That’s when Jens’ phone had rung. And he had fumbled with the phone and the remote and dropped the phone on the floor and Axel had picked it up and the screen had been loud and clear in Axel’s hand.
“Who is Sofie?” He had asked. Not accusing Jens of anything. Just asking. Handing him the phone back.
“She is my girlfriend.” Jens had replied.
Nothing had been the same after that. Jens had gone home. And the next day Axel had blocked his number. Deleted him from his life. Jens never saw him at school again. Then he graduated. Moved in with Sofie.
He thought about Axel a lot during that first year when Sofie was pregnant with Malena.
He thought about him every time he drove past the street where Axel used to live.
He thought of what could have been. He thought about it a lot.
Jens made his choice. He stayed. He settled. Wrote it off in his head as an innocent friendship that he had messed up. That he had broken. He had done it on purpose. He never told Axel about Sofie. He didn’t want to. Axel was his. Just like he had been Axel’s.
His heart was never really broken, just cracked and bruised. But seeing the photo of Axel today had done things to Jens. Something had exploded in his chest, and he could hardly breathe.
Sommerfeldt apartment, Skøyen, Oslo
Wednesday
From: [email protected]
Subject: Oh my god I am an idiot.
Hi Axel. Of course it is me. I got so flustered seeing your picture that I must have pressed the wrong button. You haven't changed at all. You look good. I hope you are well and happy. As you can tell I haven't changed much either, I am still a complete knobhead most of the time.
I would love to meet up, it would be great to catch up. Are you free next Thursday evening? Around 8? Beer sounds good.
Jens
www.parentingnetworknorway.no/ASKAXEL /blog/firsts
FIRSTS
Welcome to my very first edition of ASK AXEL, and thank you to all of you who have emailed me with comments and questions, or just to welcome me onto your site. Remember this is your site, and no question is the wrong question, there are no stupid questions just like there are no definite answers. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I promise to be honest and truthful. You can read the first questions and answers in the section below. I hope that you will find them helpful and informative.
PNN.no have asked me to introduce myself properly, so here goes.
I’m Axel. I’m 38, single, from Oslo, and have been a Midwife for my entire adult career.
The first thing people usually ask me when I tell them that I am a midwife, is why? Why did I choose Midwifery? Well I didn’t choose it. It chose me.
The very first baby I delivered was named Amina. Her mother was birthing her 5th baby and to be honest, I was terrified. As it turned out, Amina’s mother was the one talking me through the birth and trying to calm me down rather than the other way around.
Amina was born at 11.42 in the morning after a 3-hour labour. She was tiny and wrinkly and she opened her eyes and looked at me.
I was the first person she ever saw, and that to me was a massive responsibility. I remember looking at her and whispering, “Please be happy. Live a good life. Laugh. Be kind. Live well.” Then I placed her gently in her Mother’s arms. I was shaken and in tears. I had just watched a baby being born.
It was a huge moment. I never looked back after that.
My plan had been to qualify as a Midwife as a sneaky way of continuing my studies to become a surgeon. I never did. Instead I stayed a Midwife, later qualifying to teach and train doulas. I also run the Parents-to-be classes here at the University Hospital in Oslo. I am sure many of you have met me at these courses, and I hope I prepared you well for your birth experiences.
I wonder about Amina sometimes. It would be nice to meet her one day, and for her to know that she changed my life. I still speak to all the babies I have the honour of meeting first. I greet them and wish them well, hoping that I am somehow sprinkling them with a good measure of hope and well wishes in those first seconds of their lives. Every one of them is important to me. Every one of them is special. I am humbled and honoured to meet the future men and women of Oslo who I watch being born into this world. I hope that they, and their parents know that.
There have been many firsts in my life. My first school, my first broken bone, my first job. The first person I loved. The first person I kissed.
I wasn’t going to write about this but then I thought, well I might as well. My first kiss changed my life too. The receiver of my kiss, as it turns out, was the first person to email me on ASK AXEL, believe it or not.
This person was the most important person in my life for a few months in school, the first person I fell in love with, and the first person that I felt understood me. I kissed him, and that was the end of our friendship.
You experience things when you are young that you think are the end of the world at the time, but as you grow older your thoughts mellow. You start to see things a little differently. You realise that other person was human too, with a completely different set of circumstances and feelings. This man changed my life and I will always be grateful for that. In which way, I might talk more about one day, but for now, let me just say that we are meeting next week, for the first time in over twenty years.
I hope we can still talk and laugh like we always did back when we were friends. I hope that we can forgive and forget. That we can remember why we were friends in the first place.
Please wish me luck. I think I might need it.
Axel x
Sommerfeldt apartment, Skøyen, Oslo
Jens doesn’t hear Malena enter the room at first, his thoughts still engrossed in reading the text on the laptop.
He is sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, surrounded by dirty dishes and the just delivered online shopping delivery bags. He should unpack them and take stock of what is lingering in the back of his kitchen cupboards, but as usual, he just can’t bring himself to care. Thank God for widespread internet shopping and delivery services though, he thinks, because the thought of walking through a supermarket with the kids and having to make actual decisions about what to put in his trolley is making his head hurt.
On top of that he is wondering if reconnecting with Axel might just be the worst decision he has ever made in his life, or if he is finally doing something right. Trying to repair what he broke.
Jens has been reading Axel’s blogpost all day, over and over, while his stomach weirdly churns with guilt. He doesn’t know if this is what he wants, but the idea of having Axel back in his life is just too tempting to resist. The idea of being able to talk to him, to have a friend. Just someone he could confide in.
Axel would do that, Jens is sure. Axel would let him talk, and he would listen. He wouldn’t judge him, because he never did. Axel had just loved him the way Jens had loved him back. He had been a good friend. The best.
“Pappa, did you order tampons in the shop? I am out. I also need paracetamol and deodorant, if you could order some for next week. And I think you should get a deodorant for Morten. He stinks.”