Innocence Lost and Truth Found

Nobody really needs a holiday. Whenever somebody would ask me if I was looking forward to my upcoming trip, this is how I would begin my answer. 'Nobody really needs a holiday, but...' But, I had never been so desperate to escape my every day. To wake up to a different sky and have the air I breathe smell, and feel, different. To breathe. As if I had been holding my breath each day I stepped onto a train platform. Every time I entered the office and sat down at my desk. All those sips of coffee that were once pleasurable, now a poison slowly killing me. So, although my defensive response to a simple question followed fear of portraying privilege or sounding out-of-touch with my reality, I needed this holiday.

It had been six years since my mother found herself on a plane. We once would embark on annual family holidays. Somewhere hot, with a pool and great food. Simplicity, but a luxury. When life changed devastatingly, she was unable to partake in our usual family holidays. Because there would be nothing usual about it. Everything had changed. I know she felt guilty. We all do, regardless of the smiles we wear. Though, this year she decided to persevere through her guilt. Through her grief. Taking as much thought out of the process as possible for her, I researched potential resorts for us to visit. Concluding with three options that matched all requested criteria, I presented them to my mother. All she had to do was pick one and I would sort out the rest.

Heraklion. Stepping off the plane with the sea smiling on the horizon and the sun warming our stained skin. It felt that all I needed was this. The sun, the sea, some coffee and my family. Nothing wild, nothing spectacular. Then, we took a walk to the hotel's surroundings. It became rapidly apparent that I was not going to retrieve the calm and quiet holiday I believed I was so desperately obliged. 'Shisha! Let's do shisha!' My sister called. 'Yes, we're going to do shisha!' My mother followed. Trailing behind, I remarked, 'Nobody is doing shisha.' Our sandals strolled along an endless strip of bars, balloons and cannabis and so many bars. 'We're getting fucked up.' Called my sister. Currently being ten months sober, I knew for certain that I was not getting "fucked up". It was in my mother and sister's illuminated eyes and grins that I saw the rest of my holiday. They, drunk and annoying. Me, sober and annoying. Of course, I would never stop them from drinking and having a good time. However, I believed our collective idea of a "good time" was sitting by the ocean at night teaching my mum how to play Uno. Not inhaling tar and greeting the hotel staff every morning feeling and looking like shit.

I decided not to allow the anticipated contrast of expectations hinder my spirits. After all, a late night to my sister is any time past nine o'clock and my mother's stomach can barely handle a single glass of wine. I was sure the holiday I had originally anticipated was not to be forgotten as a memory that never did exist. With our smiles and summer dresses on, we began our steps towards the strip. The graceful collision of the sea against the shore was exponentially dimmed underneath the increasing sound of music. Greek song in harmony with a bouzouki, growing louder and louder. Past the bushes where the neighbouring cats rest, a kaleidoscope of colour and bulbs greeted our vision. Standing on top of tall stairs overlooking the scene, we watched a band play surrounded by perpetual tables of food and wine. Crowds collected on the steps and the floor. What is going on here? We wondered. Towards the food we went, of course, and asked this very question. 'It is World Tourism Day,' the woman behind the steel trays replied. 'Please help yourself.' Exchanging bewildered glances, I grabbed a plate, while my mother and sister headed straight for the free alcohol. Despite having already eaten dinner at the hotel mere moments before, I could not resist the filo-wrapped feta parcel drizzled in sweet, sweet honey. Paired with a non-alcoholic fruity beverage... and a bowl of anari-dressed pasta. My greed is justified by my desire to taste the authentic cuisine of a foreign country. Hotel buffets tend to lack this cultural experience, so I digested as much of it as I possibly could.

While I did not stop chewing for hours, my mother and sister could not stop laughing. Complimentary inebriation suited their satisfaction, I did not impose. They were happy, I was happy. Listening to live music and eating honest food, not unwillingly moving on a sticky floor unable to engage in conversation. I struggle with my Greek heritage. There are factors of it that disassociate my pride. Though, it is only when its instruments sing that I find an otherwise venomous group of members collide to form a supportive and loving community. Precisely when dancing the kalamatianos do I let go of my resentment for the blood in my veins. Although I stated that I desired a break filled with tranquillity, it was at that moment I realised that tranquillity can be loud. It can be an explicit force, power, that shines bright and boldly. Tranquillity can be soberly dancing to Greek music underneath a spotlight in front of hundreds of spectators. It can be dancing so much your dress tears and continuing to dance regardless. When the lids were placed on steel trays and the caps on bottles, I did not want to return to our quiet hotel room. I could have danced all night.

The hours that fill the daytime I find most exhaustive. Those are the times I struggle to fill, to enjoy, to live. It is the hours past midnight and before sunrise that I believe life truly exists. My days spent in Crete terminated later than the last. Never closing my eyes before three o'clock the following morning. One of these nights ending less than an hour before the sun was ready to rise. Though, I will speak of this night soon enough. Even if these beginning hours of the proceeding day were merely spent sipping on pineapple juice outside of an Irish pub, I could not want to be anywhere else. When my sister and I were ready to end the day, we knocked on the hotel room door to be greeted by our drunken mother who we swiftly put to bed some time prior. After only a handful of hours of sleep, I rose to put on a bikini and headed out of the door once again. The crisp early breeze that blows before a blazing day, how it clears my lungs. Seasoned with salt from the sea that I walk along and into. Listening to the waves speak before filling my eardrums with a different beat - all sweet, all okay. It is the contrast my skin holds underneath the moon and the sun that makes up life. Really, really living.

While my mother and sister were knocking back free shots, including half each of mine, and cocktails and more shots, I enjoyed the confused consideration of bartenders as I ordered espressos. One after the other at each bar, despite the set sunlight. There was only so much pineapple juice I could drink before drowning my stomach. The sparkling shore accompanied my sips. Besides, I had no intention to sleep. The strip became mine, I owned it. Parading up and down the street in my low-cut dress and wide eyes. Chasing my sister out of one bar as she had run after a man and rushing back to my mother perched up on a stool with an army of hopefuls waiting their turn to offer her a drink. It felt my responsibility to ensure they were both okay. That their giddiness would not be mistaken for vulnerability. There was still a part of me that would not entirely let go. Until that night.

White dress laced with pure innocence. My recently cut hair pulled out of its restricted bun and my usually midnight-shadowed eyes bare. Enough men have crossed my path to affirm how they best perceive me. With my dark hair long, my eyes dark, too. This holiday I wore loose patterned dresses. Purple glitter on my eyes and whatever the hell I wanted. For once, I knew who was looking back at me in the mirror. And, I liked her. Despite one of the bartenders dissapointedly briefing me, 'I didn't know you had short hair.' Followed by a subtly appalled look. Sometimes I think I subconsciously cut my hair just to repel men like this. Perhaps I'll bleach my eyebrows next. The men we encountered in this foreign country intended to be characters in anecdotes we would build. All to be locked in our memory and taken with us back to reality as just that, a memory.

While my sister met a Dutch man who genuinely seemed like a good man, I found him. Tanned skin, long limbs, a deep smile and eyes a roaring ocean blue. It was explicitly evident that those eyes had weakened and enticed many women before and would continue to do so every evening. Though, we went back each night. And each night I watched him at work, letting the women in just enough to convince them to stay, with a distance that tells them they will have to leave eventually. I did not want to be one of those women, I could not bring myself to be. Yes, he was beautiful. Aesthetically, I was not so sure of what lived inside of him. Never did I, or would I, get that opportunity.

In my clean white dress, I approached him as he finished his shift. Three o'clock and I did not know where the night would conclude. Confidently leading the way, we arrived at a beach club. Blazing and alive. 'How do they live like this?' My sister bellowed across the bar as he bought us drinks. My response, 'I love it.' Sipping on purple juice, I did not stop dancing. As if swarming around a honey pot, optimistic others closed in on me. All of which he would meet the eyes of and look at them in a way that said, "she's mine". I loved it. I hated how much I loved it. Each time someone would approach me, I would turn in his direction. Though I knew I was only his for the night, he was mine for the night.

I will not go into any explicit detail of that encounter. Though, what I will say is that before then, I thought I knew who I was. Who I wanted to be. Quiet, simple, not alike those my age. Never have I kissed a stranger, danced with one. Certainly never danced on one. During the start of the trip, I rejected men's advances by telling them that I was just not that type of person. That they would have to accept that. In disbelief that I am even writing this, the men I rejected mere days prior watched me, at this beach club, become the type of person I said I was far from. With bruised egos scattered across the dance floor, I danced around them as the hem of my dress dirtied. Watching my body move, he could not look away. The waves inside of his ocean eyes crashed harder and grew darker as the night progressed and his desire increased. Despite his gaze wandering to other women in my eyeline, I was in control. I gave him so much, but I only gave him so much. Trailing back to our hotel room only a moment before sunrise, I sat by my half-asleep, still intoxicated, mother's bed. 'I am a bad feminist.' I recalled with my head hanging low as my sister clumsily climbed into her suitcase. When I eventually left my mother's side for her slumber and my sister somehow made it out of the suitcase and into a bed, I retreated to the bathroom to wash my face and body. Who was that woman in the mirror? I could barely look at her. Why was she so guilty?

It was our last day. 'You know what's wild?' My sister rhetorically asked me by the pool later that day as she had skipped breakfast. 'You were completely sober.' This made me smirk as the guilt was slowly dissipating and the sensations I experienced that night overtook my thoughts. Never had I felt that way before. God, it felt good. It felt like I had broken open the shell I had been carrying around for years and revealed my true form. When I saw him for the last time, I did not expect anything extraordinary as I was aware that he must have scouted a new woman the moment I left his sight. That his body count most likely increased a couple of digits before the sun had risen. The moment I looked into his eyes for the first time, I knew the deal. So, we hugged goodbye and that was it. Until I walked back along the strip to buy my sister McDonald's because I refused to end the night so soon. Any excuse I could have to stay out, I took it. The Irish bar I would sometimes sit outside of alone while my sister was becoming acquainted with the Dutch man was no longer an option considering they all thought I was a slut. Why is it always the shortest men with the biggest egos? I was so desperate to taste more of the moonlight, I considered sitting on the sand with only the sea and my solitude to keep me company. Alas, it was time for me to accept this life was drawing to a close. So, I went to bed before three o'clock for the first time all week.

On the coach to the airport, I felt suffocated. As if a part of me was being severed from my soul. Driving further and further away, though never entirely detaching. Once we had reached our gate number, tears began to silently, yet weighty, drop from my cheeks. I felt embarrassed. Those sitting surrounding me must have thought I was completely oblivious to any struggle in life. Who cries because their holiday is over? They must have thought. Back to real life, they would say. Though, that is why I could not bear to leave. Because the life I was returning to did not feel like a real life. Growing up in London, it seems that there is only one path to take. All other paths are wrong. You must get a job that pays a lot of money, even if you dislike every second of it. You must get a mortgage, married and have children. No matter what age you do this, it must be done. Though, preferably before thirty. (Don't worry men, this rule only applies to women.) In Greece, I met people who began work at eleven pm and finished at three am. They drink on the job, meet new people and have fun. Once they clock out, they continue to have fun. Leaving the rest of their hours to be spent beside the water and underneath the sun. The hotel staff would recite to us their lifestyle. How it was not too long before they could stop working and rest for all of winter. Perhaps they do not get paid much money. Maybe they are not even happy. But, their lives showed me that the one I was living was not the only option.

Please do not let me be misunderstood, I am grateful for my life. More grateful than you could know. Though, it just doesn't feel like it is mine anymore. As if I am living inside of a life that no longer exists. Desperately trying to break through, but I am trapped. The only way I feel I can possibly describe my feelings through logic is as such: somebody has given me a dress. It is a beautiful dress and I am very lucky to have it. Not everybody is able to own such a dress. Though, it is too small for my body. At another time in the past, perhaps it could have fit perfectly and I would have worn it happily. Now, I am unable to wear it convincingly and comfortably. It just does not fit.

You know, I think about her often. Wondering what she and the moon get up to while I am unconscious. Probably, she is shaking her ass in a little white dress with the biggest smile on her face. I hope I get to see her again.