Dichotomies
Of a life well deserved
You spend an amazing few days in Croatia. Beautiful country. You find that it’s not too different from your own home. Both have this Mediterranean nature and feel. You book this amazing four-star hotel in Dubrovnik; after all, you worked hard all your life, you deserve to go to such places. The hotel has two pools, a terrace with an aperitif bar, a spa, and an amazing view. From the balcony of your room, you have a full view of the Dubrovnik bay area. To the center, you see the ferries and a beautiful wooden middle ages looking boat. Look to your left and you see an old apartment building. The outer paint layer peeling off, showing the underlying cheap concrete. The people hang their laundry off their balconies and windows to dry, for all of us hotel tenants to look at, robbing them of their basic privacy while we sip on our overpriced drinks. You then go to the pool and bathe in the sun. The Dubrovnik weather is sublime, and the sun hugs you with its rays, welcoming you into your privileged bliss. If you look up you catch the eye of one of the residents on the right-side building, not unlike the building on the left, with laundry lines strung to the unkempt bushes below. You wonder what they’re thinking looking at you basking in the light of your privilege, while they are too tired from their menial jobs to even go hang out on the free beaches only 30 minutes away. Are they envious? Or are they only looking out of curiosity, only scanning you as one of the multitudes of colors and shapes of people that pass through their line of sight every day? The real question is do they see your privilege for what it is, or are you only thinking what you’re thinking from the feeling of obligation to feel bad for people that don’t have it? You did not have the privilege to travel before. Only 5 years ago, you did not even have the privilege of affording a beer at a bar. What were you thinking about when you saw people out on a Friday night while leaving your work at midnight? There go the first two vacation days, ending in sadness.
After an amazing couple of days in Dubrovnik, you go to Split. The bus ride is beautiful yet tiring. But as before, the scenery is the same as in your country, and you joke with your sister by calling the sights by the names of the locations in your own country. You meet this amazing girl on the bus. She’s sitting next to you, and you have a two-hour conversation without pause, and both of you are equally contributing to keeping it going, out of boredom on the bus or because of a real connection, you don’t know. Then you go your separate ways, you don’t take her number because she lives in Scotland and is leaving the next day. You sit at a bar drinking. They serve the most delicious rose wine you ever tasted, something local. First glass done. You think how cruel it is that you cannot keep a connection with such a nice girl. You order another glass. Why couldn’t she have lived in the same country as you? This is some really good wine, another. You find yourself hoping she would walk by. How could it taste like liquid candy, but not be sweet? You give up on bumping into her, feeling glad that at least you got to spend two hours of wonderful conversation with her. That’s when you remember your widowed aunt. She got to spend 2 years with the love of her life, married for a year. You feel your tear glands swelling. She was robbed of her love by cancer. He had cancer when she met him. You are in public and with your sister, not the time to randomly start crying. What was she thinking when they got married? Did she already realize the manifold years of loneliness that will follow? Stop it! Don’t cry! It has been more than twenty years since he was taken away after all. Does she feel grateful for the time they had together? A single tear. You blame it on the sea breeze. Day three is over, in sadness.
The following night you leave the hotel room thinking: that damn AC is too cold. The next five minutes are spent complaining about that. Then you pass by a small house with windows at the level of the street. The house is a half basement. You can’t help but look through the window, and you see an older man sleeping, with the windows open for him to sleep in the cooler air, while every passerby can watch him sleep. From the looks of the interior, it is clear that the resident is one of the poor people of the city. I bet he wishes he had an AC to avoid this. Or does he? It was so stupid for me to complain about being able to cool off my room. Am I again only feeling bad for him because I have to? How different people’s lives can be only a few steps away. And the fourth and final day ends in sadness.
It seems that I do not deserve to be happy. Though I am on vacation and should be having a good time, I do not have the ability to dismiss the bad thoughts that come up from things I see or remember. Can somebody please teach me? I am tired. It is time to go home.
