The Decadence Chronicle. Episode 17: Laura

Don’t you get the feeling, sometimes, that life is a series of cycles that one is meant to repeat? Places, moods, actions, people, fuckups. All this, an endless pattern of do and redo, make and break, ad infinitum. Some of these processes are less tangible than others. And some are obvious. Too obvious. Like in “Yup, I’ve been here before” kind of obvious. And some, well, who the fuck knows. I don’t have half the answer to this topic.

Laura is a Venezuelan chronist and writer who I happened to “meet” on Tinder recently. I had written in my profile that I was visiting Santiago for just a couple of weeks, so I was only seeking something “brief and intense.” She provided me with that. And in what manner, I must add. Because the sex was secondary. It was good, sure; yet she was so much more. She was smart, funny, clever and interesting as fuck. She was passionate, powerful, honest. So I was afraid, of course. “Not the right time, not the right place.” Which should become my motto when it comes to romance.

Being with Laura was an intense experience, and certainly meant to be short. The longer it would have gone, the harder it would have been to leave. Not to mention that my ego was growing by the minute. She said she liked my blog, and she even bought my self-published ebook in Amazon. She was spoiling my egocentric side. Always keeping a distance, though.“Writers are dangerous,” she would say at all times. My ex would agree with that, I know for a fact.

Laura granted me a pleasant time in my trip to Chile. She also brought me back to a time that now seems very distant. Another Laura’s time. A woman whom I fell in love with, but ended up fucking over. A more dramatic “Not the right time, not the right place” situation. What a fuckup.

A friend of mine has a very interesting tattoo. It says “Fail better.” A little googling around showed me the full quote, from Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Profound stuff, no doubt. So I can’t help to wonder: is it possible? If life keeps repeating itself, as it seems to do, can I fail better? Or, better yet; can I stop failing, altogether?