I thought I'd gotten away clean, unscathed - just about survived. Some months passed, and I didn't think or feel much of anything. Then some years passed, I thought I'd felt something at times, perhaps a glimmer of real - but nothing like before. And then one day whilst I was clearing the attic with my wife, she found a camera lodged between two wooden beams, underneath some boxes of old furniture. A 35mm Kodak film camera, covered in dust and looking as if it had aged as sourly as I have. My wife held it up as she turned to look at me, questioning if I knew anything of it, my eyes gave away my answer before my lips could open to say the words. "Yes" I responded, "it was the first camera I ever owned, my mother gave it to me as a gift when I turned eighteen."
She gave a warm smirk as she handed me the camera, I forced a smile back and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. As I took the camera into the palm of my hand, in an instant I was taken back to the sense of self I'd lost for the past two decades. I thought this was what peace felt like - until I met an old friend named nostalgia. She made me realise I was surviving, simply existing and not living. I'd never thought so introspectively until the day I found that camera again - I'd realised I'd stopped feeling at the fickle age of twenty one and never felt again.
At the not so fickle age of forty one, I spent that evening staring into the walls as I spoke with my family over dinner, staring into the ceiling as I lay in bed with my wife, and staring at the strange man pretending to be me, as I realised I'd been so doing for the past twenty years.
The next morning, I left early for work so I could stop by the camera shop to get the pictures developed. Probably the greatest mistake of my life, I thought as I walked down the high street, but I had no choice over my decisions anymore -nostalgia owned me and she did as she pleased with me. I'm her puppet and sometimes, in sporadic moments, she flicks the strings attached to the parts of my mind that remember you.
Simultaneously, I felt guilt, guilt for what I was feeling, guilt for the lie I now realised I'd been living. But how was I to know that I'd lied to myself, when time had cast it's spell on my soul, protecting me from my pain by burying those memories so deeply that they were blurry - less than blurry in fact. A strawberry stops tasting like a strawberry when it's just a seedling again, sitting under the soil - waiting to grow. I left the camera with the shop, they explained it was damaged from aging and dust, me too I thought, but they said they'd try their best to get the photos from it, and to come back to collect them in a few days time.
When I was eighteen, I'd decided to leave for a year to go and live abroad before studying. I left England to go to live in Portugal for a year. I'd found an opportunity to teach English, my best subject and future aspiration. I moved to Lisbon, not knowing a word of Portuguese, not knowing much of anything about anything really. I've always described it as the year of my life, it was the best time I ever had. In fact I loved it so much, I decided to stay for another year. And then another before I eventually came back to England.
When I got back, after all that had happened, I wasn't the same anymore - that bright eyed, extroverted boy had died at the airport, the very minute the wheels left the tarmac. I always wanted to be a writer, I told her about about it over shared bottles of wine in the streets of Lisbon. I didn't just speak about it in fact, I wrote to her, I wrote of her and perhaps some piece of her exists in everything I still write - she knew who I really was, who I really am.
I felt alive, as if I had something of substance to offer this world, people seemed engaged when they spoke with me - they had a look in their eye. I was infectiously happy. When I got back, I turned 21 shortly after. I started working as a clerk at a bank. I took courses in finance, I climbed the rungs of the ladder as best I could, I pretended, I acted or you could even say I was a method actor whom got so into character that he forgot he was in character for the rest of his life. As time passed, and it passed quickly and meaninglessly, I met my wife, I had children, I bought a house and got a mortgage. We went on holidays each summer and spent Christmases with her family, as my mother had passed whilst I was in Portugal, and she was the only family I ever had. It's funny, one year, my wife suggested we went to Portugal for our summer vacation. I quickly searched for a cheaper deal to Spain - I couldn't face meeting my friend Nostalgia - not just yet.
My mother had always encouraged me to write, she'd always said she could see my affection for it since I was a kid. I wrote her letters every week during my time in Portugal, and she even came to visit me a couple of times. My mother was the closest friend I ever had, we spoke about everything - she knew me better than I knew myself. I never knew my Father, and she'd say the same if you asked her whether she knew him. When my mother passed, she was there to support me, she sat with me and propped me up as I slowly healed, as I slowly grieved the passing of my greatest friend. When my mother died, my love for writing died too. Without her constant encouragement, and through the desperate sadness - I slowly retired from my purpose. My typewriter collected dust, sat alone in a dingy corner of my small Portuguese apartment.
My affection for the girl from Lisbon grew, she became more than a romantic interest - somewhat something of family. I felt a profound sense of safeness when I was around her, like I was protected from the world around me - my happiness was guarded by her. I knew it was a dangerous way to feel, so vulnerable to her that she could break my entire being in an instant. But as we all know deep down, romance and pragmatism don't coexist - they can't. There is no romance without spontaneity - there is nothing real with practicality. She felt the same way, she never put it into words, but there's a look in someone's eyes that tells you everything you need to know. My affection was so deep that it stained the memories of even the finest details of my time with her on my soul.
The camera reminds me, it takes me back to the exact time. The way we'd lie in bed talking for hours, freely with no fear. The way she'd look into my eyes as she gently flicked my curly brown hair behind my ear. I even remember how she smelt, I even walked past someone one year who wore the same perfume - my eyes turned to a glassy whirlpool and my wife asked why I was crying.
After three days, that felt like 3 years had past, I left for work early again to collect the pictures from the shop. In fact, I never went to work that day - not after I saw those pictures. I didn't know you could experience heartbreak twice from the same person, but nostalgia did - she knows exactly how to kill me.
I flicked through the photos, my sadness growing deeper, and then that's when I saw the photo I feared most. There you stood, tall and elegant with the smile that runs through my mind everywhere I look. You were standing at the airport, ready to board your flight. A one way ticket to the opportunity of your dreams. I never wanted you to leave, but I wanted so badly for you to achieve what you so badly wanted. The scholarship was the opportunity of a lifetime - people like us weren't meant to have access to these types of opportunities. I kissed you goodbye, not realising it was the last time I'd ever kiss you.
We wrote letters every week and then one day you stopped writing. I hated you for that. I hated you for months, even though I could never really hate you. I hated how much I loved you. I thought, maybe perfect isn't really real and just as people say - everything is temporary. Even a romance so poignant. I realised it had unfortunately or fortunately, been just that - perfect. I realised how wrong I was to hate you, the day a letter from the states arrived in my post box. The letter read:
" Dear Michael,
I'm so sorry to be writing this so late. I can't fathom how you must be feeling, Mathilde hasn't written back for the last few weeks as she sadly passed away in a car accident whilst on her way to University.
I'm so sorry for your loss and wanted you to know how highly she spoke of you. She missed you so dearly, she told me how much she loved you every day. And all the hope she had for a future with you. She was the most intelligent person I've met, and was inevitably going to achieve her dream.
As you know, Mathilde didn't have any family, except for you as she'd often say. There will be a small funeral held for her on June 21st. I know she'd want you to be there. "
I still have that letter, in the back of a drawer - hidden from my wife. More so hidden from myself. I never went to the funeral, I didn't have enough money for the flight. I couldn't have faced it either. I just wanted to forget. And I thought I did. I couldn't even tell anyone how I felt for her, how highly I thought of her - we were both alone in the world, knowing only of each other.
Now I sit and wonder into the abyss every day. I wonder about the life I could have had. I feel dead. I'm 41 years old but I've already died twice. Nostalgia follows me everywhere I go, but I suppose in a way, a very dark and painful way, she helped me. Sometimes I think me and Nostalgia were meant to meet this way, I'm writing again, I'm writing everyday. I wonder if I was meant to meet Mathilde again this way, to check on me, to force me to pursue my passion - not to waste a single day more. I look at my wife, my family, I love them but I feel guilt every time I look at them. Nostalgia, she makes me feel guilty for not being able to tell them about the greatest story of my life. I question if I'm wrong for being with my wife everyday, I question what love means to me anymore. Nostalgia makes me ask myself if I'm even a good person. I only know one person who could tell me how to feel about this, and she died in 1986.