Always and forever

1 - Despite everything still together

Can

Our love triumphed in spite of everything.

We had to face and overcome many obstacles: stubbornness, misunderstandings, pride, intrusion of people who didn't want us together, a year-long separation and then so much anguish, so much resentment, so much disappointment for what they had done to each other.

When I left I felt betrayed, when I came back I felt an enormous sense of guilt, an excruciating anguish at the thought of what she experienced when I was not there. I had never thought that I could hurt her so deeply, that she really could not accept living without me, I was sure that she would go on with her life, that she would continue to live it as if I had never existed.

I should have known it wouldn't be like that, I hadn't succeeded, for a whole year I had done nothing but think about her, my life was stuck in a kind of limbo where there was no place for anyone or anything but her.
I didn't work, I cut off all contact with friends and family, I isolated myself from the world to heal the wounds of a heart that didn't want to heal, that didn't want to resign itself to living without her.

I had to imagine that her heart would have done the same, our souls had met and recognised each other even before we had had a chance to see each other's faces. I had to imagine that they would never resign themselves to being apart, that they would never accept giving up, they would never give up.

After a year, it was enough for me to see her again to understand that nothing had changed, that my love for her had not waned but had actually strengthened in the knowledge that it was imperishable, inexhaustible, nothing could destroy it, it was eternal. I had to be patient, my heart had to search for hers in that hidden place where it had gone to hide, wounded and trembling at the idea of still believing that there could be hope for us.

It was a miracle or maybe it was meant to be, it couldn't be otherwise, we had to look for each other and find each other again, we couldn't exist without each other.

Little by little we found the way to trust again in that love so strong that not even the distance and the disappointment of the abandonment had been able to destroy, it had taken time and patience but in the end I was able to hold her in my arms again, my sweet erkenci kuş had returned to me, we had found each other again never to leave each other again.

Sanem

The idea of having lost him forever had annihilated me, I had completely lost contact with reality, a reality without him seemed intolerable to me to live and accept.

I had taken refuge in a world made of memories and dreams of us, I was living in a parallel life in which my mind was fed by what we had lived and by daydreams of our future together: married, our house, our children, our life together, I spent my days and nights elaborating images that could help me survive.

It had not been easy to get out of that whirlpool of alternating anguish and unreality, the first tearing at my soul and the other rushing to help me get through another day without him. The skill of the doctors and a small flame, a glimmer of hope that one day he would return, had finally helped me to come back to reality.

I had managed to create a happy oasis on the Mihriban estate that allowed me to live an almost normal life, a semblance of a life that was not happy, because without him there could be no happiness, but acceptable, peaceful even if empty.

His return was shocking and exciting at the same time, my heart, in spite of the calls not to hope, in spite of the fear of being able to trust again, in spite of the resentment for his abandonment, did not want to give up.

It had started beating at a crazy pace again from the first moment she'd seen him standing on that dock, and it hadn't wanted to stop.

It hadn't been easy to look at him with a hopeful gaze, it hadn't been easy to think I could trust and rely on him again, it hadn't been easy to let myself go again to that exhilarating feeling that only with him, I knew, could I feel.

It had taken time, there had been approaches and missteps, openness and reticence, desire and fear, but in the end our feelings had prevailed again, stronger and more overwhelming than ever.

We were together again, despite everything still together.