Another year of merda

   The end of this year feels heavier than the previous one - I have held a strong distaste for the holidays for the past few years, though I try to refrain from being superstitious about them. And in the past few years I take the time to reflect on what I have learnt, gained and lost in the year that passed. And the counting this year was painful and resembled pouring salt over wounds that remain unhealed. 

  In this year I felt the rug of what fragile little security I had built being pulled from under my feet. One of my most important relationships dissolved and I am still trying to balance the automatic-guilt with the fact I did not deserved to be treated like that. Another important relationship has all the trust I placed in it sucked right out. The sense of home I had tried to built was picked apart and now any room can feel like a home in the sense that if you decorate any hotel-room enough you can play-act it into being a haven. I came to realise that my bones are my only home, weary and heavy as they are and I quit believing in almost anything. 

  The last day of the year finds me home, looking out at a grey sky, feeling disconnected from everyone and slightly desolate for it. My attachment to people has become more discoloured than it was in the past and I allow myself to face this feeling without guilt.  May the next year be kinder. May we learn to give a shit and show that we give a shit.  

  May we learn. And grow.

  So that all the pain has been worth it.

  I expect nothing out of anything.

Entry #11

   Spending so much time deliberately looking inwards is bound to unearth various results. I have always had some sort of inclination of what kind of person I want to be and what sort of life I would like to lead but I was taught to always be careful and caring and nurturing and while those are all fine qualities to have, they can shatter a person when they are the main ones they have. And now at my age, in the midst of the pandemic, breaking my back at one shitty job after another, I realise I am not even top notch on these qualities either. 

  I find my self hungry and with a lack of any definite character or set of skills.

  The hunger has been one unexpected constant in my life and though I often find myself either detesting or pitying this emotion, I can do no more but to recognise its value as well. For every time I have dared to set a foot outside it has always been a move pushed by hunger. The trap however, is that the more you start to open up, the more starts pouring out. And the more that starts to pour out of you, the deeper you can look within and there always more skeletons to drag out of the closet, more things you want to learn and reach out to.

  In some ways, I am hungry for myself - for a sense of self that feels like me and not a man-suit that I am wearing. I am hungry to be exposed or rather to expose myself, to open up to touch that I can monitor in some ways, rather than feel that I am always subjected to the caprices of life without a will of my own. I am not talking about "rebranding", such fancy, almost filthy word, no, indeed, I do not refer to rebranding myself. I am not searching for a brand or a label, even though all my life I have been taught to chase after exactly that. A label. In greek we say that it's better to have your eye gouged out than have a bad label stuck on you.

  But I have found that all the good labels can feel like hot iron set on your skin too. And you end up scarred and just as empty on the inside. 

  I feel the pressure - in fact I feel it all too well. The pressure to be defined in a very clear, objective way - and I often desire to have the ability to do so but I find myself entirely incapable of doing it. And, for lack of better words, there is something that begins to kick inside me too. I have felt the kicks for years now but the more time passes, the more acute becomes the pain of every hit, the harder it is to be ignored.

  All the story tropes reside deep within. 

Entry #10

   I always told myself I spent too much time in front of the screen and that is true but this year it seems took it to another level. All of a sudden I am called to spend an innumerable amount of hours and now there is more work, more research to do - and often more amusement to look for. 

  It is also the first time where I am confined to the screen for communication. The first time that I have been called to not only retain but also grow relationships confined to the screen. I have met the other through media in the past and with some we have only had communication like this but this is different - this is now for the first time the main thing. 

  It makes me more nervous than I care to admit. I have often felt unease when called upon interacting with others and now this cutting off from reality is perhaps changing me even further. On one hand I feel like I am growing more on the inside, like every thought and action become deeper, obtains a different hue. On the other I feel like I have grown more sensitive and callous at the same time, my tolerance for the physical presence of others - and therefore the inability to shut them off whenever I feel like it - becoming shorter and shorter. 

  There is no normality to go back to. At present more and more of us are snuffed out, some out luck or lack of circumstances. I feel like we are laid bare and we still refuse to see - I include myself in all of this of course. And those that resurface, whenever they do, what kind of people will they be afterwards? What kind of connections will we form?

Anonymous and traceable

 I have traces of me 

scattered around the web.

Some of them nameless

others not.

I have scattered pieces of me

some abandoned

others not. 

I crave the times

when being unknown was

an easy kind of trick. 

Now I feel like pouring all my brain 

into even smaller

nameless 

little parts.

As much as praise

and recognition fuel me

they also set my surroundings on fire.

They poison 

every thing

that I tried to keep pure

for myself.

Creating

and living

and thinking. 

As much as I don't like to admit it

I fell prey 

to the same

(day in)

(day out)

trap 

as most of us.

Sometimes I wonder

just what kind of person I would be

if the opinions of others didn't matter.

I am deeply grateful for all the small little tidbits of private expression that I still have. I used to be paranoid about the blog, concealing it and not talking about it and hiding it from search engines. I have let go in part of that, over the years I have shown it to one, maybe two people.

And I am grateful for all it is. A private little space, where I can write silly little words and I don't have to worry too much if it's not good enough or not.