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It’s not a good week when you have to let go of someone who is very close to you, and yet this week, I found myself doing that, taking a scissor to thread in the tapestry of my fate and yet cutting myself in the process. We had been together for 7 months, a short time in the relative span of our lives (I hope) but the echoes of which will resonate throughout. They were 7 months of amazing memories, of warmth, of laugter and comfort. Maybe too much of the latter.

I lived in a different world and maybe I wasn’t able to share it. My world comes with rules and boundaries as to what I have to do to 1) simply survive 2) be more than what I am and 3) and then live for the future. When I let go of these rules and boundaries I move quickly from 3, to 2, to 1 and then perhaps a layer lower even, where no adult human being should be living, and to quote Christopher Moltisanti, “It’s like the fuckin’ regularness of everyday life is too hard for me.”

It takes a lot from me to operate at a level where I get to live my dreams and at the same time, is what attracts people to love me, even if this is not acknowledged, but to be at that level, or even a level where you are a regular adult means that you need to set rules for yourself. You wake up at a certain time, you go to work, you argue with people twice your age, you watch someone with ‘visibility’ get a promotion, you come home, you cook, clean, and try to bring some semblance to your life through hobbies. Nobody wants to do this, but yet we do, because this is what the world is like. And so I have an alarm for 6AM, and on Saturdays I do my laundry like a good little boy and Sundays do my coursework. And guess what? It works. I’m now in Denmark, I earn a decent wage, I get to do things that I love, with people that I love. I wasn’t born here and didn’t get this for free.

Take away the structure, and you take away everything. Its a zero sum game. Nobody got this job staying in bed and playing Dota2 all day. To quote Mr. Bourdain, “I understand there’s a guy inside me who wants to lay in bed, smoke weed all day, and watch cartoons and old movies. My whole life is a series of stratagems to avoid, and outwit, that guy.” That being said, there is time for the joys in life, when its earned, without resorting to complete and utter nihilism. You cannot only do happy things, sometimes you have to do hard things.

Unfortunately a lot of words to say that I didn’t nurture my world anymore, or rather, couldn’t, and when I couldn’t, it led to friction that lit a massive fire in the middle of a Super Brugson that in the end, we simply couldn’t put out. It was great then that I was able to talk to Ines who I consider a good friend even though we dont get to talk too much or have even met (isn’t that funny how life is like that sometimes?) and she was able to calm me down, and help me in a moment where I thought I was crawling on the walls. It takes a certain something that can exorcise those thoughts out of my mind, and Ines has that something, although, I wish I could be more helpful to her. Either way, it makes me very happy to have her part of my life.

This week has led to a lot of introspection, a lot of shadow work, its easier to look at yourself in the silence, and my apartment has been very silent. It has also had me reevaluating relationships, what do I want from myself, what what do I want to see in someone? These are questions that while I think I know the answer, I abandon my convictions in the name of love (or maybe the fear of loneliness?). I think its important to have integrity and be true to yourself even in a relationship where you love someone, and maybe I haven’t been the best at that. In the end, when I tried, I was told off for it and that was the final nail in the coffin.

It will take some time to adjust being by myself. I don’t think I want to rush into anything. I know that I will achieve many more things in the future, and that my life is so much more than what it is today, but I’m living in the future to make sure what I do today takes me there. I see myself sailing across the Atlantic, and crossing Appalachia on foot and driving down Big Sur and all these other ocean roads. I see myself completing an ultra. I see myself writing, I see myself walking out of my kitchen on a warm summer morning and hearing the sound of breeze in the trees around my quinta, watching my wife and kids splashing in the stone pool, I see the olive trees in the distance, I smell the feijoada on the stove, just like mama made it. I see these things and I know that I will fight the universe every. single. day. to let me have them.

I have to live tomorrow, to do today, what it takes to make it real. Let me tell you parceiro, its lonely living in the future.

And thats a good segue into the rest of my life – the Strokes released their new album Reality Awaits (thoughts incoming soon) and it has been a gift in a way, for my birthday, and for this time in my life. The right music finds its way to you at the right time. Apart from that, this weekend, I met colleagues (well a colleague and an ex-colleague) who I can now consider to be friends.

Friday evening, I made a long and adventurous trip to what Barbara self-describes as the ends of Copenhagen, Rodovre. I took the S train there from Vangede and it showed me a different side of Copenhagen. I like people watching (as you will see throughout the rest of this post) and seeing people from all groups of life heading home at the end of the week made me feel connected with the city. You can really see people winding down, either heading home to go out again, or just to relax, you can feel it in their energy. You see people from different jobs (just opposite me sat a military guy who was very polite, and yet in Kobenhavn H there were guys in suits looking like they stepped out of the TV show, no doubt working at some finance firms), you can see immigrants, locals, visitors, everyone in transit and that is what connects us all, heading somewhere.

When I finally got to Rodovre, its a small S train station, but I took a bus ride to where Barbara lived and it felt so serene, so homely, it almost reminded me of Dona Paula in the 90s/early 2000s, away from the main street, open plots, long walks home, seeing the same people in the bus everyday, knowing the neighbours and wide open spaces. There was something very Napoleon Dynamite and Trailer Park Boys about it (I could almost hear the intro playing as I walked across the football field to her place), that indescribable feeling of entering a life that you’ve already lived that only certain places can bring to you. These are towns with that one massive residential block that would be forgettable in a city filled with many but in a town like this becomes “that building”. Its a perfectly “boring” place, far removed from everything, full of suburban dreams.

Dinner with Barbara was really lovely, it was so nice to see her, learn about her life before and outside of our work, to hear her stories, to experience what she lived all along with some great food and wine. She is someone so full of life, and so meticulous with her perseverance to really live it, that it turns inspiring. Also I loved her apartment because its so her, and not some page torn out of AD or Vogue. I love people who’s apartments are an extension of themselves. As the sun set, we drove deeper into the wines, a traditional Serbian brandy that she got, and sank into deep but comfortable conversation about everything and nothing, the best kind. It made me fill so full in the best way, she is a great reflection of the human spirit.

The next day I managed to wake up in time to clean up a little bit before heading out into central Copenhagen, this time to meet a colleague who I no longer work with, but who is also a great reflection of the human spirit, Jens. We met at Melo, another lovely place that I’m going to put into my mental map of pins, and which I’m sure is going to become a haunt. Its a cozy corner overlooking parts of a square that is absolutely perfect for people watching. Jens waited for me at a bench outside of the wine bar and didn’t see my text so we both ended up waiting for each other, except, my view was probably better.

When he showed up, he was dressed in typical Jens fashion, as a traveller on his way towards something, or coming from something, with his Osprey backpack, this time with a rainbow macrame keychain attached. If there is one thing that you can count on with Jens, is that he’s always vocal about his causes. We quickly delved into a series of wines with some incredible cheese, once again, a combination of good food, drink and conversation, a feast for the senses. We spoke about everything from dance, to real estate, to work to art, to his girlfriend Pia, who couldn’t join us but who he playfully teased with our incredible spread.

After sporting an appropriate buzz we decided to walk about a bit and then have some dinner, where the conversation continued, this time about Denmark and Danish things. Its amusing hearing about this from Jens because he’s a very atypical Dane, but then again, so is Barbara. You can count on them for the truth, even saying it at the expense of themselves.

When the night finally winded down I headed back to my apartment, (Jens in tow after a reconnaissance call to Pia making sure that he would enter the right bus), ruminating on the evening, and the evening before with Barbara. As I headed back and walked through Copenhagen I became a part of the city for a bit, walking through the streets, seeing these incredibly beautiful people all around me dressed so well, laughter in the air, a nice underlying energy of things yet to come and I thought about myself, about what it means to be me, and how I fit into the world around me. Both Jens and Barbara showed me things about who I want to be and how I see myself and for that, I’m very grateful.

I think this week has led me closer towards an idea of what Kenny Silveira is and what he will be, and I need to nurture and protect that idea, sometimes at a cost, and like with all things painful, that is the only way.