback that is forbidden and not real.
But why? What does he want? Or rather… what do I want?
Thank you for your service understanding the CONTEXT.
With respect.
AND.
Ester Viola’s response
Dear E., thank you for the nice letter, dry and without syrupy nostalgia. I think it’s the most frequent question that comes up in this box: given a moderately good life, why do I think about the one with whom there was a half thing, but also a whole thing, fifteen years ago?
Bad Relationships…
It’s why we entrusted this super Proust feeling to Philip Rothwho handles it with the right (little) care:
It passed unexploded. Nostalgia, bullshit.
It’s the kind of feeling that belongs in the “free time” category. He should be liquidated, he has little dignity. You pass by here and ask the question – very briefly posed – of nostalgia for a great love that ended in some past, who knows why. You bring exotic sensations of parallel worlds, melancholy, Sofia Coppola and music by Lana del Rey.
We already said that there are few good things about the passing of time, your face is no longer what it used to be, we don’t talk about your hair, but certainly the loss of your twenties – around 35 – guarantees you an improvement: you wake up implacable practical spirit, some call it aridity, pessimism, lack of dreams, and instead the diagnosis is auspicious. Sentimental regrets and other painful emotions at some point die a sudden and deadly death.
Everything will coincide with a relationship of the orderly and common ones, you know the relationships with a lowercase r, the ones that last without epics and tears – worries move from the Hypersensitive self and thank goodness.
… and that damn nostalgia
How many times has Philip Roth passed by with this sentence above? Twenty-five? Forty? This quote will soon take the final exam.
Nostalgia is when the past doesn’t want to pass. Preferring other points of observation, it is a day of bad mood like any other. In life, minimize and avoid analysis, otherwise you will never finish.
Let’s dismantle this obsession
“What do I want?” It’s not a serious question, E. What you want coincides with what you have. It’s the best of your possible worlds. We’re not going to alternative endings.
But let’s do something crazy today. Let’s get behind this obsession. Let’s get it out of the way, you and me, now. I have the lock to the room of secrets. It’s not that seriously complicated and divinatory, the “What If.” In fact it’s easy. Just ask whoever did the feat – by feat I mean: suffer, die, sleep, try again, win and be acclaimed among the paeans. Let’s define winning, however: when fate delivers you in love exactly the wreck that you liked as you didn’t like anyone, not even all the gold in the world.
Everything that seems like an alternative and unknown life is beautiful
Ask anyone who took two, three, ten years. Everyone mourns lost time, no one mourns great love. It will mean something. Everything that seems like an alternative and unknown life is beautiful.
So let’s go back to your question. For every “What would it have been like?” the answer is always “Nothing much”. Take any of the happy few who have been loved back after crooked or unrequited loves. They’ll all tell you the same thing: all this mess and now I don’t want it anymore. It is infallible and mathematical. I swear: infallible and mathematical. For the fantasies about what it could have been like, they’re there, you might as well keep them.