I decided it is time to confront the pain by talking about it, to let my family and friends understand the frustration of our situation, and therefore also understand the avoiding-dance that I have been practicing.

My fiancé and I have been forced to be apart for 7 months more than anticipated, which makes it 10 months in total. The thought was to quickly sell his house so we could start our life here in Finland without any tricky attachments or duties to his home country of Paraguay.

Paraguay is a developing country without any real credit system accessible to the common man. This creates a situation where people actually have to save up the money, and then carry it in plastic bags when doing larger investments. This does of course not apply to the few but extremely wealthy people in the top layer of the stratum. This group lives in a few explicit neighbourhoods, so housing outside these parts are not a point of interest to them, unless they buy as investment, which they more seldom do since it is quite a small turnover for these ultra rich.

Selling the house thus became a waiting game – waiting for the one family with savings or a semi-wealthy businessman who understood the possibilities with buying such a nice house for such a low price. There were many contestants showing up, showing interest.

I like Batman so drawing a parallel to “The Dark Knight Rises” seems legit. Do you remember the jail where Bain brought Bruce? Do you remember why, according to Bain, it was hell on earth? Because of hope.

Potential buyers came, a lot of them. Some came several times with more and more family members accompanying them for each visit. They wanted to buy it! “Prepare the papers, bring the guy that supervises and makes the sale official, we’ll come with the money at 16 o’clock!”.  16 o’clock came and went, still no buyers, still no money. A phone call is made, “Yes, yes, we are just around the corner!”. 18 o’clock. Still nothing. Same procedure, “Yes, yes, we are there really soon!”. 19 o’clock still no one. This time no one answers, as they continue to never again answer. Suddenly they just completely disappear from the face of the earth. Imagine this process, several times during a period of ten months. Torture. Complete and utter torture of the mind.

Months go by and the phrase “ya pronto” makes me gag. Only the mention of the house makes us quarrel, unfortunately it is the only thing we can think of. The frustration is filling the relationship and we start avoiding the subject, avoiding, well, each other. Sometimes the frustrations takes us over completely, and good days we let it show, our tears makes us closer again. And so it goes in periods.

For me the worst thing is that I don’t even have the right to complain. I am here, in Finland, where all is well. The first 6 months went by in a flash when I occupied my mind with writing my thesis. The later months I simply took out my frustrations on the tennis court. I enjoy Finland at its finest, I even make new friends. Still, I fell frustrated, and I complain. I have no right. Because, the frustration I feel can possibly only be one third of the frustration he feels.

He is in a country he resents more and more for each month that passes, for each event in my life that he misses and for each time his hope gets crushed. He admits to me that the situation makes him feel very ill indeed. You see, he has nothing to do since his occupation was here, he is hurt and can’t exercise as he used to, the weather is unstable most of the time so he has no Internet connection, leaving the house is dangerous and therefore not something very desirable, and he has no parents to seek comfort from. He only waits. And I am the one complaining.

He is overjoyed: he claims to finally have sold the house. I have been through this emotional roller coaster too many times to get on it again, and simply reply “I believe you when I see you at the airport”. Things actually seem to move forward and he is promised the money as soon as the paper that makes the owner shift official arrives from the secretariat. “No more than ten days they promised!”. He calls them everyday to know the whereabouts of his precious paper, his ticket out of the frustration, and everyday he gets the same answer “Tomorrow or the day after”.

We are still waiting for the paper, and yes it has been well over ten days already. His life stands still and mine move very quickly. I hope we somehow manage to make our timelines crash into each other again.