My story. In instalments.

It's been a while since I wrote and my justification is: it's much easier to write when you're sad than happy. And for a while, I've been happy. I was asked: "When are you writing a new blog? It's good!". So I started writing. Not because I need validation, but because encouragement, especially from certain people, is really very nice, a catalyst which somehow makes you responsible. The difference is that this kind of writing is made up of more pieces and takes longer, compared to the irresistible avalanche that is writing when you are hurting.

 

So here it is, my story on Jan 8, 2016: 

Chapter X of who knows?

 

New Year, new start, new me. Some take it seriously, others mock it, others don't even think about it anymore. Isn't it part of the same story, though? Shouldn't you keep track of the loops, clues and plot twists? It's daunting to tell a story and even more so when it's your own, although it's the one you know best. And it's never just your story. How do you begin? What's the hook? At this point I'm not even sure I remember everything, as there was a time in my life when I wasn't really paying attention to it and what escaped me is hard to know. There it is - my very own existential paradox. The generic one goes: "The liar says: this statement is true", only in my case it translates "I remember it happening like this". 

I remember sleepwalking through a beautifully uncomplicated relationship. He was a typical English boy, blond haired and blue eyed, milky white skin, cheeky and chatty, short, a bit chubby, with an awful haircut. He was the funniest guy I knew and from joke to bed to living together we hardly blinked. He invited me up for tea after one of our walks as friends. I asked to move in with him on a peaceful night when I realised I hadn't been home for a week. I took my phone and wrote a message "What do you think about me moving in?" and I pressed send. We were in bed together. He read it in disbelief and ...I made him happy and he made me happy, until I wasn't happy anymore and he stopped as well. I mourned the relationship and romaniticised the person, I became the heroine of my personal a Russian novel, littered with depths, abysses and peaks, immense pools and arid desserts, both equally disheartening and I started sighing more and more and more. At least I wasn't sleepwalking anymore. Worse. I was lucidly dreaming a pointless and false dream. I remember very little about the real story compared to the lyrical version I had weaved. But it was the start to my conscious journey.

I woke up to a grey, moody London morning and didn't enjoy it very much for a while. I suppose I hadn't quite opened my eyes yet. I started saying I want a quiet life and started slipping away. It was an error of perception on my part and and easy mistake to make but at least it chiseled my arrogance and I can laugh about it now.

Perspective is always there, like air and like air, you only see it when it's corrupted by particles, by colour and light and scent. I felt like I was constantly waiting, no, postponing and it was making me want a break from myself. I now know I wasn't waiting, I was learning. It took some time and it meant surrendering before conquering.

When is getting to know yourself getting too close for comfort? You can loose yourself in yourself. It's a maze and of all, the most important. There's no prize when you get to the core, no invisible hand that picks you up and places you outside or above it to enjoy the majestic construction. Likewise, there's no punishment if you don't try at all. Or at least none that you can perceive, so goes the mainstream wisdom. But I think not enough is known about the proverbial blissful ignorant and his inner workings to make that claim. What I have come to know, meaning believe, feel and rationalise, is that it is all a journey, and when you reach the centre, you have learned so much and see how many paths there still are to walk but at least you know you have made it once and that is enough to keep traveling.

We are all suffering from tunnel vision at times, some of us are better adjusted to the darkness, thread more carefully, along the edges and bump their heads considerably less times and end up with less severe contusions, if any. Some of us choose the reckless approach and boldly make our way right down the centre.  For being the centre, you'd expect it to mean balance and security. What a sham! It actually means no boundaries, no nooks to crawl in, no alcoves to take shelter in, just a mass of equally disoriented and hopelessly hopeful daredevils, some of which are friendly. It's not even a choice; the choice is an illusion. It's like an addiction and as all addictions, it's uncomfortable in that it propels you through this dizzying spiral, upwards or downwards and then slams you to the ground it showed you did not exist. You saw it didn't exist and still hit it with a thud and lay on it to recompose, to ground yourself again until you feel the exhilarating anticipation of your next expedition. Until you can't feel the ground anymore and that doesn't unease you. The bearable lightness of being.

I remember reading Slaughterhouse Five and somewhere in there there's a nation of aliens that pity us mortals because we can only conceive time in a sequential manner, whereas they understand that all moments exist, have existed and will exist always. This means that if they see a corpse that's to say that person is in a bad shape at that particular moment, but there are so many other moments when they are just fine. There are so many moments when I am fine and many others when I am not and everything in between, above and beyond fine. I now enjoy the good ones more and have more patience with the bad ones.

So i guess I resolve to savor my entropy, I am in no rush. Happy or otherwise, this new year is the story I am writing for myself now and I am excited. I am also very happy.