WOMANKIND’S Early Morning Challenge
Victoria Devars
Day one: It has been eight days since the love of my life left me. After a week spent believing my heart had become too heavy for my body to carry, I’m starting to feel better.
I decide to wake up at 6.30am instead of 7. Work starts at 7.30am and it takes my mother five minutes to drive me there. My extra 30 minutes shall give me the will to seize my day with both hands.
Today, I want to remind myself that this life is mine to live, and that my will to be happy and creative only belongs to me. I get out of bed. It is a cold morning in Noumea - at least cold for a September day.
The sun is out, and the sky is white and cloudy. I put my flip-flops on and walk to the garden. I pick a ripe lemon from its tree.
I smell it, I imbue myself with its earthy aromas coated in morning dew. I cut it in half and squeeze the juice in the cup I borrow from my mother every morning. I bought it for her a few Christmases ago. I add fresh water and sit on the rocking chair. I sip my juice admiring our beautiful garden. It is already fully awake.
The drizzle falls between the large green leaves, the blue parakeets court each other in the red Niaouli tree, and the scarlet flowers curl their branches down to earth, rippling with the wind. I listen to all the birds saying hello to each other, saying hello to me. I breathe in, I breathe out. I am grateful to them for giving me songs to listen to on a day when my heart did not believe in music anymore.
Day two: I get out of bed and add water to boil in a pot. Enough to prepare tea for me and my mum. Thanks to her, I have come to accept the current situation. She has gone through breakups and heartaches but her ability to grow, learn, and make plans for the future never cease to impress me. I sit down by the trees and write a few lines in my notebook. I intertwine my words with hot tea. Materialising my emotions on paper has been my way of coping with pain for as long as I can remember. I am angry, but I will let the anger go.
I know he loves me; he knows I love him; but the burden of the unknown has become too much. He is Egyptian and Australian. He lives in Melbourne. I am French from New Caledonia. We have not seen each other for over ten months and loving each other through a screen does not seem like the right thing to do anymore. Now, we shall let the other live their life. We have committed to see each other again as soon as the travel bans will allow us to do so. We’re angry, because in a century as messed up as ours, love is the only pristine thing that still exists. The only thing no one is supposed to take away from us.
I wish they understood love is not tourism. Solutions other than forced separation exist. I wish they understood being apart from your other half for so long hurts people. But dwelling on our powerlessness will not lead us anywhere, and we will use the upcoming months to create positive outcomes for ourselves, while keeping the other in mind.
