I Think of You All the Time

I go out from his door. His words are with me when I go down the stairs. He wants more, he wants me to just belong to him.

He wants me, he says he loves me in a way he has not loved anyone before. He wants me to be only his!

When I'm going to leave, he asks about next time.

«You can come to my place again,» he says.

«Oh yes, I know you want me to,» I say.

«You know, I can come to you too,» he says. «I know it's not that easy, but I can.»

«Did you say anything to her - did you tell her about us?»

He looks at me, an attentive look.

«Yes,» I explain. «This is getting a little complicated, I feel.»

«Yes, I understand, but I do not feel it's too complicated. I will talk to her, if we agree, you and I …»

«If we agree, you say?»

I stop, look at him.

«We agree, right?»

«Sure, so I'll talk to her then.»

---

I stopped in the dark, in the middle of two lampposts. There was a sound from the cell phone. A message. It was from him.

"Hello darling," he wrote, "I cannot help thinking of you."

I felt like I was smiling. I had just put the phone back in my pocket when it made a noise again. I picked it up again and read:

"You and I, the two of us together! (Heart.) 

 I think of you all the time. (Heart. Heart.)"

I felt warm. Felt he hit me in the middle of the stomach. But it was something else as well. I felt a kind of doubt somewhere, in the middle of all this. I did not want the suspicion to grow in me. I decided to push away the somewhat difficult thoughts, the doubts that had arisen after our last conversation.

I close my eyes, I see his face, his naked shoulder. I float in the soft space inside myself.

I smile, start to move on, out of the darkness. What he said earlier today fills me with a secret cheer. And it scares me a little.

The cell phone vibrates.

I open and see that he has sent another message.

"Can't wait for me to be near you again. (3 X Heart.)"

He wants to meet me, he wants more, and I feel the stress. I am not ready for it now. I feel it becomes too much, I can't do it, both to live up to what he wants and to be myself. Live my everyday life.

I read one more time the message he has sent. I feel a joy, mixed with a turmoil I haven't known before. I will and I will not - or cannot - live up to what he wants.

I'm a prisoner in my life. I have three children, I'm not free. I need time to go into myself, I need time to find myself. I need peace in my everyday life, calm to find who I want to be.

I type letters that turn into words on the screen, words that I know he will not smile at.

"I cannot … Not tomorrow, and not the day after tomorrow."

I see his expression, disappointment painted over his face.

I pinch my lips and write:

"That's the way it is, and that's the way it has to be."

---

Half an hour later he calls. I say "wait a minute" and hold the phone against my ear as I walk down the stairs and into the bedroom. He says he has read my last message; he says that he understands.

I believe I can hear on his voice that he is sorry. It's like the voice is missing some of the tones that use to be there.

He says he understands, that it is not that simple. I hear what he says.

He hesitates, I answer a little short and I notice that he becomes insecure, changes the subject and talks about his day at work.

He says he was inside the oven hall where my husband works. He was on a team that repaired the tapping machine on furnace 2. He says it was a little special to stand there, a few meters away from him.

I don't know what to answer. I say yes. He changes the conversation topic again and repeats that he would like to meet me and that he understands well that it can sometimes be difficult, and that it must be as I say.

I hear steps in the stairs outside the door and it becomes difficult to talk on the phone. I hear him say that he needs to see me again soon, he repeats that he needs to talk to me. He says he's a little insecure on how to understand it, what I wrote in the last message - this about «that's the way it is, and that's the way it has to be».

Outside the door I hear the youngest calling to me. I answer that she has to wait a bit, then I will come. I say into the phone that I must put on, and that I will call again as soon as I can.

---

I take a deep breath, go to the window in the living room and look up at the mountains, the clouds, the sky.

- A day like today, a day when the light flows white down the mountainside, a day when the sunlight flows towards me from the high sky, a day that lifts me with liberating thoughts, good feelings.

It is a day that holds me and that lifts me. I've lived in the shadows for far too long. It is such a day of the rarest kind, and I can get up, raise my eye and smile at the light, I feel the faint heat from the sun's rays against my face.

I can move on without taking with me the difficult or painful problems in my life. I can put behind me what weighs, I can let myself be filled with new energy.

On a day like this when I am in a way born again, a day for positive thoughts, a day of closeness with my loved ones. A day like this when I am invincible, when I feel immortal, I feel stronger, happier than I can remember being.

This is my day, and I feel a tingling sensation in my temple. I ask myself if this is the day I could seize and use to take important steps in my life.