Norwegian Wood

Inspired by Mitzie, I spent some Euro on Murakami's Norwegian Wood. The first paragraph reads:

I was 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the earth, lending everything the gloomy air of a Flemish landscape: the groundcrew in waterproofs, a flag atop a squat airport buiding, a BMW billboard. So - Germany again.

These are trees by Alster Lake in Hamburg. German Wood.

...

This blog is still for the ones closest to me so I'm going to get personal, as usual, at the risk of sounding super dramatic(which I am right now, pardon me):

There is a deep ugly gash, a fresh red scumble over the dried pink scars on this heart.

One day, I felt a needle of sadness pierce me There, where the gut whispers true secrets if we're quiet enough to listen. It made me think of Russ - and as it turns out, the instinct was on to something. I just found out that he's been dating someone all this time I've been here. They've kissed. And more.

To be fair, we're not together. We haven't been boyfriends for years. When I got to Canada, we waltzed through a minefield of past and present issues that left us in a 'Should we get back together or shouldn't we?' situation, him resolved to be with me while I had no idea which decision to make. I drove myself nuts with indecision. I drove him nuts too. Before I flew to Germany, I asked him for some time alone, without contact so that I could sort through these conflicted feelings about our relationship. He was really good about giving me time even though he didn't like my decision. I appreciated his thoughtfulness. He asked me what he should do while I was away and I said do whatever you want. So he slept with someone else. No crimes committed, no promises broken, all the same I am devastated by this development. Now I just feel stupid. I feel totally, totally stupid and it's because I'm being just that: STUPID.

And I have been hopelessly stupid, ladies and gentlemen. Where Russ is concerned, I have been especially dumb, over and over again.

Why did I feel guilty all those times I locked eyes with other men, when they came on to me and I knew it could lead Somewhere, even when my cousin tried to set me up on a blind date? It felt so wrong and I shut it out, falling into bed with him in mind, masturbating to the memory. All this time, my eyes have been looking inward, trying to untangle this messy tapestry of emotions as the walls of my inner world have been closing in. Smaller and smaller my mental prison while the world outside me has expanded! I have travelled across oceans, the Pacific AND Atlantic! I have sailed on a sea of proud gay men and women waving rainbows at the sun, posed beside artwork that's baffled men for decades, walked streets where the blood of centuries can be felt evaporating from cobblestone. I am in The Real World but I can't even see it for all my focus on me, Russ, and the chaos between us. Meanwhile, he's dating.

I wish I could do the same! I wish I could call it 'surviving' like he does. I wish I wasn't in love with him! I wish I was clinically, pschologically, emotionally, socially, utterly fucking dead.

North Korea, India, Pakistan, China, America, Russia, ANYBODY, please fire a nuke, aim it at Germany, and let it be over. Let everything stop.

The breathing hurts.