"I would like to see you again".
With that note, which ended up being the cover of the photobook about a breakup, the relationship between Paula Tudela and her boyfriend, Fer, German, began in 2018.
They met in 2016, at an electronic music festival "in the middle of nowhere", an hour long from Berlin.
He was 24 years old and she was 20. They both wore the same jacket and had a mutual friend.
That day they didn't talk much, but both had noticed the other.
"I remembered you," she writes.
Two years later, at the same festival, they met again.
“And I kissed you.
It was an explosive night."
The next day, Paula discovered the note in her backpack.
And two years later, they broke up.
Das ende
(the end, in Spanish) is a compilation of short texts and photos about their relationship, in addition to the method that helped its author to overcome the separation: sharing it.
“It was total therapy,” explains Tudela, who is now 26 years old.
“At that time I was doing a master's degree in Photography and Editorial Design in Barcelona and I didn't feel capable of making a book about pretty things.
For months, my homework assignment was to go through all the photos with my ex, select them, and cry."
She kept the bracelets from the festival they both returned to for four years;
that note of his in the backpack, and the first gift he gave her when she moved to Berlin to live with him: a notebook in which Fer had written down everything he wanted to do with it, leaving the page on the right free for him to read. His girlfriend will incorporate a photo as they fulfill those plans: “
Phototour
.
We are going to discover Berlin and take lots of photos”;
“I want to go to Bavaria with you.
I am going to show you the mountains, the secret places of Munich, nature, and you are going to meet my family...”.
Note that Fer left in Paula's backpack and on which he wrote: "I'd like to see you again." Courtesy of Paula Tudela
Paula also kept all the notes that she wrote after the breakup, to understand each other better, such as one in which she underlines a word in pencil, “hate”, and says: “This will be our secret from now on.
I still think about you.
Don't tell them that she would have chosen you again, that she would have moved back to Berlin for you;
I still hope that our children are blonde like you were when you were little” (…) I wish you were here with me.
Maybe I wouldn't hate you as much as I hate you sometimes."
Notebook of plans that Paula's boyfriend gave her when he moved to Berlin. Courtesy of Paula Tudela
When they met, he was living in Madrid, had just graduated in Audiovisual Communication and worked in a
casting
room .
She reminds him in the book: “From there, our connection grew stronger.
Romantic messages and video calls were part of our routine.
We visited each other whenever we could.
Living in different countries wasn't ideal, but it made the trips that much more special."
Das Ende
's texts
are so short, bursts of words accompanied by images that illustrate a moment or a feeling, in this case, the captures of the
wasap
that were sent when they were 2,300 kilometers away.
Note written by Paula after the breakup, along with a picture of her ex. Courtesy of Paula Tudela
It was in 2019 when she decided to go to Berlin.
“We made almost all the plans that he had written down for me in that notebook, although I printed the photos on the pages that he had left free for that and pasted them when we had already broken up,” she says.
"Photography was one of our common interests so we took a lot of pictures of us together and of each other separately."
She is especially fond of the opening note of their relationship, that simple, direct and honest
"
I would like to see you again” and another, later, in which he writes to her with a red marker: “Paulita, my love: I can't wait to be with you again.
I have fallen in love with you these last two days and my future says Paula in big, red, capital letters.
She is the one she has reread the most times.
"When I do it, I think: 'Wow, we really were in love.'
Images of Paula and her boyfriend along with a love note that he wrote to her. Courtesy of Paula Tudela
In Berlin, she went to work as a
freelance photographer,
as an assistant to another photographer, and in an analog photography shop.
But she explains to him in the book: “Moving there had a bigger impact than I expected.
I felt lost and uncomfortable and our constant fighting and misunderstandings only made it worse.
We still did a lot of nice things together, but was that really what I wanted?
In the following pages, some images of those good times are collected, such as the frames of a video that a friend recorded of them hugging in the subway after they both had dinner with her parents in Berlin.
In August 2019, the festival where they had met announced its latest edition.
“The initials of the festival were ND, as in
,
end in German.
Perhaps it was a sign of our near future.”
Stills from a video of the couple recorded in the Berlin subway by a friend. Courtesy of Paula Tudela
In March 2020 they made their last trip together, to the beach.
"But lust and frustration were part of our language."
"In June 2020 you broke up with me."
Paula thanks him today: “When I made the book I realized how bad our relationship was going.
When you're so in love or so hooked, you stop acknowledging what's wrong.
I was not capable of making the decision and he made it for both of us."
Paula then exposes the photographs and notes that express everything she felt from that moment: "I missed you, despised you, forgave you, regretted everything and wanted to call you again."
Where did you end up?
Where did I start?
She went to her parents' house, to look at her albums when she was little, to reread old diaries.
"The relationship had absorbed me in such a way that when it broke up I not only had to forget about him, but remind myself who she was before I met him," she says.
The final pages record their last email exchange, in December 2020, with entire sentences crossed out except for single words: “forgiven”, “loved”, “reproaches”;
“painful”, “fights”, “mature”;
“friendship”, “still”.
Also a
post-it
on which she wrote: "If we ever meet again, will you promise me that I won't be able to smell you the way I used to?"
And another note that says: "At least, ignoring each other we still do something together."
She asks him:
“Will our history repeat itself with similar feelings and a different name?
Who will replace you?
And he says goodbye, later: “Now that time and distance have made each one go their own way, I no longer feel the need to answer any of those questions: What was and what was not.
What is not.
This is my story, but also my closure.
Thank you for making me feel."
One of the couple's farewell emails. Caught by Paula Tudela
Paula has presented the photobook in Madrid, Barcelona, New York and Berlin, the cities where she has lived.
“In the end I always ask the public to ask themselves what they would say to her ex and write it down on a
post-it
.
I have many, written in Spanish, Catalan, English and German.
Some are funny: 'Your mouth tasted like kebab and I'm a vegetarian'.
Others very sad: 'They say that getting over someone takes as long as the relationship lasted.
What do I do then still thinking of you?
Notes answering the question what would you say to your ex?
that Paula Tudela collects in the presentation of her photobook. Courtesy of Paula Tudela
When he went to Berlin to present
Das ende
a few days ago he saw Fer.
“The match was a bit intense, but it was good.
He already knew about the book because when I finished it I sent it to his house.
He sent me a very nice message saying that he was very proud that he had done it.
Once I recovered and remembered who I was, I realized that I didn't want to put him down or present myself as a hero, because he hurt me, but he also made me feel."
Paula has protected her image — her face never appears complete — and her anonymity — the last name of her ex is never said —.
The note—“I'd like to see you again”—is still perfect.
Deserving of the cover of a book that today is sold in bookstores and museums and deserving —also— of a good memory.
Cover of the photobook Das Ende, by Paula Tudela. Courtesy of Paula Tudela
