Stranger in the night

(ecoute moi)

It was two and a half years ago, late at night, late August, late in so many ways.
I was sitting in the train, the very last seat of the cart, facing the wall, so that I had the illusion of being able to hide myself from the rest of the passengers. I was filled with desperation and sorrow, because I was trying  to accept the the idea that I had just seen for the last time in my life the man I was so ravingly in love with (I was very wrong, but could not know it then). And I could not stop the tears pouring down my cheeks.
I was listening to some mushy music on my I-Pod and honestly thought that nobody in the train would see me, hear me or bother about me.
And yet, while I was trying unsuccesfully to dry my mucus, tears and desperation with my sleeve, a young man, whose face I did not even see, just before getting off the train came close to me for a few seconds and simply said "Der Mann, der dich zum Weinen bringt, ist es meistens nicht wert".

It was such a filmic image. So poetic and pure and free because spoken out of mere compassion and empathy.

It was in fact not the last time I saw the man who I was so ravingly in love with, though I couldn´t know, back then. The man "der es nicht wert war" made me pour thousands of tears more until one day, suddenly, I realized that the stranger on the train was simply right.

It has been more than two years since that damp August night and today, after a very pleasant Christmas party, while serenely walking home with a light heart and no more drama in my life, I found myself thinking about the stranger in the train who was offering me a simple and true answer to my pain.

The man who brings you to tears is mostly not worth it.

Dear stranger, whoever, wherever you are, you are coming to bed with me tonight.