#1 Suzy

It all began with Suzy. I´ve never met someone so inspiring. Or actually, I´ve never met someone who said that I am inspiring. As a former teacher I must have inspired someone. But no one ever told me. Teenagers don´t tell you that. Suzy did. Maybe that´s why I like her so much. She is pushing me to be as inspiring as possible.

The first time I met her, I told her about my book. I remember exactly how we sat in a sketchy bar close to the mercado central in 30-degrees. She told me about what she´s reading and so we started talking about books. Eventually, I told her about my book. I was surprised by myself. I hadn´t even told my brother about my book, but with Suzy, it was easy. She studied Journalism at a well-known American University that I´ve never heard of. I already forgot the name but I remember nodding my head as if I knew exactly where that University was. She repeated it many times but still, I have no idea. We talked about books, series and the United States. Suzy is from Texas. As soon as she said that I could picture her dancing on a farm with a cowboy hat and a red checkered blouse. I saw her cowboy boots in front of my mind´s eye and heard the country music. I even imagined a guy with spoons banging them on his feet to make a weird kind of drum music. When she told me her father is Mexican, I saw the same picture formed in my head just with a mariachi band in the corner of the farm. What a stupid stereotype, I said to myself and tried to engage in her story. She was still talking about Texas, I guess.

Suzy took a sip of her Aperol Spritz and told me that a jellyfish stung her at the beach in Texas. I was so surprised that Texas has a beach that I asked her again. “Texas has a beach?” Well, yes, and she had just told me about it. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t know Texas has a beach. I know the map of the United States more or less. But I had no idea about the location of the 50 states. At least I know Austin, Texas and Houston, Texas, I said. Suzy grinned and then told me that Houston is at the beach. Not knowing which Texan Cities have a beach and which don’t isn´t really a problem for me, Houston. I felt a little foolish, but then remembered, that Suzy probably had no idea about European countries, so I´m fine.

Suzy is amazing. Maybe she does know all the European countries, I thought. I look at her brown eyes and felt so proud for her to be here. She took all her stuff and came to Europe to find love and a job. On the other hand, she came from the US. It´s not the most inspiring journey to move from rich country to another. But even though it´s not a super inspiring story, she´s trying to make it one. She is looking for a job, looking for a reason to love life and seeking out inspiring people. Just like me. And anyway, she did something, isn´t that all that counts?

After talking to her for hours in the Spanish heat, I was still trying to figure out what kind of person Suzy is. And I´m sure, she is doing the same. She seems clever and brave. She´s not insecure but she´s not the kind of person, who knows exactly what they want. But honestly, who is like that anymore? In movies we always have the female lead, who is doing everything possible to reach her dream. She wants to be a dancer? All she ever does is dance, write about dancing in her diary and sit in her room looking at posters of dancers. Today, I know no one this dedicated. Suzy is 25, she doesn’t know what to do in life, she doesn’t know what she´s passionate about, or even what kind of work she wants. This is the reality. All my friends are like this. We are twenty-something and we are doing…something. We are trying to get by, have fun, learn and seizing opportunities. But not all of them. There are just too many. We are trying to find a job that can pay for the lifestyle our parents showed us, but with enough free time to actually enjoy it. We study something we think we are passionate about at 18 and then we realize, that this is not helping us in real life. The twenty-somethings are stuck between being like our parents and being like this ballerina in a dance movie. Why are there so many dance movies? Who wants to be a professional dancer, and who actually becomes one?

There are so many things we can do, that we decide not to do any of it. Instead, we travel (if we have the money) and hang out in sketchy bars with people who achieved absolutely nothing in their lives. And of course, we love find people who are stuck like us - stuck between boomers and the dancers. If this were the dance movie I´m talking about, I would be the rebellious sidekick. The best friend of the person who knows exactly what they want. Just the best friend, not the main character because even though she is a little inspiring, she is not inspiring enough to carry the whole movie. And Suzy? Suzy would be the smart little sister, who reads all the time and secretly admires her older dancing sister.

The next day I met Suzy at the beach. She told me about her psychopath ex-boyfriend and how to detect, who is a psychopath and who´s not. I believe of myself, that I have a very good sense of people. I can tell when someone is a psychopath. But I didn’t want to stop this conversation with Suzy so I asked her, how to detect it. She gave me a list of 30 signs:

1 – he acts like a psychopath.

2 – he is toxic.

3 – he is weird, but not in the fun way.

After number 3 I stopped reading. “I could tell you that” Suzy laughed and sits on the other side of her towel to catch some sun. She is super tanned and I envy her for it. I wish my Dad was Mexican. I wish my Dad was still alive. But let´s not go there. Not just yet. This story just began and it all began with Suzy.