Letters to Italy

31. 8 months later

October  7, 2016

situation:

-grades: bad, very bad
-friends: bad, very bad
-sadness: never been worse
-family: says I'm exaggerating
-Gianluca: still miss him like the first day after the 'break up'
                      haven't seen him again
                      haven't heard from him
-Jonas: simplistic phone calls
-letters: nope
-happy: nope
-life: nope

conclusion: depression?

***

Jonas called me one day. "Aline, I know you try to forget him but I think you should know this: he cried yesterday!" Jonas still wanted me to give it a try again. He still was in Italy, he saw Gianluca sometimes and he was my brother. So he could see the pain from both sides. And apparently it didn't look good. Not on Gianluca's side, not on mine. But I had to hold on and forget him. Because it would never work out, our relationship.

"That's not weird, I cry every day", I answered emotionless although it hurt me to think he still needed to cry too, after 8 months.

"No, you don't understand it. He cried on stage! For you! I'm sure about that."

I felt guilty now. Crying on stage in front of your audience isn't really what an artist wants. I was speechless for a second. "Eh...why?...When?"

"Yesterday evening," he said. "Piero showed me the video a fan made of it. It was at the end of Aranjuez." I already got it. It always looked like he cried during that song. But this time it was for real. All because of me. I didn't even know he sang that song again. Perhaps he should've chosen a different song, a less emotional one.

Jonas sent me the video. Intendedly I didn't want to see it, but after two days I couldn't hold on anymore. I opened the link and saw him singing the song. With every fiber of his body. So emotional. And there it was, he cried. You clearly could see a teardrop rolling down his cheek. It only was the first, there followed more and more. It was so hard to see him cry on stage. Actually, it was hard just to see him cry. Doesn't matter where or when.

After the song he ran off stage without further explanation. I wanted to embrace him and cheer him up. But how was I supposed to do that. And how could I cheer someone up, me, the one who looked like a zombie all the time. The one who cried day and night.

***

In the beginning I still listened to Il Volo, but it was not very effective to forget about Gianluca. So about 8 months later, I tried to find other music to listen to and try to forget my Il Volo life. I found a group from the Netherlands where I used to listen to about 10 years ago. They already split up but the songs will never disappear. It was real music, just like Il Volo music. But a different style. There was one song that got my attention. I kept listening to it. Probably because it reminded me of Gianluca. It seemed like it was written for us. A kind of soundtrack for us if we were a movie. 'This is how it is', that's how it was called. The only thing in the song that wasn't really correct was that our love was not gone. Definetely not! And my love for Gianluca will never go away.

The song didn't really fit in the plan of forgetting Gianluca but it still helped me in some way. I tried to convince myself by listening to it, that I had made the right decision. Since the moment I found that song, I listened to it every day, non-stop.

"If we can't hold on, then we've got to let it go." That's what I said too. Sometimes I sang along very loud. Other times I cried for hours, lying in my bed, the music very loud. On repeat.

"Together, forever, wasn't meant to be!" I screamed. My mom often came into my room to turn the volume down. "Your ears!" she said. Probably the two most used words by my mom those days.

"We seemed to have it all. We couldn't find the strength no more. To hold on to the dreams we've shared. If we can't hold on, then we've got to let it go. Will it ever come around? No I just don't know."

December 10, 2016

I tried to ignore my twitter account as much as possible, but sometimes I was just too curious. The fans from Il Volo knew my name since I dated with Gianluca. So there were a lot of tweets directed to me.

"What did you do to him?"

"You changed Gianluca!"

"Please come to Italy and be with Gianluca so he is happy again."

I definitely wouldn't expect a tweet like that last one. After reading that, I closed my twitter account. I didn't want to see it anymore. It would make me doubt about my decision again. And it was better just to hold on and try to forget him.

It was more difficult than I thought. Certainly after 10 months. I had almost exams again. The exams from last year weren't that good. I was sure this time it wasn't going to be an improvement. I had to do the exams from this year plus the ones I didn't pass last years. So in the end I had to do one extra year to make sure I pass every single exam. So if I still was a couple with Gianluca, it would even be longer before I could go to Italy forever.

It all made me more sad than I already was. Nothing had changed after 10 months without him. It even had become worse. The situation was so bad, my mom decided to take me to the doctor. I thought that was weird. I wasn't sick. Althought I had a lot of stomach ache and headaches. The first from stress, the second from crying all the time.

My mom had to force me to walk with her to the doctor. I finally did. Just to make her stop asking it to me.

"That's obvious!" the man said. "She's lovesick!" My mom rolled with her eyes. And I looked as emotionless as before, ignoring everyone that was talking to me. "Unfortunately I don't have a cure for that," he said to my mom. "And it's not rare. It's very common. But she is on a very high level it seems." He looked shocked when he heard it was already ten months ago we broke up.

"What? She looks like it happened yesterday. Or at least somewhere this month. Then I think she has a depression too."

"I really didn't need a doctor to know that," I said pissed. "I'm sorry," my mother said, "before she met that boy, she was always very friendly. She changed." The doctor nodded to say it was okay and that he understood. But I was sure he didn't understand a single thing of what I was feeling. No one did.

"But there's another thing!" he suddenly said.