The albatross journey

12 - The turning point

Fifteen days earlier

Sanem

Leaving the publishing house was the right choice, it was good for me to get away from that building and that man who was never honest with me and I don't think at this point he ever really thought of publishing my book.
That was just a lure to make me decide to leave the agency, and consequently Can, while Huma did her part by challenging my pride by saying that I would never be able to leave and actually achieve anything in publishing.

A few days after I resigned from the publishing house, to my surprise, I saw the name of the person I never thought would call me again appear on my phone screen.

CAN

I watched that name flash by for a long time, my heart in my throat, while the rings went on and on without me finding the strength to answer.
He called and called again and, after several attempts, the notification trill of a message came through. - Can we please talk? -
For a moment my treacherous heart hoped that he might have changed his mind, that he might have had a change of heart, then the rational part of me managed to call him back on more lenient terms, probably he wanting to explain what really happened in the lobby of that hotel.
There's no need for that anymore, I think, I know everything and right now I don't have the strength to hear his voice, it would be devastating for me and ultimately completely useless.
We have never been able to really talk to each other, he has never allowed us to do so, now it is I who no longer wish to talk to him.
At the end of the day those pictures don't matter, they don't change the fact that he made the decision to leave, there's nothing to talk about. I turned off my phone and, driven by a sudden impulse, removed the SIM card with the intention of buying a new one the next day, I have no intention of having any kind of contact with him anymore, it would just hurt too much.

From that moment on, something snapped in me, I locked myself in my house for days and days without hardly looking up from the laptop screen, I completely rewrote and adapted what used to be my diary and integrated it with the feelings I've been having since I was abandoned by the only man I'm sure I'll ever love in my life.

I hardly noticed the passage of time, I completely immersed myself in my thoughts and this full immersion allowed me, in the end, to put them in order and understand that I gave too much, I gave everything for love and this was not useful, but rather counterproductive.

I tell in my book how the albatross decided to embark on its solitary journey once again, how it spread its majestic wings and flew towards the sun without looking back for a single moment at who it was leaving behind.
This is his nature and nothing and no one will be able to change it, this is what the phoenix in love with him had to accept, it burned in the flames of suffering for abandonment and disappointment, but it learned little by little to find the strength to re-emerge from the ashes of that suffering, from that annihilation that was necessary to be reborn to new life and in a new form.

I end the book with a positive message, an invitation to learn how to react to life's adversities, to seek within oneself that strength which is both the instinct of self-preservation and the need to go on, always and in any case.

I realise that in this moment this is what I am doing, I am learning to find that strength within myself, I am beginning to understand that I must learn to protect myself and give less of myself to others, in love I am aware that I no longer have anything to give to anyone, everything has been given and destroyed by those who have not been able to recognise its value.

I am angry, I feel that despair is slowly turning into anger towards myself, for having allowed myself to be hurt so much, and towards the man who has cast me aside like an object for which he has lost all interest.
I will never again allow anyone to treat me this way, I will never again allow anyone to get close enough to hurt my soul so deeply.