The Wishing Tree

I had a special experience about a week ago.

I've written here before about a residential area in Bucharest that means a lot to me, it's a place with a lot of great memories and one very close to my heart. Except for a while now, it had started holding this unpleasantness inside it, this extra weight. I used to spend a lot of time here while falling in love with someone, a story that did not end well and hurt me deeply.
And for a while, whenever I came to this place for a walk, or even with friends, I sensed all this heaviness there. I couldn't look at a wall or admire the lush nature spilling out from private courtyards without feeling that person. Without ruminating.

It pissed me off. Because this place meant so much to me, I wasn't prepared to cede it to someone who did not deserve or even want it.

So I took some time away for a while. I spoke with friends with whom I'd often walk there, and asked them can we stay away for a bit. I'm not feeling it. I processed. I have been processing for a long time now. I listened to experts, and was lucky enough to find some I resonated with. Little by little, I began changing the story about this guy I held inside my head. And little by little, I started wanting my neighborhood back.

Then one night, last week, after my yoga practice, I felt ready. I didn't go then because it was late and I didn't wanna tempt fate. But I went the next evening, all by myself. Without music, because that's always such a powerful trigger and again, it's sometimes wise not to tempt fate. With myself. With my eyes, and somehow, I saw the world in a different light.

I passed by all these families out on walks, couples and old folk, people who were alive not two years ago, but now. In this moment. You can either be here or back there, but you can't do both. And me, I'd been wasting far too much time living back there. Waiting to catch glimpses of something that was once special.

Instead, I caught a glimpse of this tree.

It's the Wishing Tree. It belongs to a tiny pocket-size cafe, and they decorated it with these wishes back in March, to mark the beginning of spring. The wishes belong to patrons. Then, in April or so, the wishes vanished, replaced by those white and purple flower arrangements. Now, on my special cleansing walk last week, the wishes had blossomed again.

I took my time reading them, digging out my phone on occasion to snap one that resonated with me.

I realized I looked a little silly. Just standing there, gawking. We're so used to passing things by that we kinda look weird when we take our time noticing them. Thankfully, it's a quiet neighborhood, with not a lot of to-and-fro.

...to heal.

I let myself be consumed by the hopefulness that permeated this little oasis. All these messages hanging, asking for college admissions, love, babies, adventure, all relied on this underlying understanding that the person writing believed. That they were willing to invest their hope in good things coming their way.

You can't invest hope if you're stuck in the past. There isn't enough of you to do it.

This one combo, written by two people, made me smile.

Then, on the back:

It's sometimes very hard to speak these things that make us most vulnerable. Personally, I had a hard time speaking about this person to anyone. It simply hurt so much. There's something very freeing about writing it out like this, publicly, for all the world to hear, and yet retaining your anonymity. A pact between you and the Universe, the only one you need to be asking for kindness.

I'm waiting for you.

I did speak to someone that night. I reached out to a dear friend who shares my love for this place, and thanked her. Strolling through that night, all these memories of the lovely times we'd shared here came flooding back. Let me see it was a place of infinitely more beauty than I gave it credit for.

I could look at many of the wishes in that tree, stuck in this tired, depressing story inside my head and feel small, unwanted, uncherished. Or I could look at the tree itself.

I wouldn't know about the Wishing Tree if it wasn't for my friend. It's all a matter of where you look and what you look for. And if you're gonna obsess over something anyway, wouldn't it be better to obsessively count the good things, the kind people in your life, than seek out those isolated occasions and people who made you feel a little less?