The long good-bye

We don’t have much time left. We lie in bed for the longest time this morning not wanting to move. I have been in Rio 11 nights this trip. She has been with me 9 of those nights. How many guys come to Rio and spend their trip this way? Some of my friends think I am crazy, I know. I took the road less traveled and now I have to deal with the consequences.

We finally get dressed and I prepare to head out around noon. She wants to go with me but I want to try to call Iris again and I can’t do it with her around. I tell her to go to her apartment and I will meet up with her shortly. She won’t leave. She is afraid I am going to leave town without seeing her or go see another girl. I tell her she isn’t going with me so she can either stay here in my apartment or go to hers. She doesn’t budge, so I lock the door and head out to meet Don to return my phone. Now that I think about it, it seems like a pretty mean thing to do, but I needed some time alone.
Don and I meet at Domino’s. Rhonda shows up and we all talk for a while. While there, I try to call Iris again and she is half-asleep. I manage a few words and after a minute the phone cuts out. There is really no point in calling her back. I feel bad enough already about how things turned out in regards to her.
Don walks back with me to my apartment because I forgot the charger. I tell him along the way that “you know who” is inside, and roll my eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I like this girl, but at times she has gotten on my nerves this trip. To some she has probably become “the evil girlfriend”. You know the girl………. the one that takes a guy away from his friends. I am going to miss her though. I have felt a small (very small) amount guilt for what happened to her, although I can think of a lot worse things that I could have done to her than getting her out of a brothel. She had been there long enough to know that you don’t act like that in a terma, so I don’t let her guilt trip me. Truth be told, I feel sorry for her.
I give Don the charger and the items I brought down for him and we say our good-byes. I walk over to the couch and notice that she has written a note to me in English while I was gone. Bless her heart… she tried and it was very touching. I tore it out and brought it home with me to remember.

Over the next 2 hours, I pack up the rest of my things and carry them to another bed. At one point I am on the balcony taking a few more pictures when I look back. She is sitting on the bed next to my suitcases and I take a picture. The look on her face in the photo as she stared blankly at the floor is very poignant.
Back in the living room, we both keep checking the time. I have already arranged for the taxi driver who took us to Christo to drive me to the airport. She wants to come. I don’t want her to, but then again, I don’t want to say good-bye right now either. We spend our last moments on the couch with her head on my shoulder. I end up having to change shirts before I leave because the one I had on is soaked with tears. I have wiped more tears from this girl’s face in our short time together than any other girl in my life. This isn’t going to get any easier. Leaving Rio is hard enough as it is, but with this scenario about to play out, it makes it twice as hard.
Once in the taxi, we head out through Ipanema and around the lake. I had never been out this way and it was nice because it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, a fitting end to another great trip.
The ride to the airport felt like my last few moments before my impending execution. I had not really wanted it to go down this way because it was just dragging out the inevitable, but she was insistent upon coming along. As we sat in the back of the taxi, we both knew there would be no last minute stay and all we could do was sit closely to each other and try to manage an occasional smile in between the long hugs. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach already. This wasn't going to be easy.

Finally arriving at the airport, I gather my bags at the curb. We embrace in one last long hug and I whisper “I will miss you” in her ear. She pulls away without looking, seemingly unable to take anymore and gets in the taxi.

As I write this, it is difficult for me remembering her sitting there, tears streaming down her cheeks as she peered at me from behind the glass. All I can do is stare at her, unable to speak, unable to walk away. After one last wave good-bye, the car pulls away and I proceed into the airport.

Consider it a lesson learned. These vacations were supposed to be all about fun, but I truly underestimated the emotional ramifications of getting close to these women. At times during my first trip, I relished in the idea of having relations with as many girls as possible, laughing at the stories of guys getting into entanglements, all the while patting myself on the back for my own ingenuity, my brazenness, my disregard for the 3X rule, and my own safadoness in dealing with these girls. Life can sometimes dish out a hard lesson. I never really expected things to go this far but fate sort of intervened. She deserves so much better than what she is getting, as do so many women in Rio and elsewhere. I don’t know what the future holds for her but I know that I want her to find real happiness for once in her life.

As for me, maybe I’m not cut out for this life after all. I remember telling Don towards the end of my first trip that I wasn’t really a monger. I remember him laughing and asking what I was then. I’m not really sure at this point. I seem to be unable to separate myself from the hardships that many of these young women have to go through. I have no idea what it is like to grow up poor in such a poor country. I thought I could handle it. Maybe in time, I will become a jaded monger. I hope not. For now I can only empathize, and that may be my undoing in this life.

Good luck buddy. I can understand why you would want to be with someone that you clicked with, and why you feelings are this way now.

Who knows what you will do. There was a whole discussion in chat a couple of weeks ago about guys and programma girls. Just do what you need to do.

In the long run you will find this trip meant more to you then doing 800 other gals, and you still had fun.

Best to you.

OH

Thanks Otro.

One thing I wanted clarify is that the comment "unless it's your wife" was supposed to be a joke. I'm not sure if it came over that way or not though... meaning if you spent that much time with any woman you would become attached, unless that woman happened to be your wife.