falling in love with your friends

heartbreak interview #2

i recently woke up to discover my hair had turned curly

now, if you would have said that to my twelve-year-old self (straight-fine-thin-scandinavian-haired-self), she would have fallen over of happiness. fainted, done cartwheels for hours out of pure joy. 

now i had trouble recognizing myself in the mirror

but i’d started re-watching sex and the city, getting drawn into the allure that is carrie bradshaw: head full of wild curls, a closet to die for, free and dating, dating and writing – the extravagance and decadence and hustle and bustle of her new york life.

so the curls were not unwelcome

in fact, they were celebrated

i’d gone out and bought a pair of big gold hoops, you see. because blonde girls with big gold hoops always had more fun, i’d decided, in my heartbreak. i purchased them in this celebratory spirit on my last day home, before i’d make my grand exit from the house over the summer (the house i’d lived in the past year with 19 other students, the one where i’d fallen in love – fallen out of love – with my best friend). the house where i still had to live beside the person who broke my heart. while they started seeing other people. in my own home. 

hence it was a broken and emotionally exhausted woman who stepped onto the train bound north the next day, the day that marked the beginning of my big summer escape-plan: 

couch-surfing at friends’ houses all over the country, perhaps the continent

in my carrie-bradshaw-gold-hoops era

i’d plan to spend two weeks up north in my dads cabin by the sea. to write, to rest. to land and get away. i’d invited a friend, lets call her elle, to come up and join me too; and i knew her visit would be soul-nourishing.

im gonna be working on a writing-project while we’re up here, i texted her the day before her arrival

so make sure you bring a good book or smthn ! 

she texted me back

omg yes 

we can have a writing-reading retreat

and that’s exactly what we had

spending our days slowing down by the sea, drinking elaborate coffees, writing in the sun; always ending the evenings with her reading birgitta stenbergs all the wild ones aloud to me in bed. a biographical novel relaying stenbergs travels around war-torn south of europe in her untamed 20s; drinking, writing – chatting and sleeping with other bohemians, artists, and famous thinkers of that particular period which was 1950s europe. 

(it was inspiring, her crazy risktaking, her lust for life, her commitment to her craft)

but one night, after another serene day, just as i was to fall asleep, i woke up to several consecutive buzzing notifications from my phone

(and i knew it could only be one person who’d text me seven times in a row in the middle of the night)

the sum of their contents?

He wanted to come

(i had trouble falling back asleep after that)

because –

i knew we’d have fun if He came (we always had fun together). but i also knew that, up here (around my family), his company would unsettle me. since i didnt kow where we stood – how we could exist platonically together – and all the uncertainty that entails.

and i guess i couldn’t sleep because i didnt want to admit that i needed to say no

which was hard, because a part of me really wanted him here. this sanctuary by the sea i’d talked about so many times, a sanctuary i thought i would get to show him under very different circumstances

i texted him back the next morning asking if we could talk later that night

he called me around 12, the midnight sun this far north painting the sky and the sea a harmonious pink

i layed on the daybed outside by the water, heard his familiar voice over the phone:

hey

are we gonna fight now, he joked

(i wanted to punch him)

but chose to ignore

can you hear the waves, i ask instead

holding out the phone towards the sea

no, 

yes wait

yeah

and we begin talking

and we dont stop until two hours later

i say things i’ve had on my chest for quite a while, holding a monologue of hurt

he responds, he understands. we both hate this situation, that fact is underlined several times

i hear him brush his teeth through the phone, i leave him on speaker as i do my skincare routine

i crawl into bed, phone on the pillow

familiar patterns

should we say goodnight now, he asks

mm, i echo

i think we should

no one hangs up

(familiar patterns) 

goodnight, i whisper, as im about to fall asleep

and i press the red button

the silence emerging from the corners of the room

i lay there, already drifting

we had agreed on nothing yet i was sure of our unspoken agreement: 

he would not come 

and the silence, 

deafening.

---

the next morning i woke up with an emotional hangover. red-eyed, groggy, headache. i tried to get back into the usual joy of our slow retreat-routine, but it did not work. 

instead i noticed myself slipping back into old patterns. 

thinking about, worrying about, obsessing over 

Him

---

one phone call and im all torn up, i tell elle over another cup of coffee 

one phone call and look what it’s done to me

if He would have come, all that progress i’d made getting over him, would have become totally undone

she hums in agreement 

if He’d come, i know we would have a great time, but then i’d feel all that abstinence as soon as he left

did you tell him that? she asks

more or less, i say 

i admire his naive optimism, she says, laughing 

and the thing that’ll stick with me: 

you’re like drugs for each other 

---

before i’d left home, i’d interviewed another friend for my heartbreak-project.

my friend calle

when i told him about this new project of mine he asked if he could be interviewed

i hesitated, because i knew about his love life, and i’d gotten the impression that there hadn’t been any hearts broken in the fast turns of his wild and long dating life

he noticed my hesitation and said: 

heartbreak is subjective right?

and i think i have one experience that i would call a heartbreak. 

i regretted my hasted presumption and told him of course 

i’d love to interview you 

---

so one soft and exceptionally warm june evening we sat down in the garden 

a pair of scissors in my hands and him on a chair before me

pressing record for this combined interview/haircut 

he begins describing his first love and relationship

(and calle is that kind of person, i quickly realize, that from years of mingling in different political and religious youth-societies; is kind of good at interviewing himself)

so i cut his hair, trimming the edges

interposing with a little question here, a turn of the head there 

and we find our way quite naturally through the story of his heartbreak

---

his name was henry, calle begins, quite dramatically 

and i think about him often

in fact, there’s nobody else who has stuck with me like that, he says

nobody else i think about that long afterward. 

he inhales

because he steered my life onto such a strong course 

and he’s a big part of who i am today

thats kind of dark, in a way, he exhales. 

or beautiful? i interject

or beautiful.

the split ends accumulates on the ground as calle continues:  

so i was 17, 18

henry was openly gay 

and i didnt know i was homosexual. 

he was from the big city and our school was in an uproar, whispering 

theres some gay guy coming, thinking he’s cool

now, i had never interacted with any gay men 

and his coming was like the arrival of the lochness monster

a strange thing!

i laugh

but all of us realized quite soon that this was no monster, nor a unicorn 

just a regular person, he laughs 

and we began to hang out, quite quickly

moving in the same circles.

but i didnt know i was gay then 

hadn’t even entertained the thought. 

and here he comes, himself out from the closet, opening all that up to me. 

he shakes his head out of habit so i have to adjust him again, hold straight, i order

he laughs

it takes me a few seconds

then i laugh too 

continue, i order

we had a turbulent beginning, he starts again

having to navigate so many dynamics

me being young, naive. not knowing how i felt about being gay, about falling in love with someone who was first a friend. 

i remember having the worst hangover of my life that night after our first kiss

the eruption of a volcano in its own right, he underlines

calle explains to me the intricacies of their relationship, their turbulent on and off timeline. when he finishes he sighs, as to conclude and get back to the heart of the question:

but i think about it as my heartbreak because there are fewer things that i have felt such disappointment about

that i never had the guts

if i just…

he trails away

tries again: 

if i’d just been more brave maybe we could have been a couple back then

he grows quiet 

after a while he begins with new force: 

i guess when some people talk about their heartbreak its about someone they thought could have been the love of their life

now, i dont think henry and i were soulmates

im just sad about us not happening because i didn’t dare. 

dont you think that a lot of heartbreaks are about just that? i counter, not daring enough?

well, yeah

i guess

but theres also this other dynamic to it 

the gay part

he turns quiet again

i was so young, and so naive

and all these years after the fact he’s kind of still there

a bird calls from above and calle gazes up into the tree, i lower the scissors 

he was the first man i fell in love with, he lets out 

and opened that world to me 

he turns his head back to me

thats a big part of my identity today

and is that all thanks to him? 

he asks, more to himself, eyes hazy with disappointment

or not that it was all him, he corrects 

but it was he who opened all that up for me 

and i feel like i just continued on the path he mapped out for me, such a long time ago 

but don’t you have people like that who just bump into your life and change the course of it forever? i corner 

then he is like a railway switch, calle laughs

he pulled the lever and then everything changed

---

we talk about the turns of the relationship. it was protracted, almost two years, with a lot of back and forth. first calle didn’t want to, then henry didn’t, and then calle didn’t when henry wanted. 

it was a lot of hearbreaks in the same relationship, calle concludes 

but i think if we ever stood a chance it was back then, the first time

is that the heartbreak that hurts the most? 

yes, 

it hurts to think about.

or is it that wich hurts me the most? he ponders

after some reflection he says, smiling: 

i have this fear that he never thinks of me 

and that hurts even more, should it be true

i spend a lot of time thinking about that.

because i would ultimately like to think that i was an important person to him as well 

he grows quiet again

i do the last touches on his hair and put the scissors down 

but even if it is a heartbreak, calle exclaims, as in realization

its a fantastic heartbreak 

that he really got to be this railway switch

who steered me on the course that im happy im on today

his tone changes 

are you done?

im done, i say

and he grabs the mirror, studies his new hair from different angles, shakes out the lengths 

do you count this as a heartbreak? he asks after a while, putting the mirror down 

yeah, i sigh 

definitely

i dont even know if i have a definition for heartbreak to measure by, i say, more to myself than him

can you try

what? 

can you try to give a definition

i think about it

i guess the one me and ellen came up with was it, that painful physical and emotional pain of losing the person you thought you needed in order to live 

like that fateful railway switch we talked about 

when somebody just comes along and changes everything 

it hurts to realize you’ve lost that. 

and afterward, calle exclaims 

you’re like oh my god what has this person done to me

yeah exactly, i say

but now, after that inital acute feeling has kind of ebbed out, 

– and i dont know how it felt for you, i add 

but for me, and this was something i realized just last week, 

it was that life felt quite meaningless without love

like you’re living in this black and white version 

and i have no choice but to live in this meaninglessness anyway and try to make sense of it 

calle gazed at me, his eyebrows furrowed

you’re not like a little bit of a love-addict then? 

his sentence hung butween us in the air, heavy 

i’d stopped breathing 

because i dont think life is grey and boring without it, he continues

you dont? 

(and it surprises me how small and fragile the words come out)

no, he says 

because ive tried to re-learn how i think about this 

i think that all my friendships–

yeah, i exhale

–that’s love too. 

and its boring how you keep downgrading that kind of love, putting it on a lower pedestal than the romantical kind 

because thats not true, 

when you think about it

here he takes a deep breath and i can see his eyes sparkling with life as he exclaims:

god im so in love with so many of my friends

and they add colour to life 

---

and i chose to return to my friend

elle

to focus on the colour she adds to my life 

---

---

after a magical day full of fast driving down empty country lanes to loud music, me and elle arrive to a local art exhibition we’d decided to check out. getting out of the car, the music dying with a bang as we slam the doors. we walk inside and are hit by the colours: yellow, orange, and ocra. we walk around the room and inspect the small watercolours, depictions of abandoned parking lots, empty stairways and nature scapes. 

the artist is there, and i overhear him explaining why he chose to work with only those three colours for this project. we start chatting to him, and at one point he says something that sticks with me: 

to be an artist is to work with incomplete information

you start with something and dont really know what it is or where its going

and thats just part of the process, he adds

my friend carry on with the rest of the conversation, and i walk around alone, pondering the statement more than the art. 

after we’ve said goodbye and left, we see a sign that says ceramics and textiles to our left, and decide to check that out too

walking into another interesting conversation

the man who works there – the ceramist – has been at it for 25 years

and ive learnt that so much about being an artist just involves time, order, and discipline, he says

that mistakes are just surprise experiments

and thats the fun part

when you just try your way forward in the dark.

we walk out, our eyes twinkling with gratitude from the conversations we’d gotten lucky to have

we decide to treat ourselves and eat our lunch sandwiches in the community rose garden, driving away again

we arrive to the quiet, the only ones there, making ourselves comfortable amongst the bushes

both tired and content and not speaking much

we part ways, an unspoken agreement, and begin wandering around on our own. i walk around and decide to smell all the different kinds of roses, finding that the small white ones are the best. i realize how exhausted i am and lay down on the soft grass, closing my eyes, inhaling their sweet scent. i’ve always had a hard time napping so i just lay, thinking, reflecting. at one point i feel something soft brush my toe and to my surprise its a big white cat, brown spots on its back

hello friend, i say, as it brushes up against me

i pick it up to go and find elle

i discover her lying on a bench, eyes closed

look who ive found, i say

she gets up and we begin cooing over the cat

he purrs and lays down on his back immediately, not at all shy

after a while she asks

did you fall asleep? 

no, i just laid there thinking

what did you think about?

and i answered her honestly

Him

of course

hmm

we grow quiet

what did you think about? i ask in return 

she looked up at me

i thought about the flowers, the sun. my vacation and my boyfriend 

but i also thought about you

me? 

yeah

have you ever seen twilight? she asks

i laugh, taken aback 

but i answer her

of course, why

you know the werewolves? how they sometimes imprint on other people and become like bound to another person?

yeah

i think you get a couple of people like that in your lifetime, she finishes

and she asks me the question i’d sensed coming: 

do you think you’ve imprinted on Him?

(and i dont really know what to say

yet the answer feels obvious)

i think back to calle and our talk of people as railway switches

i guess, i manage to get out

but it depends on how you define imprinting

i think its when you have that gravitational bond to someone, she says, after a while

and that person presence really changes you to your core

like when someone just walks into your life kicks down the door pulls a level and changes your path forever, i finish 

yeah, she says, laughing

something like that 

---

when elle and i say goodbye, 

our four serene days already having passed,  

she hugs me tightly on the train platform

promise me you wont let him visit, she says

locking her eyes with mine and gripping my shoulders 

and there is a pause that shouldn’t be there 

between what she says and what i should say 

i begin to brush her off, smirking, like a confronted addict 

but she locks her eyes with mine again

i take a few seconds to really think about the meaning of what i am about to say:  

i promise

and she knows that i mean it

---

maybe its a mistake to write about all of this, Him, our private moments 

but like james baldwin said, in a quote that quite literally blew made head off (i think i actually let out a scream when i first read it): 

You survive this and in some terrible way, which i suppoe no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. That is all you have to do with it. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as i can tell you what it is to suffer perhaps i can help you to suffer less. 

by telling you about my pain, i connect to yours. by telling you about my pain, i can release it. by telling you what it is to suffer i can help you suffer less, too. 

as writers, i think we work with the transformation of pain

and like the kind artists i met said: 

as a creative you also work with incomplete information

and you learn that mistakes and side-tracks are part of the process 

that takes you from the unknowable into the known

and that always entails a risk

to trust in the unknown 

because it is a risk talking about your pain. there’s always a risk inherent to being vulnerable and opening up. but the outcome, the worth, the payoff is exactly what baldwin is getting at – connection. by taking a risk and talking about my pain, im opening up the possibility of connecting with you; a connection that allows both of us the opportunity of release. 

and like rick rubin beautifully writes in his book about artistic creation, that i’ve begun reading each morning before sitting down to write: 

“When you're working on a project, you may notice apparent coincidences appearing more often than randomness allows, almost as if there is another hand guiding yours in a certain direction. As if there is an inner knowing gently informing your movements. Faith allows you to trust the direction without needing to understand it.”

it is only by that calm blind faith that we continue onward, without knowing where we’ll end up. 

---

and i dont know where im going

with this letter

with this project

with this summer 

with my healing

with Him

(with my life) 

but i know, that i have to continue

and that’s a risk im willing to take 

i dont know how to fix this, but i know that i will

like i realized on the beach in sicily

and like last week’s realization:

yes, life feels meaningless without love 

but i have to live it anyway

which means that it is up to me to find things that make it meaningful again

and like calle said, like i believe now, 

part of that is falling in love with your friends

like i did this week with elle 

like i’ll do next week with my other friends 

because they are the colour

when everything feels so black and white 

so what now? 

next week im travelling south, to live in a friend’s big-city apartment while she’s out of town 

so –

here’s to levelling up in my gold-hoops-carrie-bradshaw-column writing-untamed-birgitta-stenberg era

and to the people we imprint on and who come into our lives like railway switches

no matter the outcome, no matter the risk

its a fantastic heartbreak, calle echos in my head 

and i think we should be grateful to each and every one of them 

for kicking open the door and changing the way we think, feel, and act forever 

so here’s to Him

whom i no longer need in order to live

i do that for myself now 

and my friends. 

hugs and all, 

e.