23 years old

I’m 23 years old.
Some of my peers have already married and had a child. Most of the others share their lives with another person and are just waiting for the right moment to take the vital step. I, on the other hand, am alone. I who at family dinners always have to be asked the same question by relatives, “so are you seeing someone?”

I’m not even afflicted by a strange disease that prevents me from having relationships.
I am twenty-three years old, and I spend my life reading, preparing exams and trying to understand what I want to do when I grow up. Yes, I know I should already know what to do once I’ve finished my studies, in reality, I do nothing but change my mind every day that passes. So I use the line from the movie The Big Kahuna as an excuse:
“Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what to do with your life, the most interesting people I know at 22 didn’t know what to do with their life, the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.”

I’m one of those who, once finished the studies, would leave with a backpack to travel the world. This could be a great job, going around the world at random. Without a goal. Go explain it to parents and relatives that your dream is not to have a house, get married, have children, have a quiet life. If you just try to bring it up, you’re labelled as the strange, crazy one, the one who doesn’t know what to do with his life, the unripe one, the one who doesn’t want to work, the one who studies so much that he becomes a fool.

I’m twenty-three years old, and for now, I’ve only done a few casual jobs, to try to have some kind of independence and not become a burden for my parents. Comfortable with money, it doesn’t bring happiness but makes everyday life less burdensome. Despite this, the idea of doing the same thing five days a week for years makes me nauseous and afraid.

I am twenty-three years old, and certainties frighten me, although perhaps I would also like to have some assurance.
I am twenty-three years old, and I take refuge in novels, with the hope of finding, between the lines of Dostoevsky or Bukowski, an idea of what I can become when I grow up.
I’m twenty-three years old, and in the evening I willingly stay home and watch an episode of the television series of the moment. My idols are Heisenberg (Bryan Cranston in breaking bad) and Rustin Spencer (Matthew McConaughey in True Detective). By dint of watching TV series, my prototype woman has become Meredith Grey (starring in Grey’s Anatomy). My only interest right now is the start of the second season of Better Call Saul.

I’m twenty-three years old, and I’ve discovered that alcohol, taken in acceptable doses, can become a great life companion.
I’m twenty-three years old, I’ve known love, and I carry my wounds on my heart. We meet different people every day. Some mornings we wake up in a bed that is not our own wondering where the hell we are. Then we turn our heads and connect that this was yet another late evening ended in a bed of a stranger until a few hours before. We all had one true love, and although we do everything we can, we will find it hard to forget it.
I’m twenty-three years old, and I screwed up diets and the mirror, I realized that if there is someone who wants me, he will have to be content with who I am.

I’m twenty-three years old, and I was lucky enough to grow up with very little technology, I realize how sad the adolescence of future generations is.
Ten-year-old children wander around me with their heads already fixed on the screen and their brains wholly lost.
I’m twenty-three years old, and I’m part of the middle generation, the ones who used technology first and now try to use it sparingly. I laugh in the face of my parents’ inability to use apps, and I cry when I watch children fiddling around on the computer better than I do.

I’m twenty-three years old, a lot has changed since high school; with some old friends we don’t say greet anymore, some friends stayed, some decided to move, to go to another country. So I stop and think, my parents’ words come back to my mind…
“enjoy life, because every moment is unique and never comes back.”
I think back to all the moments I spent with my friend, who now lives thousands of miles away from me. I wonder if I enjoyed them enough if I could have seen him more often when he lived across the road if it was worth keeping his face for some nonsense he had done.
I get lost in these thoughts. Then I come to the conclusion that if I can’t wait to hear or see him, then despite those miles, friendship is still there and maybe it will be there forever. Despite the distance, despite the daily problems, despite all the friendship remains and this allows me to sleep quite calmly.

I am twenty-three years old. I don’t follow any model, I don’t want to look like anyone. I would like to leave home as soon as possible, to become independent, to do something with my life, but I don’t know what.
I’m twenty-three years old, I don’t have bright ideas, but I’m one of those with whom a simple beer at the bar on a mid-week evening can be much more interesting than you can imagine.

I’m 23 years old, and I have no desire to grow up.

Gezim Qadraku

This article was written in 2016.

Direction nowhere

First days of May, but looking at people’s clothing it seems like late autumn. You can still see scarves and woolen hats.
Today is an odious day. Unceasing rain and biting wind. The classic to spend in the living room under the blankets, eating until you can’t eat any more while watching some useless program on television.

Instead, I am in this small village in southern Germany. I arrived a couple of minutes ago and the next train is in an exact hour. I have a tour of circumspection and I realize that the station is equipped only with a library and a bar. That’s all.

I enter the bar and order an espresso. The waiter asks me if I want to drink it “at the window“. That would be the series of tables arranged with a view to the outside, the parking of the station, or in a more secluded area at the bottom of the room.

I opt for “the window“. I don’t want to miss such a view. I take my place and observe the combination of colors of the chairs and tables. Light green and brown. I like it. It gives me the idea of a split between new and old. I sip the espresso with some fear, but I am happily surprised. It’s not bad at all. Perhaps low expectations play an important role in the judgment. I take out of my backpack the book I’m reading: “The sympathizer“, the Pulitzer Prize of 2015.

I read in a language that is not my native one and live in a country where another language is spoken. I’ve gone so far as to handle four idioms with enough ease. One never knows how many goals can reach. Between one line and the next, I let myself be distracted by the people who arrive at the station. I look up more and more often and enjoy the spectacle of everyday life. I look at people and try to guess their lives. It’s an exercise I’ve been doing since I was a child.
I created stories in my mind starting from reality because it has never been enough for me. Meanwhile, a young girl, too young, running with a stroller attracts my attention. I always wonder what motivates people to have children while they are in what is undoubtedly the best age. She enters the station and disappears in a blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, a stream of teenagers enter and leave the station like ants. I look at their faces and the way they are dressed. It reminds me of the importance I gave to the appearance when I was their age and the total disinterest I felt in school. As I resume the reading I feel a man behind me ordering something speaking in Italian. He knows the waiter. The two of them exchange a couple of jokes. I like the feeling I get when I understand someone who speaks a language other than the local one and this does not have the faintest idea that there is an unknown person around who can understand it. It gives me a feeling of power and control.

I have always needed to keep everything under control. Especially when I’m in a public place I don’t know. I keep reading while I keep my headphones, but all I really do is check the situation around me. I hear a gentleman asking the waiter where the sugar is. I have it. The cashier I assume points towards me and I hear the man moving to my direction. He touches my shoulder and, almost embarrassed, asks me if he can take the sugar. I pretend to fall from the pear tree and play the part. I am one step ahead, I have always been one step ahead. Nothing catches me unprepared. It is impossible to surprise me, I always know what happens, especially if they are people I know. People have become so predictable today that there is nothing interesting about establishing relationships. You only need to go around every social profile to have an almost perfect knowledge of an individual. And then they’re all so interested and focused on themselves. No one observes or tries to understand who is around them. They are impressed when you tell them the smallest details after a short conversation and they don’t understand how you were able to understand them so clearly. It’s so easy for me, a kind of hobby I’d say.

I keep reading, along with pauses to observe people outside.
I like it. For a moment I think I could live in the stations. That wouldn’t be a bad idea since all I need to do to work is my laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. I check the clock and I realize that forty minutes have passed. In twenty minutes I have the train. In ten minutes I get off the table.

I close the book and start to think about my next destination. A town in the south-east of Germany, on the border with Austria. A new reality, new people to know and stories to tell, at least I hope. I don’t know what I could call this period of my life.
As I get up, the words of Ghemon in the song “Voci nella testa” come to mind.
A rhyme says: “direction I don’t know well“.
I modify it, I could call this precise moment of my existence “direction nowhere“.
I don’t know where I’m going, but that’s okay.

Gezim Qadraku.