WHEN THE SUMMER DIES

“We have to embark on a quest!” my soul told me

“A quest to where?” I asked.

“To find you again,” it replied.

“I can't, I don't have the strength... I'm broken. I have a scar now, a permanent one,” I told it.

“Then I’ll help you, and together we’ll heal the wound. Maybe it will always be there, but it’ll become invisible. And just imagine all the things you’ll discover within yourself that you couldn't see before—it'll be like returning in a new skin.” soul said.

“I don’t know, soul. I'm scared,” I said.

“I’m with you! I’m ready—we’ve always been together. And if we’re talking about pain, we know what that is, we had experienced pain, remember? A close pain like this so many many many years ago…

Let’s go on a quest!” the soul convinced me, full of excitement.

“A quest for what, again?” I asked.

“To bring you back—an renewed version of you,” it replied with a wink.

Unsureness is flirting with me, whispering in my ear that sadness is always trending, and letting yourself be forgotten and becoming an outcast solves everything.

“Now there's UberEats! You don’t even need to take a step outside to feed yourself!” 

Unsureness joked at me from afar.

I thought but how we dot his?, if we always saw life through joyful eyes and now suddenly everything is foggy, like a gray mist settled around soul and i, and we don’t know if it’ll ever go away I questioned myself.

“Are you ready?” my soul approached me.

“We just need a small list and we can begin!”

“What list?” I asked.

“The list of what we need to find on this quest!” it replied, totally focused as it searched for paper and pencil in its little travel backpack.

I stepped away a bit and whispered…“Unsureness, do you still have that Johnnie Walker blue label 750 ml? Maybe we can have a drink, all three of us, and soul can get drunk for a while and forget all of this.”

“Of course, I’ve got two bottles. I guarantee soul won’t wake up for a whole month and won’t even know where it is! Should I open it?” it said, laughing mischievously.

“NOOO! Don’t you dare!” screamed the soul.

“Unsureness, we’ve never needed you. This might not be the easiest quest, but it’s not our first rodeo,” said the soul proudly.

Soul took my hand, and off we went on a quest!

“Here are the clues for what we will looking for,” it told me.

I looked at the paper, and these words were written:

LOVE, PEACE, TRUST, JOY

“Soul, you told me we were going on a quest, not on a heavy lifelong journey to find impossible words!” I exclaimed, exasperated.

“There’s always someone hurting and breaking someone else—I know that now. Life sucks big time, sometimes” I assured with my most unmotivated and sad attitude.

“No, My Darling!” said the soul loudly, shaking me playfully.

“This is not a quest to find things you don’t know yet. It’s a journey to remind you that you once truly believed in those words and lived them intensely.”

“You’ve forgotten them for now, but I’m sure you’ll remember—and redefine them within yourself. But this time in a different way—not so naive, but with the gratitude of being able to feel them again.”

“And what if we’re not successful in this quest?” I asked in the most pessimistic tone.

“We will be, Darling! Because without those things, I can’t exist either. I can't vibrate like before. And you and I—we’re the best travel companions. You still need me with you for a long long time,” my soul told me, looking at me seriously.

“Alright then! So we have to leave now!” I affirmed.

But not so confidently—I was afraid that maybe I could no longer see or feel things the way I used to. But I couldn’t leave soul behind, couldn’t abandon it and let it never again live the way it always wanted—with its own rules, its own happiness, always laughing.

I tried to find the little bit of courage I had left. I covered the scar on my chest—which now always makes me feel cold—with a colorful scarf, and I stood up.

I took my soul by the hand, looked at it and said: “My Darling! We’re going to find what we lost, and I promise you we’ll be fine again.”

“That’s what i wanted to hear !!! No matter how long it takes—I know we’ll make it,” said my soul, looking at me with shining eyes.

“I know when we may return!”  I said, trying to smile.

“We’ll try to finish this quest when the summer dies.”