Dear reader,

my July has been the busiest month since Ribalon started. I have delivered or organised three major events in only one month: EBTA Summer Camp 2017, On Arrival EVS training and International Training No Panic. I thought I’d be exhausted by the end of the month, but surprisingly, I am bursting with energy. I’ll be returning back to the UK tomorrow and life will settle down only for a couple of days until full speed again.

So I am blooming professionally and could hardly imagine a more successful and fruitful summer.

But another part of me is dying. I am losing one of the most important people in my life. Ever since we first met, we both sensed this will lead to an exciting, loving, friendly, caring relationship. And yet we both knew our relationship was temporary, limited in time and space. What we did not know was that we’ll become so very close and such a perfect match, that we’d forgotten our relationship had serious limitations.

Now looks like, the time has come for us to part, because our lives are moving in different directions. We are not speaking the same language and do not live in the same country. We do not have many things in common and our social circles do not have overlapping members. We talked about this and it broke my heart when I first started to realise our tomorrow won’t be. But regardless of that, I tried to find a way forward, create some possibilities for us to stay together. And sometimes we are not almighty. Sometimes we cannot move mountains or create miracles, no matter how much we want to believe we could.

Right now I feel as if someone let the air out of my body. I’m feeling empty, crushed, hopeless. I want to be angry, but don’t know with whom. I want to scream like a spoiled child, but my resentment has no solid ground, since I knew from the beginning that I will lose this person. I guess I was hoping this moment would come later. Or perhaps never. I was convinced that I have the power and means to create opportunities and find solutions for us to be. And it worked. For a while. But now as I am receiving messages from this person, the bitter truth has showed its teeth and faced me with the fact that we hit the edge of our relationship. And that there are paths for us to move on. But not together.

I have let this person become such a big part of my life that I simply can’t see beyond this loss. And rationally I know, time will heal things. I know that a day will come when I’ll pick myself up again and will retain this relationship as something precious by keeping the memory of the good times we had together. But today I am heartbroken.

And this is where my clients come on stage again. I can’t thank them enough for their wisdom they shared with me. One such conversation I had while delivering a training in Poland in the end of July. One of the participants, a gentle, caring, amazingly brave and creative young man said something, while we were having a conversation, which made me think.

Perhaps my purpose on this planet is not to be happy. Perhaps my purpose on this planet is to make others happy, but my own happiness is beyond my reach. I have always thought happiness is somewhat overrated and following what Hemingway was supposed to say, that “happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” I somewhat agreed. Until this person came along. Together with this person I have experienced moments of biggest joy, excitement, passion, love, gratitude and, yes, genuine happiness. And I want more of this of course. But no matter how much I want it, our tomorrow won’t be.

So today I am realising once and for all, that I am losing this person and as much as I have tried everything, things won’t work out for us. I am coming back to be the old me, the one who does not believe in happiness.

And here comes a beautiful quote from my participant. He said it out loud, during our conversation. Later on, by the end of the training, he brought me a present. I am attaching the present in the photo below. The quote on the back of the Miro-like picture said:

“Maybe I don’t believe in happiness, but that doesn’t mean I believe in sadness.”  (Lucio, copyright allowed to Biba)

Thank you so much Lucio. So maybe I don’t believe in happiness anymore. And maybe I won’t manage to move on from this loss. Perhaps I will become an old, bitter person, closed up to the world. Or maybe not. But I don’t believe in sadness either. Whatever will be, I will never forget the moments when random people connect in their humanity and share some of their vulnerability and sadness. It is one of the best assets we possess as living creatures when things hurt.

Biba