Release

Life is a series of random explosions. Explosions of happiness, sadness, madness – craziness, all of it! It seems to be all or nothing as one event tumbles into the next. The past couple of weeks have certainly been that way and nothing has gone as expected. It feels like everything is building up towards a cataclysmic event that will change my life forever. Everything I have believed in so far will be turned on its head. Whether that will be a good or bad thing, only time itself will tell. Hopefully it will be a good thing, to finally move on and leave all the disasters of my past behind. But I’ve thus far been resisting change at every single turn, fighting it. It’s not that I don’t want to be free of the darkness, no matter how enticing and seductive it is; it’s been a familiar friend throughout the years, inspirational at times, but I’ll be glad rid of its destructiveness, albeit still reluctantly. No, change has to be good, no matter how scary the prospect is. Part of it is that I don’t believe that my life can truly change for the better. Every time my life has appeared to have been taking a good direction, something has happened to change all of that. The disasters and resulting sadness have never stopped. And yet…

On the one hand, I am sure that this latest bubble of hope is going to burst soon, but there’s something else as well. There’s something that’s building up inside of me, something huge that’s waiting to be released. The colours in my mind that are trying to escape into many creative forms are like a precursor to the next big explosion. I’ve hoped all my life for some of the basic things that many take for granted: peace, love, happiness, safety, security. At times I’ve had one or two, but never all at once. I’ve believed myself to not be deserving, like I’m cursed, but now? Maybe it just wasn’t the right time yet. Always so close, yet so far, but if I can be patient a little bit longer (not that I actually know what patience is), maybe I will find myself deserving again.

I’ve waited a long time to find out my true purpose in this world, to make sense of all my suffering. Well, it’s nearly time, I feel it coming. It still won’t be easy, but I hope I will finally be set free. I am strong, like no one can ever believe, and my strength and that alone will win me through.

Long, Lonely Thoughts

Sometimes, I just like to sit and think, to watch the world go by. It can be anywhere: at home, on a bus, on a bench just watching the many people walk by, rushing to and fro. I sit and think a lot, try to find that place where I can gather my thoughts and take stock of what’s going on in my life.

The reason for this is, sometimes my life seems like a rush. My mind, often working in overdrive, getting even worse if I’m nervous or excited. Well, I’ve spent several weeks in various mixed states of both, with the depressiveness lurking in the background, constantly trying to creep up on me and snatch me away back into the darkness. With all the drama and trauma of the past few months, at points I didn’t think I’d survive it, and with my life in a constant state of turmoil, it is, perhaps, quite surprising that I’ve made it this far at all.

So, a lot of my time, currently, is spent alone, just thinking:
Where am I going? What am I to do next? Am I doing the right thing? Will everything work out in the end?

This life seems so filled with unanswerable questions. Sometimes I really don’t have any faith at all that the next stage of my life will go any better, so I continue to ask them, to the empty air around me, sometimes shouting, screaming them out, ‘Don’t I deserve to live?!’ But nothing ever answers. The wind, the traffic, the subtle shuffling of life whispers in the silence. Yet, apart from that, there is just silence.

So, I look to the answers within myself, yet they’re always further questions:
Do I have the strength to try again? Do I even want to try? If I do try, could this be my last chance? But, considering it all, what other choice to I have but to try to make the best of what I have here, right now?

I sit and let the silence fill me, almost watching the world turn, go by, conserving my strength. If this is going to be my last fight, my last battle, then I will need all the energy available to me. I’m on my own now. I have a handful of great friends out there, but they can’t hold my hand where I’m going. So, I truly am on my own.

Somehow I need to find that strength to pull myself through, to bring myself to the next stage of the journey. I need hope, belief, however vague, that it will all be worthwhile in the end. For I know now that if I fail again, if I fail this time, then it will be the last.

Spinning & Turning

I've been avoiding writing for a while... Even though I set up this blog to write down my honest thoughts and experiences, sometimes I don't want to. Sometimes I want to hide from myself and not know what's going on in my life. But there comes a time when you have to face up to it, or it'll control you more and hold you down.

Been home 4 days now. After having so many great times, it feels... Empty... Empty to be home. It's like, 'what am I going to do with myself now?' I've played my instruments a crazy amount, which makes me feel somewhat better. But I'm listless, restless, so much emptier than I was... There's always an adjustment phase after returning, always a moment where you have to stop beating yourself up for all the stupid things you've done and said recently and... Just smile at the good times.

See, that's the problem with me - once I start coming down again, all those negative little beasties like to come up and smack me in the face. They try to tell me that someone must be thinking this, because I said or did that, or that someone else will never talk to me again because of another action... It spins around and around and around...

And, meanwhile, in Saneville, that's literally just across the water from the hypnotic Hyperville and directly above Miseryville... There's a part of me watching everything that's going on, trying to rationalise it all, saying that it'll pass, you just have to ride the waves, etc., quite relieved that the gates of Hyperville are quite firmly shut at the moment so at least we won't be getting ourselves into a worse pickle whilst we carry ourselves over this wave... But sometimes even the rational voices in Saneville that try to be positive and bring me around can't stop the screaming that's going on in my head...

I've always hated being intelligent, have always hated being able to rationalise things, know what's going on. Yes, I don't always know what's going on or what I'm doing at the time, which essentially makes it far harder for me, the knowing afterwards what I did and why I did and... I always know afterwards. Always. Always can see everything (which is when the finger pointer comes up as I'm looking at things, and starts saying that someone's looking at me in a specific way because of that stupid thing I did. Yeah). In some ways, at least it can make it easier to bring myself around, to try and control the phases and not let myself get so wound up. Sometimes it works. And when it doesn't... This little brain full of all those rational thoughts knowing what and why I did something, after the fact, after I couldn't control it... It's thinking, 'shit, how the hell are we going to get ourselves out of this one, this time??!' Whilst all the while Miss Negative is prodding and poking and laughing and telling me how stupid I am for doing this that or the other...

It's like one big, boiling soup. A rather unappetising soup at times. And Miss Intelligent and Miss Rational have to work together to find some way out of the boiling, steaming mass. It is actually these two that fear the most, try their best to get us safe out of awkward situations because they fear that they'll be forgotten amongst all the chaos, and if they're ever forgotten all will be lost... But they also know that we could be so much more if we could just keep those little beasties in check a little longer...

Strangely enough, it's actually Hyperville that's the hardest to return from. Once I get excitable, once I get going... Sometimes I don't want to come down, sometimes I don't want to come back. Sometimes I can do so much whilst in that excitable state that I'm left feeling broken once I'm pulled away from it. And also, I don't care - I care far less about what people think of me and just care about being me, being around and interacting with the people I like, doing all I can and having a good time. Nothing else matters. Nothing.

Now, in Miseryville... Everything matters. Everything matters too much. It's lonely. All I want is someone to care, someone to give me a hug, give me a smile, give me a cup of love tea. But the little beasties are saying that they'll never come back, because of all those things I did, because I dared to allow people to see sides of me that I normally hide, because I dared to let go and be myself.

I know there are so many out there that have things harder, have had things harder. I feel guilty at times that I let the beasties run away with me and tell me of my own devastation. I know that my suffering is mostly because of how much I suffered in the past, because it is impossible to change what happened, because I can't be anyone else than a product of that at times, in my reactions, in who I am. I know so well that I'd be a different person without all that, perhaps some of it would be positive, but I don't believe all of it would. But my suffering is shadows of the past that still walk alongside me, whilst others are still genuinely suffering greatly.

But I can't be anyone else but me. I've tried, before, and what happened? I felt worse. I felt fake. So I gave myself my own identity, my own unique identity, because none of us are alike. I wish I could say that if people don't like it then it doesn't matter, but it hurts every single time. And that pain, I feel now, whether it's needed or not. But it's more a fear... It's a fear because of what I've seen before, because of what's happened before, because of what I expect to happen again.

And this thing that I fear most of all? Rejection and being alone.

Journeys

I've been loathe to update this for a while, partly because of all the things that have happened this year, which all seemed to culminate in the last few days. Because I went on a journey.

The thing about this journey, though, was even though it was predominantely a physical journey, it was also an emotional, self-searching and spiritual one. I had doubts along the way, at just about every single point I kept thinking I should turn back, that I couldn't or shouldn't go through with it. But I did, and despite my fears that of all the things that could have gone wrong, it turned into more than I could have hoped for and gave me some closure on some important aspects of my life.

This journey started on Tuesday evening, going to Brussels to sleep overnight before getting the Eurostar to London bright and early the next morning. I did something I'd never done before - I stayed in a hostel. Now I mostly did it for convenience, as it's so much cheaper than a hotel, sharing a room with people. Of course, I had doubts, safety, security, etc. (especially walking to this place, in the dark, in what looked like it could be a dodgy district!), but... I made it to the place safely, and I met some really fascinating people! There was a German lady who was living in Leuven, and a girl from the US, from Miami, who was travelling Europe to see friends, who kept apologising for everything (I'd fallen down the stairs Tues morning, missed the last step and had a few bruises. She apologised for that as well!). It was very weird getting up at 5:30am the next morning to go off to the station, the walk seeming very surreal. Then the train itself... Leaving behind the new life I'd made for myself to go and visit an old one...

Once were were out the otherside of the tunnel, I looked at the landscape around me, the rolling English hills with a motorway nestled amongst them, the typicalness and beauty that I had missed so much. It was... Strange. Seeing it now, as I was on this journey. Remembering everything I had left behind and everything I had left behind on leaving Belgium as well. The tears were trying to come as I was reaching London, me trying to hold them back. But I did, and managed to smile and sing good morning through customs and then to the lady at the ticket desk, who helped me enormously by giving me an itinery as well as the best tickets possible considering where I needed to be and by what time. And I kept that up all the way, despite the fact that I was so desperate to break, to allow myself to feel what was going on. I listened to all the conversations, familiarity in the language, delighting in the accents... And I just kept moving, trying not to think about what I was actually doing, through train to next train...

And, somehow, I got there. So many memories... The station at the other end, remembering the last time I was there alone, the person I was going to mourn being the one I had been going to meet... Such drama then! Remembering it fondly, knowing it was a part of them I could hold on to. But no one was there for me, then. Just a bus journey alone, to a town I hadn't seen in many years, then walking nervously to a church in the middle of the road (between seperate lanes of traffic) that I'd mostly previously seen as a rather large roundabout thing... I go inside, hoping that I'm at the right location, to see/hear I'd just got there on time, just as the vicar was still giving his welcome speach, and the church was full... So many people, most of whom I didn't know, all there to celebrate the life of one person. And the memories, memories shared, shared memories of tales retold, some of which I'd forgotten, and those new tales I hadn't heard before... It made me not only understand them better, but also others that I'd known close to them, like... The reflections, ripples in the pool... And I saw myself, suddenly, in a new light, who I am, who I was, how I'd seen them... I allowed myself not just to see the sadness of the loss, but also the joy and happiness that had been given to so many people, including myself. As well, at the reception afterwards... Talking to people I'd long left behind, the space between us enabling me to see them in a new light. It was something I'd needed for a long time, and allowed me to gain some peace and put to rest some old and once-painful memories. Including starting to put to rest the more recent ones...

A couple of hours of finally sharing everything I'd been feeling, then fond farewells, how it should have been all those years ago, but suddenly now, at this time of sadness... I knew as I left, back to the train station, that I was essentially closing a chapter in my life that I'd inadvertently left open, perhaps hoping I could go back as if nothing had happened and just continue from where I left off, as if the bad things hadn't been there... How much I'd missed people... But... I'd changed, they'd changed. With new lives, new loves, so many things had changed and I saw it all. But, there was a glimmer of the old that made me smile and left me with as much warmth as sadness, with as much hope as sorrow, but with as many questions as answers. Yet it wasn't just an ending - I knew it was also a new beginning. I would be seeing some of them again, just not as it was before.

The train journey back to London, thinking about everything, finally allowing my tiredness in. I don't know how I managed it, thought I had to just give up and stop... But I got back, got some food, and rather drunkenly walked to a hostel, going straight up to the room and staying there once I was booked in. I was just going to go to sleep after eating, but I stayed up, read a bit, then chatted to some other people there. A French girl that spoke English so well that I thought she was American! An English girl with a German boyfriend who'd been reluctant to learn the language as she didn't have much time, but my story inspired her to try. A Thai girl who'd spent a year in the UK learning English and was very understandable.

I got up early again, with a train back to Brussels at 06:50 - the first one. I hadn't slept much, was so tired, but I still smiled and sung good morning as I went through customs, and chatted to one of the people there who I'd seen the morning before. Just brightening someone's day and thereby brightening mine, a little.

The journey back... Leaving the world I'd once known for one I know now... It was weird as I got into Brussels, watching the buildings... A world that was still foreign to me yet so familiar at the same time, me thinking how ugly the buildings are... I realised at that point that I didn't belong in my old world any more, but neither did I belong to this new world that had started to become familiar to me. I was in between, someone of all worlds...

Then, after leaving the Eurostar and once on the train home, having an argument with a train conductor in Dutch about the details of my ticket (apparently Eurostar tickets don't automatically include "any Belgian station" anymore unless it states that), I knew I was back in the new world, the different sights, the different sounds... And then, off the train, onto a bus, a short walk and I was home...

Home. I dropped everything, and finally let out all the tears that had been waiting. I don't know how I'd held it that long, as the occasional tear had broken through. I had thought so much all the way back and now...

Through all of this, through all I've seen, through all the people. I inspired people, I comforted people, I brightened the day of people... I realised that I'd gained something through giving so much, as well. As well as realising something very important, something that I'd forgotten and at once mentioned to someone else who was grieving pretty much as soon as I got in:

You can't mourn the dead by dying yourself, but only by living and being alive.

Despite how tired I was I knew I had to keep up, keep on, keep on moving. And even now, a day later, a day after returning, I know it's likely that I'll come down again, have to deal with all the emotions all over again, but... I try to take the positives out of it all, the inspiration. I could be so much! I know. Life is changing, moving forward, and I have to keep up. I don't want to be lost again. I went to my classes yesterday, despite how exhausted I was. Have taken it a bit easier today, but have still gotten on with things, cooked something, made myself feel better. Because I know that if I stop...

This year has been one of mourning, not just for lost life, but also those that are no longer a part of my life through other means. I wrote the post on 2 January, Today I Cried, and I didn't realise then how significant it would become. But despite the loss, the emptiness that it can cause, I also still have them with me and think about them often. Because they were and are still a part of my life, not just in photos and objects, but deep inside. And they will remain with me, always. They are no longer physically around me, but I can still be inspired by them, the deep imprints they have left on my soul. And it is their memories, all those fond moments, as much as the new friends and new memories, that will keep me moving forward.

Today I Cried

I've been neglecting this place for a while. Partly it's because I hate this time of year, anyway. I find it hard to cope with the dark cold months - getting up when it's so cold outside. Also, when September comes around, I find it quite hard to adjust to getting myself back into the swing of things, believing in myself once more, and trying to get to a new point of self-confidence just as the days are getting unbearably short and the mornings are getting darker. To be honest it would be far easier, for this reason, if schools worked alongside calendar years, beginning as it's getting lighter and ending as it's getting darker, but... Well, studying is my salvation, so I have to make the most of what is there.

The odd part in all this is that I know, as January comes around, I start to change again. After the Christmas break I start to turn myself around and am able to start to refocus. It's quite a bizarre change, as I've heard people that say they find January quite depressing. December, for me, is very depressing, with all the dim darkness and stresses involved there. But January is uplifting, as you're starting to head towards a new beginning.

Some people hate New Years. They see it as being positioned wrongly or pointless. Well, for me, it's almost positioned correctly for the reasons I mentioned above - the lengthening days, more light being flooded into your life. For all I love restful sleeps and used to love staying in bed as long as possible, I've been hating it more and more recently. I still want a restful sleep, but what I need and thrive on more than anything is light. So January, despite it still being quite cold, starts to bring more light into my life, and starts to turn me around into a frame of positive thinking. And that's when the regrets come along...

It almost feels like I'm starting to wake up out of a hibernation. It happened later last year, but it's happening today now for me. Might have been something to do with reading Amanda Palmer's latest blog post today, about her wedding to Neil Gaiman, but... I think it's more than that. I think it's something that's been building up for all that time I've been pushing myself, unwillingly, down into the dark, and watching numbly as my muscles start to wake up and respond again over the past few days. As the frosts of winter lay all around, that I've been trying to wrap myself up against and not feel, I start to embrace it and everything else. It is cold. It hurts.

Today I look around wondering how I've ended up here, writhing in pain inside as I watch the changes around me. Old friends, new friends, gone friends... All who have made an impact in making me who I am, here, now. For all I try to be a good person, I know I can't always be that, that I can be cruel and manipulative when I am desperately in need, that I can be unbearably selfish, the survival instinct winning through as I fight away the darkness, the invisible monsters that only I can seem to see at times. But I try... I try to be honest, to help when I can... But I make mistakes. The worst part is, I don't always know what they are! But I am still trying, trying to be me to the best that I can be anything.

I've said before how much people inspire me. I know the most beautiful and colourful people and I know I wouldn't survive without them. Sometimes I just live off of their energy, that keeps me going through the darker times. Sometimes they don't even seem to realise how much a warm smile at the right time can just keep me going, giving me hope until I can pull myself back from the edge once more. And I know I can inspire many of them, too, how they dance along to my colourful energy as I sing and sashay my way around the dance floor of my life. But then, the darkness... Some of them avoid me, shy away, retreating from the blackness that is enveloping me and threatening to consume everything I come into contact with. Yet others stay, helping to fight away the dark clouds with their blinding light, just a smile, a kiss, a hug, a memory, a warm blanket to help me survive the winter and bring me back to life in the spring.

So today, now, I cry for them. I cry for all those that have touched my life, all those that I adore so much, all those that have kept me going through these dark dark months. And also for all those that have gone, moved on. For you were all and still are a part of my life and help me to survive, so I may live.