FINDING (Jorge Mello's Short Story)

[Este conto é uma colaboração do amigo Jorge Mello]

There are some times in life when we have to advance…

Well I’m nobody special in this world; I’m just a 25 year old man telling my story while I’m walking by the neighborhood trying to find something that is lacking in my life. If you question me, you’ll notice that I “have everything”. I’m working at a private school, well paid, I have my friends and practice exercises. I had a girlfriend but, when I was committed I still felt this sensation of missing something else. Now I’m single, not searching a girl, but a motivation that don’t have since I entered the university seven years ago. Before this, I used to be a young boy full of dreams, some of those became reality other changed into something more distant now, and full of a vigor that was losing force day by day ‘till now. I see many people without any interest in life, acting as if they didn’t want anything else here. I’m trying to be different from these people, I’m seeking this lack throughout my soul, my life, the place where I live, by my actions… well now I’m hanging on by the streets and telling what I was and what is probably missing in this.

I didn’t even have a love disillusion, all my relationships were nice and I don’t have enemies. Maybe you can say that what is missing is a kind of emotion and adrenaline in the way of how I live. Yes, maybe, but the new things that I try, I succeed well. Just a deep search in my vigorous past can say what I had that now I lost. The inspiration of the walk by the boulevard makes me think about my youth before starting my adult life of commitments and deadlines. What can bring this back? How can I fit myself among my commitments a lost feeling of fullness? It is funny to say something like that. If a had a completely occupied life, It’d be ok, but how can I miss something? The answer to this question is very complex, I think. Maybe it is just a very small detail in how I see life, but it is hidden from my eyes and my soul.

Now then it is almost eleven a.m. and I walked about 3 miles reflecting when I met a friend of mine. He was going to meet his parents in the neighborhood. I was at my parents last weekend. My mom and dad were looking nice and we talked about life and how things changed along the time. They questioned if I was planning to move, because it was my idea certain time ago, but it is impossible due to my job at school. My mom looks happy because without moving I stay closer to her. I like to visit my parents, I feel comfortable and for an instance I forget this strange feeling. I cannot move to live with my parents again, this term ended and I advance to other situation where I have to figure on myself in order to solve my issues.

It is not ease to look for something that we don’t know what it is properly. Well it is the time to go back. I have to tidy my apartment up and prepare some lessons for next week. While I am going home I see the dog-house truck passing by with some lost dogs inside it. I started to think about my dog that died when I joined the university. I earned my puppy in my sixth birthday. I didn’t have many friends and my dog many times was the only true friend that I had to share my problems and ideas. This truck made me think about a detail that passed unperceived. Now everything seems too much clear. I stopped in the middle of the side walk if my legs have lost strength and desire to resume the walk. Remember how it was nice to know that after a daylong studying or doing other things I’ll have a friend waiting me without caring about anything. My dog wouldn’t care if I was tired, sick, bored, or sad. He was always there, showing that he was a special and loyal friend. I just can think in one thing now, I have to go to the dog-house and look for, or maybe be found by a real true four paw friend. My stuff can wait me, other things can do that, but a friend cannot. I can’t wait anymore to recover my strength, my inspiration to try things and know that I will have someone that will understand me with his wet nose and fanning tail.

Now I walk toward a house that is not mine, but my friend’s temporary house.