Fazla soze gerek yok

Why you should call your long lost friends

Turns out we are never too old for parental advise or warnings.
Turns out my mother was right about not running down the stairs.

Hanging out with my ditsy self proved to have its consequences. I was expecting an important phone call (yes, from a boy, but nothing like what you are thinking), and my brains and my phone were scattered around the house as usual. As I was building the first Turkish spacecraft ever in my room, I heard my phone ring downstairs. I took a run for it.

You can guess what happened next. Monday, bloody Monday, Monday, bloody Monday... Oh Bono!

My is back out and I am bruised all over. I have been instructed bed rest for a week and muscle relaxant injections on daily basis. Bed rest is a torment for someone who is as energetic and naughty as myself. I have exhausted all the magazines and DVDs at home. It is super frustrating not being able to dance, especially when the competition is so close. :(( I also have to wear a corset, but I am not gonna complain about that :) I feel pretty, oh so pretty... Oh West Side Story!

As bored as I am, I am starting take this experience as a bliss. In addition to breakfasts in bed and I am receiving flowers & cards and more importantly, phone calls from long lost friends, exs, their families.... I knew that they were always there for me but it had been a long time I had been reminded.

It got me thinking, why does it take some sort of a personal flash news to reconnect with the people who used to be dear to us?

I guess when we lose touch for a certain time, we feel the need to have a valid excuse to get back in touch with them... as if, if we called someone out of the blue, it would make us less cool in their eyes or as if it would be a pathetic gesture !@$%????? Others are intimidated by the possibility of awkward moments that could arise.

I fail to grasp how we got so concerned with our images that friendship and love came secondary? When have we traded sincerity for posing? The irony of is that someone who is so pre-occupied with being cool is obviously NOT a cool person and nothing is cooler than a free-flowing person, freed of cultural norms and inhibitions. And if you are cool indeed, you will tackle those awkward moments just fine.

I am sure that everyone has person whose soul existence in their lives has diminished to a sad phonebook entry. Everyone should to get over themselves, and give them a call.

At least, make sure to make me run down the stairs time to time. 'Cause my spacecraft is far from being complete, so my next news flash won't be any time soon.

This goes down to my very first crush ever

I used to travel to Sweden about 4-5 times a year to visit my father. First, I would be overjoyed by our reunion, but later the ADD typical to 13 year olds would creep in. I would manage to keep myself busy with the yummy Swedish hot dogs and H&M for a few more days but soon or later I would be overtaken by boredom (which can be blamed for my occasional existential angst). That was when my parents picked up the embarrassing habit of asking their friends, "Can your kid be friends with mine?"

Awkward introductions were followed by awkward acquaintances. A 16 year old nympho, a 9 year old who was desperate for attention and finally a 13 year old "princes" were among some of my friends. I met him in one of these dreaded attempts of my parents to find me friends.

He did not talk much, he was the shy kind, maybe because of his poor Turkish. Our first day together did not require much talking anyways as we spent the entire day on rollercoasters. Our friendship which started with a high dose of adrenalin turned into hours long TV sessions over the next years. We would sit on his bed and zap between The Simpsons and Beavis and Butt-head. Weirdly, those were precious moment of insight to his world moments although we did not talk much:

- A Green Day poster on the wall, he is cool > check
- An astronomy book by his bed; cultured > check
- No football, nor soccer team flags in his room > check
- An electro guitar, he has a garage band > check
- Zaps when he sees Dawson's Creek > check
- Offers me snacks > check :)))
- Gym bag; athletic > check
- His girlfriend's bale shoes from when she was 4!! > :'(

In those awkward moments of sitting on the bed in quiet my heart would skip a beat.

Our families continued to hang out until we are 16 or 17, so I got to see him once or twice until then. He made my heart skip a beat every time.

It was not until I was 28 that we got to hang out again. Much to my pleasure, he turned out to be a great young man. Still handsome, athletic, cool, cultured, and to my surprise, a great conversationalist.

Seeing him after all those years got me thinking of love and the power of it. Love is the source of all motivation and inspiration.

I want to thank him for making me write again.





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Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
R. D. Laing