A Typhoon That Passed Through Me

By Unsplash

When people talked about traveling through someone’s eyes, it sounded silly to me. I hadn’t lived anything like that, but truly, each person carries a universe in their gaze.

When I looked deeply into someone’s eyes and find their soul, it was enchanting and frightening at the same time. As if I’d lost the ground beneath me and any sense of where I was, I found myself levitating into a journey I hadn’t planned to take—one with no set destination and no time to end. Charmed by the landscapes and discoveries of this new adventure I’d longed to live, I went beyond my limits. I explored places I didn’t know and opened my heart to the strangeness of feelings that envelop human beings and lead them to do reckless things. I finally understood what so many people have described, both in real life and in the entertainment industry.

I realized that, in the end, it isn’t such madness after all—it is simply a place to be explored. So I allowed myself to be carried by my feelings and set rationality aside. I let the part of me that makes us most human take me wherever I needed to go—to a place I had to inhabit in order to feel I belonged to this world of people so different, yet moved by the same emotions.

I blamed myself for having gone so far that I forgot about myself and left it until the last moment to set a boundary. I knew the journey wouldn’t last, even if I didn’t want to listen to that inner voice that sometimes I called inconvenient. I didn’t want to stop living that moment, even when it was no longer the best one.

The trip eventually ended. I was pulled by force out of that universe that had so enchanted me and returned to the cold, raw reality I was used to—but hadn’t thought I would return to. I was hit by a shock so great it felt as if I’d fallen from a building and smashed against the ground. I was blind, deaf, and mute at many points, and I paid the price.

But in the end, I understood that I don’t have to carry the guilt of having been human and letting myself enter that chaotic, profound realm. After all, I had never experienced so many sensations and emotions so intensely in such a short time. Why should I be guilty for living and believing in the best in people?

I spent so long in pessimism—didn’t I deserve the chance to know what optimism is?

In the end, I became more human. And on that journey, I met and rebuilt bonds with those I never should have drifted away from. I returned to who I’ve always been and understood that whoever is with me must respect who I am—nothing more, nothing less.

Now I allow myself to live what is different, to be in places I’d never been and with people I’d only just met.

We all have a universe within us; I experienced what it is to dive into someone’s eyes, and now I want someone to be willing to dive into mine as well.

• Author: Eduarda L. de Oliveira