WHAT COMES TO MIND IN THE SHOWER AT THE END OF THE DAY

MARIANA

Today I missed her. And I realized that in all the years we've been together, I've never visited the bottom line of her Instagram.The first time I saw Mariana, about 5 years ago, she was nervous. And that's a story I'll always enjoy. She had a problem, and none of the bitter, tired, and clearly underpaid employees behind the college's student services desk seemed willing to help. Her pronounced accent was the comical break in the situation and I silently thanked the universe because the next break would easily be an ornament in the room or someone's glasses. The blonde, tall and notoriously beautiful girl walked away from the counter, angry and her face was very reddish. I got up from one of the uncomfortable and broken chairs in the waiting room and touched her arm.

"What exactly do you need, lady?"

And I saw a series of different expressions run across her face. But I can say that one of them was relief that someone was willing to resolve her distress. From then on, we resolved each other's concerns almost daily. At least we tried. And she became the sister that the journey gave me.

Mariana has attentive eyes and embarks on the narrative. And two weeks ago she embarked for a place 3736.4km away. I still can't accept her leaving, despite understanding all the reasons and agreeing with each one of them. But with the farewell, I understood that a part of my existence is directly linked to hers and I never imagined having to place an entire country between these existences. I spent the first few days dedicated to revisiting as many memories as possible, until I realized that this was much more painful than necessary. What do you do when the person who tells me that everything is going to be fine is the center of my restlessness?

Generally I am a practical person, I go straight to solving the problem. But not when it comes to Mariana. Mariana is the most sensitive thing in me. Nobody talks about Mariana to me. A lot of this arc was heavy. And I consciously reflected on the cutout of Mariana that I had access to. I'm going to use an egocentric expression, but I would like you to understand it as "that which existed beyond the interval in which I participated and was able to observe".

"Before me" Mariana collected many stories, and her excited smile was always a very striking feature. She has a child's enthusiasm for exploring the world and this makes her one of the most enlightened and captivating human beings I've had the gift of meeting. But let's go back to visiting the bottom line of Mariana's Instagram. A child. Mariana reflected the soul of a child. Eight posts later her eyes had changed. It's not possible to say that something was wrong, but things certainly weren't as they were at the beginning (from the Instagram clipping). Six more posts later, Mariana had tears in her eyes. Even with so much light, with such beautiful landscapes, beyond the beauty itself. Perhaps at this point she was questioning her own choices. And possibly, knowing her so well was the reason I heard her voice asking hundreds of questions while she looked at the photos.

Here, I felt the heat of a heavy tear. Of empathy, of longing and of love.

She was stolen from herself for a long time and maybe she never realized it. She forced herself to believe in the concepts of happiness and fulfillment that she had been taught over the past few years. But after all, what was Mariana made for?

I really needed space to think about her and everything she represents. I've already asked myself why I hadn't thought about it while she was here. But I take comfort and joy in knowing that every moment was used to build the memories that make her feel so "here."

At the last dinner I told her I loved her. I whispered, even with she being far. At the table, while everything around seemed to lower the volume. The conversation of the girls and the other tables, the sax, the hot dishes on the counter, the glasses, the waiters' shoes on the wooden floor. I stared at my soul sister for two seconds and received the typical gleeful look of judgment from her that usually comes followed by my name pronounced with the purposefully incorrect stressed syllable to correct me for whatever I was doing. I could only smile. I couldn't let her see me cry. It would be even more difficult for her.

The silence was out of love, I swear.

The void between words can carry more than you imagine. Even so, without a hint of embarrassment, I shouted in the parking lot of that chic restaurant, in an upscale neighborhood, "I love you, Mariana."