Journalled on Saturday, 20 April 2024 | Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 23 degrees, warm, sunny and slightly overcast.
It is Saturday, the weekend and a day of contrasts. I was up early and at the Portuguese baker’s at 6:00 a.m. when it opens.
I got to write two journal entries, with the help of a lot of coffee and an hour and a half of writing. I am trying to catch up. I was a week behind on my journal entries; now I’m only two or three days.
I got back to the flat around 8:00 a.m. She was awake and raring to go. We had arranged to go for a walk yesterday, but it was too early yet. Besides a walk, I wanted to buy some stationery: a small notebook for journaling, a larger one for making notes and keeping ledgers, and some nice pens.
It is nice to journal, putting down your thoughts, feelings, and goals and aspirations on paper in a notebook with a decent pen. Everything looks better and flows more easily.
I told Yasmin to rest a little longer, but by 10, we were leaving home. We stopped by the Portuguese baker’s for breakfast. It has become a bit of a routine for us to have breakfast there whenever possible. I just had a large coffee while she asked for orange juice and hot grilled bread, toast.
We went to three stationers in Flamengo. The third, in a small gallery, had a lot of nice stuff at reasonable prices. I bought what I needed, and Yasmin took some pens and pencils she liked.
Now we are free to walk. It is so good to walk with no fixed, pre-planned destination, just making it up as we go.
We walked up and around Flamengo, passing through Praça São Salvador, into Lago do Machado and Catete, and then back parallel to the other side of Flamengo. We clocked up more than 10,000 steps in the morning. We eventually got back home around half past midday, almost 1:00 p.m.
Both of us were tired. I was not going to cook today. I told Yasmin that whenever she wanted to go downstairs and buy a Quentinha, a Brazilian takeaway meal, she could. I was not hungry, and I was not going to buy a bottle of wine because I had had one yesterday.
In the early afternoon, Julie again looked for me and called me, as she had done the day before. Yesterday was a marathon, and today became one too.
Today, the quality of the conversation was lower than yesterday’s. I have noticed that, since our first meeting in England, she likes to ask lots and lots of intimate, sometimes evasive, and awkward questions.
My education requires me to answer these questions. However, it feels as if I’m being stripped or stripping myself of myself: metaphorically, figuratively and mentally. I think that I am being gutted, the same way you do a fish or a poor animal that you have just hunted and shot.
I have been feeling this for a long time. Little by little, I have been trying to set boundaries, and today I felt those boundaries were sky-high. I could see where she wanted to go with the questions, and I did not want to go down that rabbit hole today.
The funny thing is that it is not reciprocal. If you ask her a question or questions about anything, it is very difficult to get a straight, sincere answer or opinion from her, unless we’re gossiping and talking badly about somebody.
After the conversation, I was left drained and confused, hoping that tomorrow would be free to have a typical day without any mind-fucking conversations.
It seems I’m being cruel or unfair to her, but I really don’t think I am. When I first saw and met her, I thought she was the best thing since sliced bread, but through all the deceptions, not just with me but with others, you start to become immune to small talk and superficiality.
It is also funny that I am living a paradox because of my liking for her. I could even say that I’m a little hooked on her. She’s a beautiful woman, and we had some great times together when I was in England, but on a shallow level, with very little intimacy or depth. I have concluded that she’s not necessarily a good person for me.
If I let her, I get the impression that she will bleed me dry in every sense of the expression. I have to get on with my life, move on and get over it.
Late in the evening, Nalva arrived home from work with a face as if she had just swallowed a hive of bees.
In bed by midnight.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
