That's how I feel about you

by Oihane Amezqueta Ruiz (Spain)

I didn't expect to find Argentina

I'm not going to try to blame anyone or even think myself a victim of this relationship, because I was the one who picked you out of all the options, even though you were the one who had the least advantages in terms of logic. Something in my intuition pointed at you not knowing exactly why, and despite the fear, I picked you, terrified, but I picked you. And I chose you seeking the change of routine and boredom, of the lack of ecstasy and motion, of the need to cut through apathy and horizontal emotions. I don't think I ever fell in love with you. I always walked with leaden feet, skeptical, as I always do. I never wanted to commit to you, we were and are too different, so you were only a temporary adventure, fuel for my curiosity mixed with pure terror of the unknown. It was hard for me to accept you, and despite the months I still don't understand you well, I don't understand what you make me feel, I don't understand why I can't tear you away from me and leave forever. I have felt very lonely next to you, lost, confused, trapped, exited, anxious, motivated, sad, accompanied, disgusted, angry, frantic, apathetic, energetic, exhausted, upset, insecure, terrified, disordered. You always make me feel so vulnerable and insignificant beside you. I stayed perhaps out of pride, perhaps because I wanted to know you better, or perhaps because of the frustration of not being able to live the story that my expectations idealized. But now I know I can' t ask that, not from you, because you are chaos, contradiction, so unpredictable, pure intensity and disorganization. And it's that charisma of yours, histrionic in nature, that borders upon the pathological, which bothers me and absorbs me at the same time. I've considered leaving you a number of times, but you've become a kind of comfort-zone, and now I can no longer walk away. I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster of pure action, of imbalance, disorder and uncertainty. You cause me so many headaches. My adrenaline levels are borderline, it's impossible for me to avoid being over-excited all the time, such that sometimes I feel like I' m on the verge of a panic attack. I know I am not the first, I have known many others who have fallen into your grasp and we share the same sensations: the warmth even on the coldest day, the over-stimulation, the stress and that toxic magnetism we feel towards you, which attracts us and does not let us run away. A dramatic, textbook relationship. Now I understand well, after all the confusion, the kind of complicated bond you and I share. It was never healthy because I hate you and love you at the same time. And now you've become an indivisible part of me. I don't know when I will be able to leave you BUENOS AIRES, but everything we have lived together, all the good and all the bad, all the experiences and learning, all your madness and art, will be engraved among the moles on my skin.