„When were you young?“, I ask my witch one early evening as we sit with a hazelnut flavoured hot chocolate by the window and watch dramatic clouds appear over the roof tops.
I do not need a reminder of the last decade before the 30-years-war began, but rather want to catch some memories. And make sense of my own.
„You mean, when did I have wine nights and cook vanilla flavoured desserts in the middle of the night?“, my witch giggles. „While singing and wearing a corset I had bought before I knew how to wear them, so that my boobs fell out constantly?“ And as she keeps on giggling I blush.
„If that is what makes you feel young…“
I had recently found postcards I had gotten for my 25th birthday, and holding them while realizing that almost 4 years had passed had put me in shock for a moment. It was not that I was not aware of turning 29 soon, but more the sudden realization of what had happened in the mean time. These four years were so different from everything I could have ever planned, and I realized that I still don‘t know where I am in my life.
And why.
And what to do next.
„I felt young when I was sitting in a bar with my friends“, I tell Layla, battling the wish to put some Rum into this innocent hot chocolate. „Or when we were forced by one of them to go to a terrible Karaoke bar. When we spent hours at a book store, or studied together until late at night.“
Layla sighed. „Sometimes, I sat by the window late at night and opened it for only a little bit, to sing. I sang anything that came to my mind, to whisper with the wind or the rain.“ She giggles again. „One time, someone special heard me, and we escaped reality for a little while.“
And I could easily imagine her sitting by the window, wearing her night dress and singing carefully into the night, for the right one to hear her voice.
I close my eyes and find it beautiful.
It was not that I had no plan for the present days. I had found a job I liked, I even slowly started working on the very last classes that had been missing for my degree when the pandemic started and almost completely succeeded already, and I was trying to safe the few friendship that were left. I had appointments, I knew where to go when and even had to prepare my coffee to got for the next morning very regularly.
„Sometimes the world just felt so soft“, I tell my witch. „Just as if nothing I did today could backfire catastrophically tomorrow.“
„When did it stop?“, she asks and I think of my 25th birthday again.
It was in January 2020.
„Usually people celebrate the funeral of their youth when they turn 30“, I tell Layla and she waits for an explanation. „But I think my 25th birthday was just that.“ The funeral of my youth, the last time I saw all my friends in one room. For some even the last time I ever saw them.
„Although that‘s probably not a bad thing in some cases“, I admit lost in thoughts. „That one friend I had known for very long had brought her weird new boyfriend, and when we tried to sleep they had sex at the other end of the room.“ Layla giggles more than ever and I shake my head.
I call that day the funeral of my youth, because in the past four years my life did not calm down. It was either the world outside going crazy or my life falling apart over and over again under the effect of it.
I had ever since felt as if I carried so much weight around with me. More weight than I can comprehend.
„When I turned 25“, my witch interrupts my thoughts and seems to have the bottle of Rum ready for me, „my life was officially over. I had gone through all the stages a woman‘s life can offer, and I had successfully failed them all, so that my world turned on me.“ But she blushed and smiled. „That was when he found me.“
As my witch poured a little bit of the Rum I had been yearning for into my hot chocolate only to steal it from my hands and enjoy it herself, I smile at her. Her life only started when that of others had already been over. Maybe the weight I carried around had nothing to with age, but rather circumstances I had to change.
It’s just not so easy to find out where to start.
Mistress witch writes 