After going so long without updating, I finally decided that it's time for me to finish what I started. Whether you like the ending or you don't, my personal opinion that it is all total bullshit, but it's cute bullshit nonetheless. Well, this is the end of the era. The end!
Chapter 10
There are times when people live happilly ever afer, and times when they do not. There are times when good bye's are musts, and hello's are inevitable. There are times when kissing someone is equivalent to hurting them, and hurting someone is the same as loving them. People expess their emotions any way they see fit, and judging them for that is generally a bad idea.
There is no such thing as a flawless human. Perfection is a state of being so far from reality that the combined efforts of the Id and the Superego cannot quelch the inner thirst of the individual. People are fucked up and that is just the way things are, and it is quite inevitable that they are doomed to love those who shun them most. One must accept these truths to achieve mental health, one must understand that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. And life does not end when the movie ends, when you close the book, when you put down your reading glasses at the end of a chapter. Life continues theoretically even for the sad, tortured souls in the novels, life continues for everyone until death. Happilly ever after, just like Perfection, does not exist. Existence is a chain of highs and lows, lows more frequent than highs, but in the end it's all worth it. And tears only make it that much easier to drift to more happiness. And today, the man you love might hate you, while tomorrow, a beautiful stranger might find your smile alluring although you've never even thought that way about your smile. And when one loses everything, the hardest thing to do is to keep on living, but it is also the most productive. And if everyone ever asks for advice, say simply, "Keep on living."
Arnold showed up by Helga's door dressed in simple attire, his face with that forlorn ruggedness that she so admired. She stared at him for a moment, trying to understand why he had come. She knew deep down the reason. Before she even had to speak, before she had to ask what he was doing there, to pretend that she was angry, that she didn't still feel as she had always felt, that she still hadn't forgiven him, he cut the bullshit and he told her the truth.
"I love you, Helga," he said, his voice no longer weak. He was flawlessly alive when he said these words to her, when her eyes teared a little and he wanted to hold her in his arms.
She stood silently, watching his face, wanting to say something, but being speechless.
"You were my first everything," he whispered and she opened her eyes wide, remembering herself saying something oddly similar. "You were my first reason, my first concern, my first untamed desire. You were my first kiss, Helga, the first time I felt safe in someone's arms. And I'm not poetic like you, I can't do certain things, or say certain things, and I'm probably going to betray you and I most deffinitely don't deserve, yet I can't stand the thought of losing you. And maybe we can't be happy together, maybe we'll kill each other before the day is over, but what would matter is not how it ends but how it begins. So let me hold this afternoon, and let me kiss you like I love you, and say sweet things to you and mean them. Let me make love to you and understand how much I have without first having to lose it. I'm not asking you to forget, Helga. Just forgive me, because your heart is pure and beautiful, and because you are beautiful and flawless and perfect, you are the height of what a woman can be, and should be. You are you know, you think you're not, and still you are."
And he was back, all of a sudden. The boy that she had loved once when she was a little younger and a little dumber. And she remembered someone else saying what he had said to her, and she could only believe him. For it didn't matter to her if the world proclaimed her or despised her, as long as he loved her. For he did love her, he had admitted it, and she realized all of a sudden that she unconditionally loved him, that she never stopped loving him, only subdued it for a little while. And she knew that they probably wouldn't be unconditionally happy together, and she didn't care about unconditional happiness. And then she remembered all those fairy tales, and all those cliche quotes she'd heard so often recited by depressed women.
Love means never having to say I'm sorry. Who do you turn to when the only person in the world who could stop you from crying is the one making you cry? Never frown, you don't know who's falling in love with your smile. The man who's worth your tears won't make you cry.
There was so much she could say, and just as she was about to utter, "You had me at hello," he pulled her in his arms and kissed her on lips so passionately that she broke into tears against his embrace. He noticed it and wiped them away, stroking her cheek tenderly, looking deeply into her eyes.
"I love you so much," she whispered, "I would make a joke about this being so corny right now if I didn't love you so much."
He smiled and buried her in his arms, placing her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and inhaled his aroma and for the first time realized how good he smelled. And even though after their happy ending they would go on to have many sad reprieves, Helga and Arnold would grow old together and understand that life is only futile when it is without love. Somewhere between breakfast and dinner, between the champagne and the wine, and the horrible hopelessness of eternity, they did live out the amount of happiness that they deserved, and they continued living, theoretically, after it was all over. What plagued the change within their subconscious was a matter too touchy to discuss, albeit to say that while some people change, others do not. What they suppressed as they grew from children into adults, they regained again within one another for, indeed, they knew one another as children. And while it could have ended with tears of despair, it ended with tears of happiness that marked the beginning of something new. Not everyone in the world achieves forgiveness, and those who do share the most happy moments in life. In truth, Arnold and Helga came to understand that happiness was not a cigarette, or a chocolate, or an orgasm, happiness was living those little moments in between, and having someone to hold when the going got tough. And while it is seductive to conclude that the happy ending was perpetual, it is the author's duty to end the struggle by saying only that the kept on living.
THE END
Chapter 10
There are times when people live happilly ever afer, and times when they do not. There are times when good bye's are musts, and hello's are inevitable. There are times when kissing someone is equivalent to hurting them, and hurting someone is the same as loving them. People expess their emotions any way they see fit, and judging them for that is generally a bad idea.
There is no such thing as a flawless human. Perfection is a state of being so far from reality that the combined efforts of the Id and the Superego cannot quelch the inner thirst of the individual. People are fucked up and that is just the way things are, and it is quite inevitable that they are doomed to love those who shun them most. One must accept these truths to achieve mental health, one must understand that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. And life does not end when the movie ends, when you close the book, when you put down your reading glasses at the end of a chapter. Life continues theoretically even for the sad, tortured souls in the novels, life continues for everyone until death. Happilly ever after, just like Perfection, does not exist. Existence is a chain of highs and lows, lows more frequent than highs, but in the end it's all worth it. And tears only make it that much easier to drift to more happiness. And today, the man you love might hate you, while tomorrow, a beautiful stranger might find your smile alluring although you've never even thought that way about your smile. And when one loses everything, the hardest thing to do is to keep on living, but it is also the most productive. And if everyone ever asks for advice, say simply, "Keep on living."
Arnold showed up by Helga's door dressed in simple attire, his face with that forlorn ruggedness that she so admired. She stared at him for a moment, trying to understand why he had come. She knew deep down the reason. Before she even had to speak, before she had to ask what he was doing there, to pretend that she was angry, that she didn't still feel as she had always felt, that she still hadn't forgiven him, he cut the bullshit and he told her the truth.
"I love you, Helga," he said, his voice no longer weak. He was flawlessly alive when he said these words to her, when her eyes teared a little and he wanted to hold her in his arms.
She stood silently, watching his face, wanting to say something, but being speechless.
"You were my first everything," he whispered and she opened her eyes wide, remembering herself saying something oddly similar. "You were my first reason, my first concern, my first untamed desire. You were my first kiss, Helga, the first time I felt safe in someone's arms. And I'm not poetic like you, I can't do certain things, or say certain things, and I'm probably going to betray you and I most deffinitely don't deserve, yet I can't stand the thought of losing you. And maybe we can't be happy together, maybe we'll kill each other before the day is over, but what would matter is not how it ends but how it begins. So let me hold this afternoon, and let me kiss you like I love you, and say sweet things to you and mean them. Let me make love to you and understand how much I have without first having to lose it. I'm not asking you to forget, Helga. Just forgive me, because your heart is pure and beautiful, and because you are beautiful and flawless and perfect, you are the height of what a woman can be, and should be. You are you know, you think you're not, and still you are."
And he was back, all of a sudden. The boy that she had loved once when she was a little younger and a little dumber. And she remembered someone else saying what he had said to her, and she could only believe him. For it didn't matter to her if the world proclaimed her or despised her, as long as he loved her. For he did love her, he had admitted it, and she realized all of a sudden that she unconditionally loved him, that she never stopped loving him, only subdued it for a little while. And she knew that they probably wouldn't be unconditionally happy together, and she didn't care about unconditional happiness. And then she remembered all those fairy tales, and all those cliche quotes she'd heard so often recited by depressed women.
Love means never having to say I'm sorry. Who do you turn to when the only person in the world who could stop you from crying is the one making you cry? Never frown, you don't know who's falling in love with your smile. The man who's worth your tears won't make you cry.
There was so much she could say, and just as she was about to utter, "You had me at hello," he pulled her in his arms and kissed her on lips so passionately that she broke into tears against his embrace. He noticed it and wiped them away, stroking her cheek tenderly, looking deeply into her eyes.
"I love you so much," she whispered, "I would make a joke about this being so corny right now if I didn't love you so much."
He smiled and buried her in his arms, placing her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and inhaled his aroma and for the first time realized how good he smelled. And even though after their happy ending they would go on to have many sad reprieves, Helga and Arnold would grow old together and understand that life is only futile when it is without love. Somewhere between breakfast and dinner, between the champagne and the wine, and the horrible hopelessness of eternity, they did live out the amount of happiness that they deserved, and they continued living, theoretically, after it was all over. What plagued the change within their subconscious was a matter too touchy to discuss, albeit to say that while some people change, others do not. What they suppressed as they grew from children into adults, they regained again within one another for, indeed, they knew one another as children. And while it could have ended with tears of despair, it ended with tears of happiness that marked the beginning of something new. Not everyone in the world achieves forgiveness, and those who do share the most happy moments in life. In truth, Arnold and Helga came to understand that happiness was not a cigarette, or a chocolate, or an orgasm, happiness was living those little moments in between, and having someone to hold when the going got tough. And while it is seductive to conclude that the happy ending was perpetual, it is the author's duty to end the struggle by saying only that the kept on living.
THE END