Footprints

I once got a birthday card saying 'many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart'. It's a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt.

I don't even remember who gave me that card, so I suppose it's more than obvious that person did not leave particularly big footprints in my heart. Nonetheless that quote got somehow stuck in my head. Maybe because of its truth. Maybe because of it's realism. And certainly because of the way it synthesizes in a few words the whole universum of the way we interact: we meet people randomly. At work, on a train, in an airport, on the street, in some club or in a bar. With some of them we get closer: we get to know them. Starting from a name, to sometimes ending up with their beliefs, hopes, views on life and maybe even their most dark secrets.

I sometimes wonder who those footprints-leaving-people really are. And I suppose I will never know for sure. I mean, I could maybe take a guess, I could indicate some possible candidates and see if their shoe soles would match the scars I have inside, but I would never be able to be completely sure. People come, just as they might stay or simply go. Friendships are born, just as they might die. Relationships rise, just as they simply fade away.

So what about holding on? Should we? Of course we should. As long as there are footsteps at least. As long as there are scars. As long as we feel like it. And as long it is physically possible.

The bathroom window

We often tend to forget. We tend to feel the urge to travel to distant places to see things we once saw on television. Or things we just never saw before, but only heard of. We tend to get blind or be blinded. We tend to get used too much. To what we do. To what we have. To where and who we are.

So stop. Just stop. Even if it is just for a second.
Open your eyes. Look.
You might fall in love again.

And at the end of the day home could really be a sweet home.


[Picture taken from the window of my bathroom - it's as simple as that]

Bittersweet

I used to be a dreamer.
And think of the future to come.
Think of the how, who and where of life.

But that's all gone.

I used to run through open fields.
Arms wide open,
Chasing the setting sun.

But that's all gone.

I used to make plans.
Design them, shape them, even put them on paper.
I used to build and tear down again.

But that's all gone.

I used to gaze away,
Watching clouds go by,
Making utopian shapes of impossible realities.

But that's all gone.

And still.
I'm happy.

At least I think so.
At least I hope so.