Por si regresa...

                                    

¿Alguna vez se han preguntado qué pasaría si suprimer gran amor, ese que aún no han olvidado, regresara a su vida?  Con esta pregunta Leslie Camhi comienza sumaravillosa reflexión, “An Old Flame Flames Out” , para US VOGUE de Febrero.

A lo largo de cuatro páginas llenas de un sin finde sentimientos encontrados, la autora pone sobre la mesa la pregunta (incómoda)que quizás algunos de nosotros no nos hemos atrevido a hacernos, ¿y si nuestroamor frustrado regresara de repente y nos prometiera todo eso que un día nosjuró? ¿Qué pasaría si ese gran amor de la adolescencia de repente aparecierauna vez más en nuestras vidas diciéndonos todo eso que siempre quisimosescuchar? ¿Cuál sería nuestra reacción?

Amores van, amores vienen. Las decepcionesamorosas y demás frustraciones siempre están a la orden de día. Conforme lavida va, uno suele sufrir y decepcionarse de personas de las cuales jamás pensóhacerlo. Uno avanza. Uno perdona y olvida (o al menos, lo intenta), ¿qué aplicaen los casos en los que los años pasan, la vida sigue, uno archiva – oescombra, en el archivo muerto- a ciertas personas y éstas de repente vuelven aaparecer? ¿Les permitimos la entrada de vuelta a nuestras vidas? ¿Y si ya hemosformado una vida (como el caso de la autora), cómo incorporamos a esteuna-vez-conocido-ahora-extraño-en-proceso-de-volver-a-ser-conocido a una vidaya construida?

¿Podemos confiar en alguien que nos defraudó? Sile preguntáramos esto a Camhi, es altamente probable que responda con unrotundo “no”.  Si quieren saber el porquéde la respuesta, recomiendo leer la nota.

Y a continuación, mis partes preferidas de lanota. Esperen pronto una sección de “Subrayados” – tengo una obsesión pordejarme atrapar por las palabras y subrayar todo aquello que llama mi atención.

“Did you ever wonder what would happen if your first love returned to you,the one you’d never really gotten over? What if that person came back anddeclared that you were the one he never should have lost, and now that he’dfound you, he wouldn’t let you go again?”

“…he had helped shape my interests and my sensibility the way only someoneyou meet when you are very young can shape you.”

“I had lived abroad and loved in many languages.”

“When my first love returned, he brought tenderness, physical passion,intellectual companionship, and unqualified support for my work, combined withand adoring rapport with my son. It felt like salvation.”

“The love was real. How much of it was an illusion? I still don’t know.”

“Overwhelmingly yours.”

“As a child, I was told that there was one person in the world who wasdestined for me. And I remember wondering how we would find each other if wespoke no common language. Today I am fluent in French and can get by in German,Spanish, and Italian. Perhaps, by learning languages, I had hoped to increasethe likelihood of meeting my life’s partner. But the one my heart chose spokemy language so completely and knew the workings of my mind so intimately thathe could finish my sentences with ease.”

“…passionate encounters unfolding in the brief hours between our manyobligations.”

“A belief in love’s redemption.”

“These days people meet strangers online and then check them out in reallife. I knew this person from real life. I not only shared his origins and hispast; I had seen, spoken, or otherwise communicated with him daily for almosttwo years. Now in the space of a few hours, the stories he had told me abouthimself were unraveling. I had thought that my own life would at least makesense. But this was madness.”

“Is lying the worst thing you can do to a person?”

“His fantasies changed our reality. Yet his inability or unwillingness todistinguish truth from make-believe left my child and me very vulnerable.”

“Love doesn’t always die when trust suffers a mortal blow; but daily lifebecomes impossible.”

“I don’t need to be with him all the time to know that we are together.”

“Wherever my first love is now, I believe is a lonely place.”

“Nothing lasts forever, exceptperhaps the bonds that we form in childhood, whose haunting power we recover atour own risk."