Halcyon Days

          The last couple of years have been hard on me and it was the first time that I had gone through something like that. Up until my forties my life had been good, without many ups and downs. I grew up in a wealthy family, without any tensions between its members. I was a good student and quite popular at school. I went through college easily and I was quite skilled at business, so I opened a company that was doing well. It took a lot of work, but it was a labor of love. I lived in a condo in a wonderful building on the beach and I had a good and beautiful wife. I thought that we had a successful marriage up until the day when she announced that she felt unhappy living with me for years now. There's no reason to describe that conversation in detail. Besides, I was so shocked that I only remember it vaguely. However, I will never forget the look in her eyes when she told me that I never gave her anything.

          A few months later the recession hit my own company as well, so I was forced to work from home and be deprived of some of the small luxuries that I had grown accustomed to. My lifestyle changed dramatically and it was the first time in my life that I felt so alone.

          At first I only felt anger. I yelled at bank officials and customers over the phone, I was angry at the politicians, the journalists and all those who pull the strings of the stock market. I broke a couple of plates and kicked the stove three times while I was trying to learn how to cook for myself. My wife never asked for alimony, nor did she claim any of the property that we'd acquired after we got married and for everything she needed I was asked to contact her through her lawyer. For me, it was as if she were dead and when I learned from a common friend of ours that she was living with another man I felt my heart freezing and my whole body freezing and I quickly changed the subject.

          Everything was already going to hell, when on top of it all I started having health problems as well. My heart would beat fast, I felt dizzy, I couldn't sleep and I felt an unbearable tiredness which made me crawl around the house in my dirty pajamas like a sick old man, hardly being able to get any work done. That was strange because I always looked after myself. I never smoked, not even once, and I exercised regularly. I got tested for everything and visited three doctors. The last one told me that I showed symptoms of depression and that instead of having my blood tested over and over again, I should visit a psychiatrist. I told him that he needed a psychiatrist himself, I grabbed my tests and left, slamming the door behind me in anger. I didn't visit any other doctors after that and I let myself slip inside a black winter. All I did was work and I didn't see any friends or relatives. I even avoided calling my parents on the phone and so my sister was left visiting them on her own for dinner every Sunday, as we used to do. During the night, I thought that I would die alone and desperate and that my body would rot and smell and when they discovered it after several days it would be repulsive. I must admit, I had never imagined myself dying this way before. And then I would plead with God, not to help me, not to save me, not to redeem me, but only to turn all this pain that I felt into tears so that I could get some of it out of me.

          Truth is, up until then I never believed that praying made any sense at all. I think that I didn't even believe in God, even though I'd go to church on every important holiday and I would actually carry the Epitaph on my shoulders every Easter, just like my father did when I was a boy, feeling so proud of myself. However, I learned from a young age that life is unfair and that maybe there is no God, when a seven year old boy I went to school with died of a brain tumor. I came across such injustice many times again, in documentaries about hunger in Africa, whenever I would throw some change in beggars' cups in the street or whenever I heard about children that had lost their parents or people that had their limbs amputated. Up until I lost my marriage and my professional success that so many envied, I hadn't really lost anything myself. I have never really sympathized with anybody and I had never wondered if I deserved all these things that I had.

          Thinking about what I had done wrong was torment. Why wasn't she happy with me? At first I felt more hurt because I had failed, rather than because I hadn't given to the woman I loved everything she needed. Lately I started reflecting on our life together and on how I treated her. I worked long hours. At home I was always nervous about work or preoccupied with my own success. At night she would read her books and she'd often talk to me about them and I would shake my head without really listening to what she was saying, while thinking about my investments. On Sundays she always begged me to go for a walk by the sea, but we always ended up going to my parents' house, who didn't like her. I would often criticise her body or the way she dressed, especially when we visited rich business partners or clients to whom I wanted to show her off.

          A couple of days ago, on a sunny Sunday morning in January, I felt ridden with guilt, wondering why I was always asking her to lose weight, even though I thought she was beautiful. Then I remembered that when I was young my father had told me that a successful man needs a beautiful woman by his side that doesn't talk much. I was drinking coffee in the kitchen when something weird happened. I lifted my head and looked at the sea. My gaze wandered around its sparkling surface and I felt as if I had seen it for the first time just then. And maybe that was indeed true, because when I was married I was practically never at home and since the divorce there was no beauty on earth that could touch my soul. I remembered my wife telling me how happy she felt in this house because she could gaze at the sea and me responding that day-dreaming is a waste of time. That's what my father used to tell me when sometimes, as I was studying, I would lift my head and stare at a tall, beautiful tree just right out of the window. Maybe my father wasn't right about everything after all, I thought, and gazed some more at the sea, like an enchanted man, waking up after a dark spell. A while later I got up, I got dressed and I went out to buy the newspaper. The day was so beautiful that I felt like basking in the sun. Holding the newspaper, I left my steps guide me to the marina. All around me, people were enjoying their Sunday walk, gazing at the boats. Some were in couples, others in groups of friends, some on their own, others carrying strollers with babies in them, kids running around them without a care in the world and dogs, wagging their tails happily.

          As I was walking among other people who were enjoying their Sunday walk on the marina, my mind was wandering through memories, thoughts and realizations about my life. I had done my share of mistakes in my marriage, but in marriage there are no aggressors or victims and my wife was also responsible for all the miserable years that she spent beside me. How beautifully do children smile, as if there is nothing but the present. I lived my life exactly as my father instructed me to and the other day I read in a book that there is nothing sadder than doing whatever our parents say without asking ourselves whether we really want to. What did I really want out of everything that I had lived and what had I lived out of everything I ever really wanted? In the end working at home is not that bad if you live by the sea. I'll go for a walk every day. I'm certain now that there is a God, if a seagull can spread its wings and fly. All these years, I didn't know how to love. That girl's hair are so beautiful. I want to love again. But until then, I'll learn how to enjoy life even on my own.

          "Ah, halcyon days!", said a middle aged lady to her granddaughter. "Sunny days in the heart of winter". The girl looked up in the sky and tugged on her balloon. Yes, the winter wasn't over yet and I didn't know how many winters I had yet to live. This sunny day, however -  I had earned it.