indeed

that is all.

The collector

We are all collectors of some kind. Whether we collect stamps, postcards, stories, experiences, things or people, we just love to have some sort of personalized exhibition to enjoy whenever we wish, and share with whomever we please.

Some of us do it consciously, others let nature take its course and live their lives while the collection grows by itself and they just wake up one morning and realize it’s there.

Collectors of people are the most interesting kind. They go through life acting as though they have dozens of different shelves, with boxes and jars and pantries with nooks and crannies filled with all the people that they’d ever crossed paths with – or swords, or hearts – and they can just pick one up and use him (or her) exactly when and how they desire. I think I’ve been in one of those collections myself. Alas, I managed to escape.

My own collection, I should say, is not necessarily the enjoyable kind. It’s more of the kind that you just want to put away somewhere and maybe forget about it altogether, but that’s not really possible. I collect fuckups. Of the human persuasion. Well, I used to, anyway. I seemed to have an unfathomable capacity to attract fuckups, and ultimately get fucked up in the process. Which is probably why I ended up having an incredibly low self-esteem and being scared of so many things I can’t even remember them all, until they hit me in the face.

Now that I think about it, I was probably wrong.

I collect fears. Even worse, I think they collect me.

Here's to all of them:

Kids

Strange how pampering your children can turn them into helpless, barely functional adults, innit? Ok, maybe it’s not always all that bad, but it’s quite … poetically unfair that too much love can fuck it up for them and whoever will have to live with them for the rest of their lives. As my brother quite realistically put it, it’s not normal for a man over 30 to be unable to change a light bulb. And so on and so forth.
So really, how much love and care is too much? Can you ever really know when to stop? Can you really censor yourself when all you want to do is give that child everything he or she needs before they even know they need it?
Cheer up, though. You’ll probably only find out about it when the kids are all grown up and have left home. So until then… take it easy and remember…less is more.

Fatally flawed

I am not going to claim I’m perfect. That would be deluded, self-sufficient and crass of me. On the contrary, I fully intend to disclose at least some of my flaws, as a sort of exorcism on myself, for myself. That might prove helpful, in the grand scheme of my things. Then again, it might not. Either way, I gotta try.

Riddle me this: it is really wrong of me to have an extremely low, to almost non-existent, tolerance for bullshit, stupidity and vulgarity? More to the point, if I stop associating myself with people who display some, or all, of the aforementioned features, am I a bad person? How much tolerance is good for the heart and soul, and when does it start verging on self-destructive? It is, after all, true that a lot of our interactions shape the way we are and the persons we might at some point become. I would love to be tolerant, believe me. I would love to do something better with my spare time than turn my own brains inside out trying to understand how some people function in this world and, more to the point, how they manage to be kept close by people who, at least in my opinion, should know better. Why DO they tolerate them? Do they not care, do they not see? I would bring myself on the verge of despair trying to figure it out.

So, my monochromatic friends, is there a solution to my predicament? Is this my problem, or is it theirs? I can only blame this on my being a Virgo so many times. But I cannot deny that I have a permanent tendency to turn myself into my own arch-enemy. At which point it all starts being all fun and games.

Maybe I just have to find something better to do with my life? I do pride myself in being one of the increasingly fewer (if I may say so) people who still derive extreme pleasure from reading – I mean reading books, actual books, with pages and covers and all that – so it’s not like I don’t use my spare time in a constructive manner and just kick back and torment myself with nasty thoughts about the lesser people. And still…I can’t help being a total bitch when they or their kind come into play.

Help?

Emotional blackmail

I have been brought up in a family riddled with guilt and thriving on emotional blackmail. I have just realized now, at 36 years of age, that I am basically a cripple. I feel handicapped, my self-esteem is low to non-existent, and even though sometimes I manage to feel quite good about myself (probably mostly by comparison to others), I, in fact, loathe myself most of the time.

I don’t like the way I look, I don’t like the way I think, I don’t always like the way I act and sometimes I have some sort of mental out of body experiences that allow me to look at myself from the outside and say oh my God, I’m a fake, I’m horrible, I reek of mediocrity and how the fuck does no one see through my bullshit? It’s true, I am a Virgo, and Virgos are known to be their own worst enemies most of the time, but still…If I could step outside myself at least one day a week, I think it’d probably feel like a long vacation to a very peaceful faraway spot. Or maybe not, but at least I’d get a shot at something else. A glimpse. A smell.

Authority terrifies me, speaking in public numbs me and turns me into a blabbering idiot, the thought of driving sends me to the toilet at least twice before any planned attempt (so to speak). Even having to talk to certain people makes me forget everything I was supposed to say in the first place.

So, what do I do? Therapy? Never tried it but I feel like I definitely should.

And I used to be such a happy child…Something along the way got really screwed up, and I can’t remember the exact moment when things took a turn for the worst. Maybe not the worst, but not very good either, that’s for damn sure.

Yes. I should go see a therapist.

We don’t need no education…

Oh but we do, really. I beg to differ.
If we think of all the years and resources and efforts we put into this education business while now having to bear witness to startling new changes aimed to incorporate all the crap that uneducated and illiterate people use on a daily basis under the generic disguise of speech and language, because it’s just TOO widespread to try to make it all better now, we might get suicidal. So all that time spent on learning all that information on all those different levels of detail and thoroughness was wasted? Is that what you’re trying to tell us?
So I get it, language is a living organism, sounds about right. But do we really have to feed this living organism just about anything? I mean, would YOU do that to yourself?
I would hate to see us all getting stupid instead of at least trying to better ourselves.
Sadly, it seems that that’s where we’re headed.

Death and other diseases

Death is obviously all around us, everywhere we look, at more or less any given time. I get that, I really do. It’s not only my cross to bear, and I sometimes feel like a whiny little bitch when I start complaining that the Universe seems to be conspiring against me more than against anyone else.

To be more specific: people close to my heart have started dying in rapid succession some …well, over 10 years ago. They just started going. It pisses me off, but I can hardly do anything to stop it. The shock of my grandmother’s death was almost unbearable, and it took me years to sort of get over the loss. My dad’s death was…well…I’m not even gonna go there. Nor will I make a list of my dead, it wouldn’t help, and it would be a bit too morbid even for me, but I will say this, and please help me, if you can, with an answer: is it true that in a way, in time, you get used to people just going and not coming back? Ever?

What can I do to be able to think of something else than death? I’m thinking creating new life would definitely change my focus, but is that really the answer?

It doesn’t really go away, does it? It just fades away…a little.

By all means necessary you will get your way

I didn’t really think it would be so damn difficult.  My bad. In my infinite optimism (not a regular state for me, mind you), which turned out to be a rather unfortunate lack of awareness, more than anything else [or maybe just a streak of bad luck], I thought I’d just waltz in there and get what I wanted, easy as pie, no sweat, and emerge triumphantly on the other side because I deserve this, damn it, after all the shit I’ve been through and all that sappy old jazz.  All the good signs are there, everything seems to be all right, it’s all within my reach and I can almost taste it. Well, maybe not taste, that’s just a bit odd, considering…

Well, life’s hardly ever this uncomplicated. We resort to all kinds of placebos to go on living and thinking as if the road only goes straight ahead, no left, no right, no red lights. We hang on for dear life to all manner of “signs”, because that’s what they are, right? They’re all signs for us to see and get and interpret, because the universe has got nothing better to do than play footsie with each and every one of us at the same time.

Until…well, until we wake up one morning and we realize we’re not all that special anyway. Or maybe we are, but that doesn’t mean that the good kids always get the best toy at just the right time, in just the right setting. Or that the sun will start shining whenever we say so.  It just doesn’t work that way.

So I find myself going through the same shit that I’ve heard told by other people, for whom I felt sorry, and I try to stay strong and optimistic (again, that unfamiliar state) and listen to advice – don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the advice, by it doesn’t really work, does it? – telling me that everything will be all right, that what I so desperately want will happen when God wants it to happen. God. That’s an interesting concept. I find myself in quite a delicate position whenever God comes out to play. I’m a bit of a hypocrite that way.  I have to admit, I pray to God sometimes. I’m a random believer, I believe whenever it’s convenient.  I usually pray when I’m out of solutions. Let’s face it, many of us do this in times of great distress. It’s probably not the best feeling for God, right? To be remembered only in times of stress, pain and desperation and be called out as a last resort…? Not nice, people. Not nice at all. But at least I admit it. I did think that God, as the omnipresent, omniscient witness to everything bad that’s ever happened to me, would think to himself hey, enough is enough, the girl deserves a break, she deserves to get what she wants. Oh, and yes, let’s give it to her on Christmas, in a nicely wrapped little package, because that’s so poetic and that’s how I roll.  I did think and hope that.

Well, bummer. You didn’t get it.  But do try again.

By all means necessary, you WILL get your way.

Oh, I know I didn’t say what it was that I wanted.

I’ll tell you, when I get it.