An Important value of life

        What is the meaning of life? This is a question I hear from almost every one of my friends. The answer to this question is usually subjective and is based on the experiences a person has had. There are certain moments in our life which stand out of the ordinary, which really test us and tell us who we really are. In this essay I am going to describe one of those moments that happened to me and gave me a real sense of the value of life.
It was August 2012. This was when my mum, myself and a bunch of her friends decided to travel to Spain. It was an exciting journey for me because I had never been there before. It was a two week thing. Everything was ordinary until I saw the members of our group. They were all nice people whom I got on well with, but there was one exception. There was that girl. She was slightly older than me. I liked her at first sight. But it wasn’t love or anything like that. It was just physical attraction or at least that’s what I thought.
A week after, both of us went to a roller coaster near Barcelona. It was a special day which I never forgot. That was the day when we first held hands together and I realized that it was no longer purely physical attraction. It was something more, it was that feeling which takes hold of you and then you no longer think rationally: your brain shuts down and you think about her all the time. That’s how I felt that day. At the same time, I was really scared because as soon as you get this feeling, as soon as you fall in love, you become afraid of losing it, afraid of messing it up. You are uncertain whether this person feels the same towards you. The days went by without me expressing what I really felt and just looking at her like a lost puppy trying to understand “Is this for real?”
I wasn’t able to sleep that night, nor the one after that, without thinking about her. That was how crazy I had become. A couple of days later I finally kissed her. That was a moment of establishing the connection between us. The moment of saying publicly, “I like you, and I do not care what other people think.” Little did I know how much it would hurt the next day when she had to leave. The entire day after, I tried to accept the fact that these were our last hours together and I had to make them meaningful. I could not waste them. This knowledge did not help. When I was next to her, the only thing I could feel was that she was leaving in a couple of hours. She was crying. I wanted to too, but I couldn’t. That’s how I was taught, “A real man never cries.” Ten minutes after she left, I went to the beach where our friends were. That was where I was crying like a baby. That had never happened to me before. Everything there reminded me of her. I was crying the entire day and then I realized “That person meant a lot to me”.
When I came back to Ukraine I thought I got over it. And that is when I received her email. She missed me. I was jumping like crazy. I thought we could give this a shot. A ‘Long distance’ relationship while I was in Winchester and then I would see her every holiday and spend all our time together. That was the plan. Every day we Skyped each other. It felt awesome to see her face, her smile and hear all the stories about how she spent her day.
We spent two months communicating like this. Finally, it was two weeks before half-term when I could see her. But then, something felt bitter. With each passing day I felt it more and more. I felt it every time I talked to her. Something was wrong. There was a conflict inside of me. I wanted to see this girl, to touch her one more time. I realized then that I was the wrong person for her. That she needs to move on and find someone whom she could have a future with. I could no longer see how this relationship could work. The more we talked, the more attached she became. The harder it was to tell the truth. One day, I finally managed to do it. It was a long conversation in which I explained everything as clearly as I could. She was crying. I knew I was hurting her. The only thing I hoped for is that she would understand and finally find someone who will be the right person for her.
The pain never leaves you. I often thought about her. There were long nights when I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking of her. These memories were opening up a wound which I hoped could heal one day. Now, I feel that the only reason I survived was because I thought I did the right thing. That was the first time I put someone else’s need above mine. This experience taught me that the main thing in life is to be able to put someone else’s needs above yours, no matter how painful it is. This is often the right but difficult choice. I talked to this girl a couple of days ago. She met a guy. Now they are in a serious relationship. They are seriously thinking about moving to America and start living together. Only then, I realized that my mission is accomplished. She is happy, she has moved on and I can close this chapter of my life.