On Tuesday, I was still wearing his jumper he’d borrowed me on the Friday I was cold at his place, when he knocked at my door to tell me to enter his, so now I really have to write about it. Why? God Only Knows. I’ve been wearing it ever since.

We at times wait for it to happen, but sometimes we make it happen without even thinking about it. A beautiful rollercoaster that I’m not only in awe of, but am on unfolds in my life whenever I go with the flow. It just feels right. But, boy, when it turns out magnificent! It was me who texted him, a year and a half ago — the days feel so long and the years seem so short nowadays, nowayears — on an orange, blueish sky, one June Saturday late afternoon, to meet me in the hallway. We did, exchanged a couple of words, his hands wrapped around my shoulders and I was on his terrace meeting two of his friends. Little did we know about what was awaiting us. The reason for my text makes the best story when we tell it to my friends, his friends, depending on the scenario we almost never plan, yet invariably enjoy. We just live too close, our doors nearly touch, everything happens as every day comes and goes. We might meet, we might not, we just know we’re here. Family dynamics. The glow everyone has when we tell everyone we’re neighbours seem to be the cherry on top of the delicious ice cream we sometimes have while walking around our neighbourhood for hours.

Obviously, there’s a certain feeling when you’re wearing a jumper of someone you like. It makes you feel a certain way, especially when you know they wore it more than 10 times. I don’t know about his jumper, but right at this very moment I don’t even care, the jumper and I, we’ve been having these wonderful times together, wink. It’s not that often that I wore other people’s clothes, but every time it happened, it happened really genuinely and if it didn’t, then it wasn’t meant to happen and that’s also good, it’s for a reason, too. It’s very rarely, however, that it happened with a person I don’t particularly like (like that), but when your teeth are chattering, you are wearing their clothes all right.

The relationships we make along the way in our lives are the relationships we need to have according to the stages we’re at. We all have friends we love and had the time of our lives with. Life happens, we learn to pay attention, relationships fall apart and that’s ok. A friendship that had started many, many years ago and is toxic is the opposite of a fresh relationship that not only is new, but feels fresh, as well (new is not always fresh). Fresh like the friendships you have since forever and forever is where you both intend to go… It’s where Mulholland Drive is, or the McDonald’s you share on a random Monday evening, after the aforementioned Friday.

So, I went to his house, on the Tuesday following the above Monday, I’m actually writing this from his house. He’s dismounting a closet with friends. Literally. It goes to another friend’s house. When you feel a bit out of space and space is all you’re dreaming of, doing yoga, taking a shower, putting a favourite thing and some neon pink socks on prepares you for you don’t know what, but squat, what?

We didn’t choose each other for neighbours, yet slowly but surely I got to wear his clothes. Last year, for Halloween, my Mia needed a white shirt, so I rushed into his closet wearing my robe. It felt like home and while home might be about my love of awesome clothes, it’s also about my love of people, hello! On the Friday — we started this with — morning, amongst the stuff we talked via texts, from our homes, I told him, out of subject: Jees, I miss putting on some glitter!

A new befriended friend over a girls’ dinner table on the same Friday said that when we’re falling in love, we kind of slip into a form of disease. The dinner table included way more than dinner, it lasted until almost 1 a.m., obviously that type of discussions arose and I’m not talking in codes here, it’s about love that we got to talk. I’d heard the disease theory before, knew for sure what I believed in, could’ve just shut up, but no, didn’t even think about it and said out loud, in a warrior kind of stance, that I’m too big of a romantic to even consider the affirmation, life is all about falling in love, about staying in love, about loving. What else is there? We were eight girls and it was mesmerising to observe and nourish each other’s state. Get a different point of view, consolidate yours, shatter some kind of wall, consolidate another one, but also indulge in a feminine vibe, with its delicacies and fights.

Another one said that we could set up a psychological test for the new partner in order to know, from the beginning, if there’s potential for a healthy relationship or not. Imagine my face. Heart. Oh, but you know stuff anyway, from the get go, it’s only up to you to be objective, see the red flags (when it’s not the aforementioned disease, there are no flags anyway, it’s love, chillax) and do something about it. Or ignore the red flags altogether and ride the wave like it’s so sunny and fuzzy that nothing can stand in the way of surfing like a pro. One. 

But, then, two came straight away: doesn’t being that rational about someone shut the emotional from the start? And it is the emotional, after all, that makes a potential something… the thing. It makes one vulnerable as f*ck, but at least one knows one tried entirely and, now, it either turns into a butterfly or dies. The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off, surfboard, surfboard.

Hire me to tell stories.

The discussions were only heating up when my neighbour called me. Some days are just full of electricity. Cristina, where are you? I was supposed to be at his place which is, basically, my place, long before. The friends dismounting the closet (today) were coming. I had to excuse myself, leave the table and tell him what I was actually doing. He knew what I was doing, he was just checking in on me, we exchanged some jokes and it felt familial. Warm. I left very soon after, you know what it feels like when someone in the family says Come home!. 

It was at 3 a.m. on the Friday to Saturday that I first got to wear the jumper I’m still wearing, as I’m talking with the friends at his home, on the Tuesday following the Mulholland Monday following the Friday. Are you riding the rollercoaster by now? The closet has been officially dismounted, music is basically air to me, my neighbour works in music, the music school and the museum of music are our neighbours (for real) and I love this jumper, nerding out and romanticising the shit out of anything and everything. Victory is the name of our neighbourhood (for real).

I mean I consider him family, it’s up to him whether he’s the super cool relative you always enjoy being around or the one you take for who they are and love anyway, it’s up to him, it’s up to me, it’s up to us.

Where am I going with this? Vulnerability might freak the shit out of some people, but it would only get the coolest ones closer. Same with the truth.

Are you still reading this?

Because I’m only getting started here. Jk. Fun fact: these days, I’m in a Whatsapp group of 100 people that enrolled into this 21 days program where we train to stay in the chair position by the wall, for 10 minutes. At some point, our trainer asked us to say whether or not we surprised ourselves complaining today. If so, answer Yes, if not No. Someone answered No (but it was painful). True dat, I feel you, my friend, lmao, and I feel so good.

Thank you and have a wonderful day or night!

At other other times, be careful to not only pay attention to the red flags, but to your heart skipping beat after beat, f*ck fear and go for it.