tired and not happy
when you both came home from a long day of adventures, masha used to say 'and tired and happy, they came home'. you think it might've been her translating from the russian version of winnie the pooh. very meta.
in any case, she said it nearly every evening because, in those days, the two of you had so little time together, you filled your days to the brim. you emptied your savings and your time before she went back to her boyfriend in russia.
you weren't to know that your investment wouldn't pay off. in fact, you hoped the days full of adventure would sway her to choose you.
ironically, it was the routine, or lack of routine, that suffered. the two of you never really got to know what it was like to live together, or make plans for the future.
the same happened with míriam. another long-distance relationship, where the days you could spend together were filled with professions of love and avarice for a future imagined. she went back to spain, you stayed here - a future unrealized.
and now, stuck in your little village of 100 people in the middle of nowhere, your days are full of routine - you wake up and do the same things, come home and do the same things. there is nothing in your life, no one.
you come home, tired and sad. tired and empty.
there is nothing to look forward to - no adventures, no misadventures.
no masha, no míriam. what you wouldn't give for just a little bit of their crazy, even if, again, it doesn't work out.