Who am I, by the way ? I jokingly exclaimed while putting the cutlery in my neighbors’ dishwasher. And one of them answered me : “No boyfriend, no dog, no cat.”
At the time, I sighed and kept quiet, almost with pride. I thought of my friends, of course, married since 2006, growing old with their three cats, forming a couple as we often see it, namely a contract, a way of camaraderie and companionship. I live a little bit with them every night. The house belongs to us. I live upstairs, and they live on the ground floor. We have a schedule, a routine, I prepare dinner on Thursday and pizza on Saturday. They do the rest. Of course, we share the costs.
From the outside, it looks a little like a truple without being one, even if one of them comes to my house for breakfast every morning, because he wants to let the other sleep.
So I’m not alone, and I have no companion, no dog, no cat. Of the last two, I don’t want any more. I’ve given enough to the animal race. Of the first, I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. I confess to watching the horde of passers-by every day. I confess to questioning myself about one look, another, eyes that never point in my direction. I admit to drinking from the beauty of men. I don’t know if I could ever live with anyone again. I will be told that it is not worth worrying about, that you cross the river of love when you get there and that you usually have the will and the means to build a bridge to pass it.
I would like to believe it, but time is passing, and I have the honesty to say that I may be too old, that I no longer want to take a love engineering course. My existence is already, in itself, a walk, a path that I have barely explored. I am indeed not alone, and that is what matters since I keep the freedom to be what I could be, understand the koan that can.
Who am I to know ? Me. With this tide of other beings. So I am only a drop in this Kafkaesque ocean of humanity. But if I am a drop, I am also the ocean, and I know full well that ephemeral glances arise on me, even in search of harmony, a temporary resonance or nourished by long breath. That’s the quality of it all : ephemeral. To the accusation of this poet who asked us if we were not tired of dying, we bastards, I would answer that we must die a little bit all the time to give way to the adventure of the present moment. But we still have to assume.
No boyfriend, no dog, no cat. These are only three dimensions of billions of other possibilities. I’ll see when I have to cross a river, whatever it is.
