My heart is too heavy today… for no apparent reason. Nothing exceptionally bad happened but still I am not able to cheer myself up. Since I came home, I had plenty of spare time, I was reading this book called “Eleven Minutes” by Paolo Coelho. For my entire life, I did not get enough chance and interest to read story books, neither did anybody encourage me…
Now when I don’t any friends or a social life and my parents don’t bother about what I should do in my spare time to find peace of mind. I picked up reading…
This week I read “The Alchemist”, then “Eleven Minutes”… I would talk about the latter for the context.
It’s a story about Maria, a simple girl who had dream of having a rich and good looking husband. Writer talks about her experience in love and relationship, her first kiss, her first heart-break… she was searching for a true love but none of her relationships last long. Eventually she traveled from Brazil (her home) to Switzerland, she ended up working in a night-club as a prostitute. She chose this as her career and worked for nine months unless she had enough money to get back home and start a business and buy her parents a house. Maria took her work quite seriously, she was very professional, she was making all the efforts to make her customers happy to get some extra money… One day she fell in love with an artist Ralf who was an artist. Ralf used to visit the same night-club but surprisingly he was served by Maria. Ralf had everything in life but his life was incomplete. Ralf and Maria, took time to exhibit their naked soul to each other. Physical intimacy came a lot later than I expected.
Then the story turns, Maria had already decided about leaving the job and the country before meeting Ralf. Their relationship took flight in a short while but Maria did not change her plan to go home, leaving Ralf behind. Even when she was so madly in love with Ralf, she wasn’t afraid to take a step forward without him. In the final scene, Ralf unites with Maria on her way home. It was a happy ending.
The core idea revolves around the spirituality involved with physical intimacy. I would not go into much details on that, but overall this is the story.
There were a few take-away from the character Maria-
i. She was incredibly brave and intelligent. She prevented herself from getting emotionally scarred. Even though she hated her job, she was doing her work very smartly to get all the money she could earn in that period.
ii. Perceiverance is very important to succeed in life. This girl was reading about farm management and business which was her future plan.
iii. Even though Maria found her love of life, Ralf… she didn’t cling to him. She didn’t run to him asking him to save her from the world.
Maria was loving Ralf with no demand, she was still strong she had been before, her vision did not get blurred because of her love.
I finished reading it today and was saying to myself, “Yeah I know, happy endings are only in books and movies…”
In the evening I met my cousin Myra, she is 5 years younger than me. She is a rebel and she’s living her best life. Her parents always complain about Myra… She is not attentive to studies and career etc. Myra grew up to be a pretty girl, many guys in her class want him. Oneday Myra told me that she never says “no” to any proposal… which means she always has more than one relationship at a time.
Currently she has one boyfriend studying in medical school and one in engineering college. She might have other relationships but she didn’t disclose it. Both of her boyfriends are handsome little boys completely unaware of my cousin’s evil side. Myra is not emotionally attached to any of them I suppose, she gives them the space they need, she communicates with them, don’t show much jealousy, don’t get too clingy, talks about life and stuff like any other girlfriend. And in return she is also showered with all the love, care and attention.
Recently she fell really sick and one of those guys, took her to the hospital, dropped her home safely. I am not sure if Myra really deserves that care… If there’s a party she would wear the shortest of her clothes, she would go out with any other handsome dude who would ask her out… She never stops looking for a new opportunity.
This makes me feel sick… I am not sure about the guys she’s hanging out with but I am afraid that some of them might have genuine feelings for her and they don’t deserve to be cheated on. Once you are cheated you’ll never ever be able to trust anyone like that before… You’ll have a hard time to build that trust when you meet a genuine person. Getting cheated on will have a long lasting effect on life. On the other hand, Myra is living her best life… She thinks that I am seeing someone even though I told her thousand times that I am single.
I am single and I will remain so. Nothing can change that. I don’t know what I have done to deserve that. Probably it’s all about the beauty of outside that I lack… Holy crap, I am not a beautiful person from inside either. Sometimes I do feel petty… Why the people who don’t take love seriously manage to have boyfriend or girlfriend but I don’t? What am I doing so wrong…
PS. This is just my thoughts, I do not intend to relate my cousin to the fictional character that I talked about.
