Let's Do Something Crazy, Absolutely Wrong

You were there, it was real. You didn't know I had been daydreaming of you, in the fog of my thoughts. I had been sick for almost a couple of weeks. Then when you asked me on the phone if I wanted to join you at the dining room, I thought “Ok”. And then we talked for half an hour or so. You spoke a lot, I told you a few things. Basically I told you how sad and frustrating it is to be like me. Like having this big desire of writing, a thousand ideas filling my brain like bees inside a swarm looking for air, and then to make a thousand mistakes while beating up the wrong letter in the computer keyboard. Basically I told you how bittersweet it is to be who I am. You know. I am experienced, I love my job, but I should have an opportunity to stop looking for temporary contracts. You know, I've been looking for opportunities my entire life. Ten years ago I was having my PhD dissertation, so far I have almost 20 published papers, ten years of teaching experience, I am National Researcher Level II. And in the near future there are no opportunities for me to stop looking for temporary contracts. These kind of contracts give me the opportunity to teach, but they're so short –from 3 to 6 months– and I can't perform my own research. Besides, they will not last forever. 

Of course I told you these things differently, not as I am writing of them right now. I am tired, Saturday morning is about to come. As I am waiting for the miracle to come, as Leonard Cohen whispers thru the headphones. I am asleep. It's 6: 30 am. And I've been wasting my waking time for almost an hour. 

As we spoke a couple of days ago in the dining room, I felt you were interested in my talk. It was weird. For times I remembered the way I had been daydreaming of you, when I was sick, in the fog of my thoughts. Sunlight irradiated your face. I hadn't seen the color of your eyes, neither the color of your hair. But sunlight made them look so warm. And you smiled all the time, and I couldn't stop telling myself that I was an animal, that I couldn't stop thinking that I would make it with you, that I would like to discover what kind of woman are you. Then you told me that you cried in a meeting. That you felt awful and silly. Then we talked about diseases.

I felt you sort of admired me. And I sort of remembered how it was our first meeting, 3 years ago. Then I was so sick of being some sort of academic outsider. I had 3 years working in the same university, but I was stuck. It was not the best time of my life. Then you appeared out of nowhere and you walked beside me and you ignored me. I saw you were so tall and I thought you were sort of conceited. I sort of hated you. 

Sunlight irradiated you face. You spoke about a couple of students that told our Department Head that they didn't like you. That they were not the biggest fans of psychoanalysis. I told you I understood your point. I told you about my own experience with a few students in the Covid-19 pandemic. When Zoom was the only way we could teach classes. When I had no recess, when I worked from 8 am to 10 pm on a daily basis, when students were some sort of ghosts behind the closed cameras of Zoom. 

I need go back to sleep. I have a terrible headache. I am tired. I am listening to Leonard Cohen, in particular this song I used to associate with an ex, but now I know I will associate it with you. I will remember this meeting we had a couple of days ago in the dining room of the university, as students walked and talked and ate around us. I wonder what did they think about us. I will remember how you behaved. The way in which you seemed to admire me. I don't know your age, I just kinda sensed that you're younger than me by the way you hear me and look at me, and I also kinda feel that I'm at this age in which people like you seem to know that I am not nobody. I don't know if I am being clear enough. I sense that people like you look at me as an experienced guy. Like if I were in an 'interesting age'. That I know something. That, if I wanted to, I could make it happen, that I could make it with you, that, ironically, I could make the biggest business of my life.

But I am just waiting for the miracle to come, as Leonard whispers thru the headphones.