In 2002, when I was still young and innocent, I spent November and December in Vancouver, Canada, to improve my English so I could subsequently study a semester at a university in New Zealand. Three weeks before I left, a girl from Brazil arrived and... I really fell in love for the first time in my life. It was complicated: I was confused, she had a boyfriend in Brazil... Nonetheless, she was the sincerest and the most naturally warm-hearted girl I had ever met. 

I returned to Switzerland heartbroken. I was devastated. Being Swiss, I liked watches and so, in addition to the watch on my left wrist showing local (Swiss) time, I put another watch on my right wrist showing her time. Even though I was constantly thinking of her (she had returned to Brazil), I stuck to my plan and went to New Zealand for six months. 

When I came back, I had gotten used to wearing two watches and kept doing so. I was always wearing them – when swimming, sleeping, pretty much all the time except when going through security checks. Now, whenever I travelled, I had both Swiss and the local time on my watches. It became a reminder that people in various places in the world had also taken a place in my heart.

One day the watch broke down. I took it off but couldn’t fall asleep that night, so I put it back on again and fell asleep. Hence, I kept wearing the broken watch and it slowly continued to disintegrate. Water got into it; sand got into it; scratches accumulated on the glass until it cracked and started falling out bit by bit; the face plate followed suit; the inner parts eroded... The left wrist remained exact Swiss time; the right wrist showed the slow changes in life.

My friends didn’t like the watch and would tell me to take it off or joke that one day they would hack off my hand and throw it out the window along with the watch. The poor guys had to listen to the story of the watch whenever we met new people who curiously noticed it. Some could tell the story so well themselves that people got confused whether it had happened to them (telling the story) or me (wearing the watch). Girls I met would also learn the story. Some were intrigued, others weren’t amused. I kept wearing it anyway. It had grown on me.

I visited the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb twice in the last two years and really liked it. However, I found a lot of the stories rather sad (naturally, one would think). So, I thought I’d send you this watch that has now accompanied me for 15 years as a sign that even when a love story ends, we can continue to draw happiness and beautiful memories from it and give it new meaning over time. 
 
What became of the Brazilian girl it all started with? She is living happily in Brazil. I met her when I travelled there in 2013, and we write to one another from time to time. I still think she is an amazing person and I’m happy that our paths had crossed in 2002. 

Watch

We grew so icy with each other those few days; what I thought might allow us to thaw the growing cold between us only solidified both our feelings. As you watched me scrape the ice off the car at the airport while you sat planning your family New Year's Eve, we both knew it was the end. 

Nothing was right for you in Marrakech, nor with the plan I'd painstakingly and lovingly created for us, but perhaps we were both ultimately too inflexible and too selfish. 

I accept my mistakes though the way you cruelly laid out my catalogue of faults still weighs heavy; my self-worth shattered. You never would acknowledge your own flaws though. Months of being fully present for you, limping from one family crisis to the next, trying to accommodate your needs, and taking on board all your interests. None of this - or the strain it placed on 'us' - was ever acknowledged. I thought there would be more grace, understanding and space for me when I needed it, but there was only space for you - I wish you'd been honest about that from the start; with me and with yourself. 

Hardest in all of this is realising that the person I fell in love with - and dreamed of building a future with - didn't exist, leaving me questioning my own judgement. 

But now, finally, I've cracked it and I am letting the illusion of you go. 

Watch

Freezing Point