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For You, who enable me to be open by giving me security!

A wonderful night! I slept wonderfully, more deeply and soundly than I had in a long time. In my opinion, it must have been an eternity since I last slept so soundly – but maybe it’s only the first night I’ve slept deeply since I’ve been away on this journey that was supposed to be ours and slept soundly because I had the feeling that I had finally found you again, even though you’re still not there, even though I’m still traveling alone, I finally managed to push aside the veil that was me refused to look at you, and which I had probably hung up myself.

I’ve been sleeping soundly for what feels like an eternity, despite the excitement that took over me at the knowledge. For the first time in a long time, the new day couldn’t come fast enough for me, knowing now that each day can bring something new if I’m willing to go out into the world openly if I’m willing to see.

Of course, I was also accompanied by the thought that I would finally meet you in Udine, the thought and the hope that you would come there, but until now this thought had been a small, fearful and crouched one, and now it had grown, so big and graceful, that he accompanied me on my walks and was good for me. There is a possibility that we will see Udine together, there is a possibility, and if the possibility becomes reality, I would of course be overjoyed, but I will no longer let my unhappiness control me, if it shouldn’t be, I will no longer belittle myself and compassionately return to myself, but consciously go into the new day that has been given to me. And I knew from the start that it would be an unusual day.

Nothing had changed externally: I woke up in the same bed, in the same hotel room, in which I had fallen asleep, the sun shining through the window, friendly but indifferent, but above all unchanged. I had changed. It was as if I had started to live anew that day, like a child seeing a new morning for the first time, only with the difference that I had probably already experienced hundreds of them, and yet it was like a first, all-promising, new day, so familiar in its uniformity, placed among all these other uniform days, and yet unique as itself, this one, this day.

Just like you and me, people among countless other people, uniform, yet unique, this one day, this you, this me.

It started when I didn’t sleep late, as is my usual habit, but got up early, as if I was missing something on this one day, even if I didn’t know what it could be. Excitement and curiosity, excitement – what else would life have in store for me? In any case, I was there again, here, staying in the moment, alive, and yet also with you. I don’t have to give up one thing to get the other. I can be here and still known that I am surrounded by your thoughts. You don’t necessarily have to be with me to be with me.

Does that sound too abstract to you? I think you understand me, as with so many things where I got myself into a knot that you were always able to untangle with ease. You took it upon yourself, with calm and patience, to unravel me and brought me closer to myself. I’ve probably never understood myself so well.

There are so many things that you have allowed me to grow in, and little by little I am beginning to understand this. I might not have been able to do that if you had been there, with me. And who knows, maybe you consciously took a break to force me to understand myself – and to understand myself better. Sometimes I just have to step back to see something fully, because as long as I’m in the middle of it, I only see bits and pieces, and sometimes not even that if I’m too closely woven. You brought me closer to You by sending me away from You. Before, without this experience of abyss and despair, I probably wouldn’t have understood it if I had just withdrawn and sulked because I didn’t want to and couldn’t understand anything about it, except that you wanted to be without me, and you just wanted to make it possible for me to be with you. At least that’s how I accept it now, just as I accept you.

I drove from Fürnitz to Udine with my eyes and heart open, arrived around midday, and after completing the tedious task of finding accommodation for the night, I set off on a tour of the city. I don’t know if the people in this city are different than elsewhere, but it is more likely that I had changed, or rather that the experiences of these last few days had changed me. I think I radiated it, this spirit of optimism, this openness that you made possible for me, because people came up to me and a number of small encounters happened. Nothing exciting, but here and there a suggestion or an encouragement, if only to agree that it was a wonderful day. Nothing more, and yet something like a small agreement, joy, which I express and thus carry on and pass on.

Of course, I still thought how nice it would be if you would stroll through these streets with me now, if I could tell you about my impressions, just as you could tell me about yours, on site, so to speak, how nice it would be if you could now had finally done your three things and would come to me if you could share this moment of liveliness and openness with me.

I visited the castle complex, visited – deliberately in this order – the archeology museum, the gallery of ancient art and finally the gallery of modern art. No matter how different the exhibits and the orientation might be, one thing connected everything, starting with my tour of the city – people had left traces in everything, had represented their thoughts, and concerns artistically, had built buildings, changed them and torn them down again, buildings in which they had found a home where people were born, grew up, lived and died again. Everywhere, in all of these works, the desire to live could be felt, places of retreat and openness, retreat in order not to get lost in the radical lack of support of total openness, because people need a fixed point in their lives and trust in life, to find the courage to go outside and be open to the possibilities and offers in life.

This retreat doesn’t necessarily have to be a place – my retreat is you. As long as I feel accepted by and in you, I have the courage to go out and experience the world.

Have you ever noticed that people who travel as a couple are usually much more reserved than those who travel alone, as if they were enough for themselves, as if it was enough for their relationship to stay within themselves. Maybe it’s understandable at the beginning if the two don’t know anything about each other, if they’re trying to understand the other and make themselves understood by the other – but at some point this two-way relationship dries up when they close themselves off to the world and no new impressions If you let each other get closer to you, the relationship dries up, and at some point you will be surprised that you no longer have anything to say to each other and nothing more to give because the relationship has simply worn itself out. If I really want to be your home, if I want to be a place for you to return and return, a joyful return and return, then I have to be able to let you go. If I hold you tightly, if I bind you to me and waste my energy jealously monitoring you and associating everything you say and do with me, then I am well on my way to suffocating you.

Love, where it is properly understood, does not bind, but releases and wants your decision anew day after day, moment after moment. Love, where it is vividly understood, offers you the breeding ground from which you can grow, offers you the warmth that strengthens you and gives you air to breathe.

For how long, oh for too long, I didn’t understand it, I took you over like a thing that belonged to me, I refused to take part in your life outside of ours, to take part, and in doing so I actually refused, refused, denied you to take part in you, to take part in you. Maybe it’s already too late. Or maybe you just sent me away to let me discover this.

No matter whether you really had three things to do or not, whether you let me go on a journey to myself and therefore to us, or whether you sent me away from you completely, no matter what this or every subsequent day brings, I am open to your return, open to giving you my hand, to continuing to walk a little further along the path together. If you want, you can find me in Udine today and in Portobuffalé tomorrow.

From the one to whom you enable openness by giving me security.

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