16- Beautiful things you have ever had in your hands

I stopped demanding smiles from the world a long time ago, smiles that I thought those passers-by owed me as they crossed my path to work. Mainly because I realized that even the smallest detail should be reciprocal to be truly fair. So, I learned that I didn't like being single in the spring, and that's why it was my favorite time to buy new dresses with floral prints. Happiness was the inevitable side effect that emerged when I tried to carry out this action: leaving behind my longing for freedom and simply forgetting. Forgetting her. And to do that, I fought against myself every morning when her name flew like a black and white film strip and landed on my retina. I replaced coffee and chocolate muffins with cigarettes and a state of cynicism that I apparently had been born with and had recently discovered. I tried to make the taste of coffee and the new dresses I wore over my sneakers expel the bitter taste of nostalgia from my mind. Sometimes hating your ex, or at least believing they are a despicable person or feeling disappointed, helps you value yourself and move on. But when you know that their soul is the purest and most beautiful thing you have ever had in your hands, things get really messed up.
Every morning, I would caress myself, losing myself in the sensation caused by the first rays of sun on my skin, as if I could find Patrick in the dust particles evaporating under the sunlight. Lana del Rey would sing to me every morning, telling me how treacherous life can be if you turn off the radio and don't listen to her sing, because her baby won't be loving her; with Dorian, I would go to work, taking me anywhere else without showing me where my artificial paradises were hidden, and the sustained notes of a piano accompanied my nights along with Birdy's voice. I got stuck in that place between forgetting and heartbreak, from which one never really recovers twice, I stayed because, as I caressed her one last time, I forgot to spot where the exit was. I was subtracting from my mind every morning what was obvious, that I still loved her, and adding what was specific: her absence.
In that way, I allied myself with the cold morning showers of musk scents and the warm nightly baths by candlelight. It was very simple, if I didn't think about Patrick, I walked carefully to avoid stumbling upon his memory, and my cognitive links didn't trigger an anxiety attack. If I completely forgot his name, it could be said that I had a successful day: no tears, no stomach-pinching, or burning lungs due to suffocation. I survived. From the first day, I immersed myself in the selfish diet of not thinking about happiness until I found a meaning that was detached from my life with her, as sweet as cinnamon. I distanced myself from New Orleans, I forgot about my friends in Venezuela where I couldn't talk about myself without thinking of her. I reinvented myself through inaction, like being in a coveted dream, where I could touch the softness of her chest and discover new freckles. My ultimate vice was not thinking about her, the one that I always wanted to leave behind when I saw the starry nights of New York. One of those stars with millions of messages, one of them now only sits at the bottom of the drawer waiting for Patrick to open the first drawer of my nightstand again in search of pink mascara to write "I miss you" on the TV screen. A testament of five letters, I never really knew what to do with those words.
I had wasted too much time waiting to caress the pages that I no longer needed to turn because the fear of never again feeling my heart beating in my hand and injecting ink into me invaded me. Then I understood that it was time to pick up the pen. Sometimes I sinned, I wrote letters to Patrick that he would probably never read. I told him that his back was the best canvas I could admire, without anything written on it, only the doubts of a chill that sent shivers down my soul, and that I was willing to unravel in his skin. And that I was also willing to unravel his fears, to face mine.
Once Patrick disappeared from my life, my grandfather fell ill. One morning, he felt a disturbing pressure in his prostate, followed by a strong urge to urinate and numerous failed attempts. Leslie and I took him to the doctor, after several tests and spending the morning in the emergency room, we returned home with my grandfather and a catheter hanging from his hand. Over time, we called it "his wallet", where he would put his euros and golden coins every time he laughed a lot, drank coconut water, or simply had to go to the bank to empty his wallet. My family began to show new cracks, and unlike the ones Patrick got to know, these were visible to everyone.
One day, Virginia went to my grandfather's house in Sabadell, thirty minutes from the heart of New York. Virginia knew about my grandfather's health situation and she is one of my dearest friends, but she couldn't hide her look of compassion at the table when she saw our oldest and most cherished relative eat his lunch with excessive slowness. She examined his lost gaze and the difficulty he had in sitting next to us; he gave her a smile, showing his golden teeth, and wished her a good appetite. Isa looked at him nobly, and then looked at me as if she had just discovered a large, fresh, and red wound that hadn't finished healing, but instead was waiting for expectations that my grandfather's health would improve. That was the last time I brought a friend to my grandfather's house. I didn't want anyone to look at me with pity for having one of the people I've loved the most in delicate health. My grandparents always loved me unconditionally, and to this day, I believe that the only happy moments I've had in my life are those in a neutral state when I had everything without needing anything other than their presence and my breath cooling the wind coming through the window. I felt fortunate to have my grandfather alive. I called him "dad" and I would like everyone to look at him in that way. In a way, showing Virginia that injury in my family tree strengthened our bond of trust and made me close it off with everyone else.