It's been a long time since the good days. After I realized what I saw and did not see about people, I realized that there was no need to hear, see, feel.
I think every night. After the recent events, some nights I can't even sleep for a minute. I'm rolling over in bed. I make a connection between the past, the future and of course the present.
When we started life, we were dreaming of the future. I remember my seven-year-old self. I had an older sister. I think he was five years older than me. We used to dream long with him. "House with Pink Shutters" entered my literature at that age. I didn't know what it meant, but it sounded good to my ears from Abla's voice. My sister had beautiful dreams and I was accompanying her.
When I think of myself at age seven and at age forty-eight, I realize how much everything has changed. I shuffle the album in my bedside drawer. As I see the nakedness of what time has stolen from us, I am devastated to see once again how great the gift that disappeared from my hand was. How innocent a seven-year-old boy is. A red apple in her hand, her older sister holding her tightly. The photo frame tells a lot. Her mother has applied red henna to her hair. If they told me to paint innocence, I think I would want to take that photo frame out and show it to all humanity.
While time is tearing the calendar leaves from our lives one by one, I am reviewing each passing day one by one. I had a very good childhood. We had a peaceful and happy family atmosphere. Our neighbors were precious people, each one more valuable than the other. We took all the beauty that a small town should give to a person, one by one, as a family. I finished my primary school in this beautiful town.
Most of the time, people do not know how to be content with less. Or most people do not know how to settle for less. We decided to leave this beautiful town where everything is crystal clear. My parents decided to immigrate so that the future of the children would not be wasted in this town. I was eleven - twelve years old when this decision was taken. I was the eldest of three children in the family. As children, we inevitably had to comply with this decision. I'll admit, we didn't actually have to. We moved from the town to the city center with great excitement.
On the day we moved, I unknowingly said goodbye to the dreams we had with my sister. I was so focused on what the future would bring that I didn't care if the treasure I left behind was gone.
People are always interested in the new. As a family, we embraced the new. My father was a capable man. The length of my father's arm was beyond our imagination. He created a suitable environment for himself as if he had lived there for half a century, not the new neighborhood. He found a suitable job as his profession was construction. Then he enrolled me and my siblings in their new school. As a matter of fact, I completed middle school and high school here. When the family was nice and interested, I finished the schools I studied with a degree. Of course, after such success, university is inevitable. I earned the right to choose a university with a degree.
After graduating from university, I started to work in a reputable company in our country. When I became a foreign language, I immediately started to rise in the company. It was as if I was climbing three or five steps, not one by one. When I say domestic and international works, I have come to the last level I can reach in the company.
I bought everything I needed from the company. I gave everything I had to give. We decided to establish a company with a few friends, together with the experience I gained over the years. We established a company engaged in international export and import. We started out by incorporating foreign trade consultancy, wage and sales companies in different sectors. Since I was the most experienced among them, the partners gave me the responsibility of the company.
Not everything in life was supposed to go so well. From the age of seven to forty-six, life had given me such beautiful gifts that at some point everything had to end.