Özlemek, yaşanılanı onurlandırmaktır bir nevi. Zamanın hırçın dalgalanmalarına karşı, unutmaya veya unutturmaya kıyamadıklarımıza bir “şerefe”dir aslında. Küçük detaylar hissettirir bir zamanların kıymetlisini. Hiç beklemediğin anlarda karşılaşırsın bazılarıyla. Özlem, özlemek, kıyıya vurmuş binlerce taş arasında bir deniz yıldızını aramak gibi bir şey.
Yabancı yüzler arasında tanıdık bir sureti ararken hissedersin özlediğini, dipsiz uykunun rüyalarında çıkıverir karşına, gece yarısı kalkıp sayfalar doldururken bulursun kendini. Yazdırır, konuşturur, belki susturur, belki de koşturur özlemek. Tam unuttuğunu zannederken tanıdık bir koku getirir eski anları aklına, paylaşılmış bir şarkıyla hoplar gönlün, acı bir gülümseme belirir yüzünde, olmuş olanı onurlandırmak için.
“Keşke”lerle geçen ömürlerde, “iyi ki”leri duyunca yumuşuyor gönlüm. Çoğunlukla fazlasını isterken kaçırdığımız elimizdeki değeri, özleyebilme cüretini buluyoruz kendimizde. Belki bencillik, belki de çocukluk bilemem ama, bazen bazı anları sonradan keşfedebilme cesaretini gösterebilmeyi seviyorum. Nostaljinin getirdiği hüzünle karmanlanmış bir “iyi ki” kadar eşsiz bir şey yok gibi dünyada.
İnsanın insanı özleme kapasitesiyle yarattığı şeyleri benimsiyorum. Arada kilometrelerin olduğu bağların dayanıklılığının somut yaratıklara çevriliyor olması, yaşanılan hissiyatı daha da kutsallaştırıyor gözümde. Hissedilen boşluğun, doldurulması için verilen uğraşlarla şekilleniyor olması ise çıkartıyor ortaya en ortak ama biricik duygulanmaları.
Ayrılığı kabullenmenin en zor yanı da getirdiği bu özlem işte. Herhangi bir insan, mekân, canlı, zamanla başlayan serüvenin içerisinde değişirken, sonunu düşünme ihtiyacı dahi duymuyor insan. Ayrılık vaktinin aniliği ise en sert tokatla geliyor surata. Çeşitli göz yaşlarının yanında da hep, “özlem”in olacağına dair bir kesinlik oluyor ya, en çok da o oluyor işte bizi biz yapan.
Bir zamanlar yaşanmış olanı, içimde yaşatarak yaşıyorum. Anılarımı, insanlarımı, geçmişimi, solmaya bıraktığım bir çiçek yapmıyor, özlemle suladığım bahçeler elde ediyorum. Özlediğimi söyleme korkusuzluğunu yaşamak için de, hislerimi konuşturmayı öğreniyorum. Hiç beklemediğim zamanlarda kurduğum bağlar bulaşmış oluyor bana, ayrılık gelmiş olsa bile ben, dönüştüğüm canlıyla yaşıyorum. Dokunulmuş her parçamla beraber, “iyi ki” diyorum. Özlemimi de inadımla birleştiriyor, bıraktığım her ize bir seni ve onu karıştırıyorum. Özlüyorum, çünkü yaşanmışı onurlandırmak, yaşanacaklara bir kapı açıyor biliyorum.
Aklımdan çıkmayan bir mektup bu da, belki ben anlatamamışımdır bazı şeyleri, burada bulursunuz siz de benim gibi 🙂
From Sackville-West to Woolf
Milan [posted in Trieste]
Thursday, January 21, 1926
I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it …
Please forgive me for writing such a miserable letter.
V.
Missing someone is, in a way, honoring what once happened. It’s a toast, really—a salute to the moments we can’t bear to forget or let fade away in the restless waves of time. It’s the little details that stir up the preciousness of days gone by. Sometimes, they appear when you least expect them. Longing—missing—feels like searching for a starfish among thousands of stones washed up on the shore.
You feel it when you’re scanning unfamiliar faces for one that feels like home. It finds you in the endless dreams of deep sleep, and suddenly you’re awake in the middle of the night, filling pages with thoughts. Missing someone makes you write, makes you speak, sometimes silences you, or even makes you run. Just when you think you’ve forgotten, a familiar scent brings back old memories. A shared song lifts your heart. A bittersweet smile forms on your face, in honor of what once was.
In a life full of “what ifs,” hearing a single “thank God for that” softens my soul. While constantly wanting more, we often lose sight of what we have—but somehow, we still find the courage to miss it. Maybe it’s selfishness, or maybe it’s childlike wonder—I don’t know. But I do know that I love having the bravery to rediscover certain moments after they’ve passed. There’s hardly anything in the world more unique than a “thank God” tangled up in the melancholy of nostalgia.
I cherish the things people create from their capacity to miss each other. The way bonds stretched over distances transform into tangible tokens makes the emotions feel even more sacred to me. And how the emptiness we feel shapes itself through the efforts we make to fill it—that’s what brings out the most universal, yet deeply personal, feelings.
The hardest part of accepting separation is this longing it leaves behind. When we begin any journey—be it with a person, a place, or a time—we don’t really think about how or when it’ll end. But when the moment of parting finally comes, it hits with the force of a slap. And with all the tears that come with it, there’s always a certainty that “longing” will remain. That, more than anything else, is what makes us who we are.
I live by carrying what once was within me. I don’t let my memories, my people, my past wither away like neglected flowers. I tend to them like gardens watered with longing and in order to live the fearlessness of saying “I miss you,” I’m learning to give voice to my emotions. Unexpected connections cling to me, and even when separation arrives, I continue to live as the person I’ve become because of them. With every part of me that has been touched, I say, “I’m glad it happened.” I mix my longing with my stubbornness, and in every mark I leave behind, I weave in a little bit of you—and of them. I miss, because I know that honoring what was opens the door to what may yet come.
This is just another letter I can’t get out of my mind—maybe I didn’t manage to express everything properly, but perhaps you’ll find a piece of yourself in it too, just like I did. 🙂
Milan [posted in Trieste]
Thursday, January 21, 1926
I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it …
Please forgive me for writing such a miserable letter.
V.
Ballad of the Witches 
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