After avoiding myself for so long, I’m starting to feel that urge [that almost desperate urge] to return, to come back to this insane analysis [or, in other words, my self-taught therapy]
Besides truly missing this, I need to come back. It is not a matter of will anymore. Right now, it is a need – an overwhelming need, by the way.
“Stolen images. Can you picture it, the life we could have lived?”
Today, I feel quite empty, and I don’t know why. I’ve looked at the calendar and strived to find a memory, a glimpse of any image, word or moment that could make all of this understandable. Still, I found nothing.
College related stuff overwhelm me so much that I don’t even have the strength to write, to think. No, nowadays, thinking is way too hard, and I deliberately choose not to do it. Well, that actually might be the reason why I feel so bad today. Yes, it makes sense.
Emptiness, such a cutting word. Each and every letter echo in my hollow being, hurting more and more.
I should be hysterical. Yes, I should, but I’m not.
Last week I had my first show. My pieces were shown for the first time on a catwalk, and it felt so right, so right I could simply remember of all the moments I thought about giving up Fashion to dedicate to something else, and to thank everything for deciding not to give up.
And it felt great until the moment I realised that no one I invited was there. And then, it all become empty. Well, not that empty, since my best friends where there, and arrived in the exact moment I got more anxious. Of course, I couldn’t do anything but to almost throw myself in the arms of the one that can, actually, make me feel calmer.
But everyone else was missing, including the ones I lost along the way and, exactly for that, I didn’t even invite – specially D and B, whose absence still bothers me. That and the lack of a boyfriend, of the usual sense of family, and so on.
It feels bad, and I feel terrible. And yes, I think it’s worse because I’ve done – as usual – everything to cover it, to deny that I was hurt, injured, and now, I just don’t seem to be able to keep with that strategy.
Last year, I actually found time to write down my thoughts and feelings. Now, I don’t do it anymore. I don’t have time or courage to do it, to put words on the paper, giving them a tangible existence. It’s always easier to think I just need to go out, dance and forget it all, and that has been exactly what I’ve been doing in the last months.
To be honest, college is going pretty well, but with everything else, it feels like nothing, as if it didn’t matter at all. Yet, I know it’s important, because since a few days before the show, I was truly happy, bright and shiny – something I haven’t felt for a long, long, long time.
And today – well, to be honest, it started yesterday – , I know that I need to work, and I don’t feel like I’ll be able to do it. I’ve been delaying my own deadlines since last friday, and now, I can’t do it anymore.
Oddly, I feel better now. I feel like I’ll actually succeed at listening to my work’s soundtrack, and to work in a productive way.
[Yet, being myself, is it that odd that I’m better now than in the moment I began?!]
Well, to say the truth, I planned to say goodbye to 2011 and hello! to 2012 right here, at WordPress. Yet, of course, I lost all of my ideas for the last & first writing moment of the year.
I can’t even believe that’s already 2012. I don’t feel like the year has changed. Instead, I feel like this is a typical saturday night spent at home, while my mom is asleep and my dad has just went to bed. I haven’t felt that emotion on the last seconds of 2011, my heart almost skipping a beat while getting closer to 2012. I haven’t seen all my future in those 10 seconds. To be honest, I haven’t seen nothing at all – I was just staring at the numbers as someone who sees the numbers of that unknown lottery that no one bought and had no prize. They were just numbers, and not the numbers that would switch the year on every electronic device we’ve got.
I really felt that Christmas had been oddly calm. Of course, all the mess came together on New Year’s Eve.
I believe that this was, possible, the weirdest NYE I’ve ever lived – at least, it was the one when I truly felt I should be somewhere else, with my friends, instead of being at home, by the fireplace. And that caught me in such an overwhelming way that I lost all the fun, the emotion and so on related to this night. Oh, communication, why are so hard to handle?!
I wish I knew what to say. I wish I could work, or sleep, or write, but I don’t seem to find the strength and/or the words to do it. I wish this was somewhere else, and I could just stare outside without a single word on my mind, or simply melt into the floor.
Or, better, I wish this night could have been what I wanted it be, and I could be on a nice dress & heels, with my best friends and, of course, R., in our almost hometown [the city where we study and absolutely love], having the greatest night ever and, of course, the best New Year’s Eve and beggining of New Year ever.
Oh, how I wish everything could be simpler and I could be there.
[Does that even count as a New Year Wish?! ]
I can hardly believe that three months went by since my last post; that one year went by since my last Christmas messages; that so many things changed in so many different ways. I just don’t seem to grasp that. Even having heard a few “Happy Holidays”, I just don’t feel like it’s the end of 2011.
These days always led me to think about the ones of the previous year. So, nowadays, I’m thinking about my last reflections on 2010, and my hopes for 2011.
I considered 2010 the best year of my life, and only wished that 2011 was as good as 2010. I hoped that me and B. could, finally, become a couple; that my friendship with D. could be strong as it was; and that my college life could be, at least, nice.
Yet, as usual, 2011 was the year of the change. B and D went, oddly, away. My college life definitely improved, I got closer to my college friends, worked a lot, talked a lot, had a lot of fun. In a unlikely scenario, I met R., the one I subtly mentioned on The Quote, and started to think that it could actually work. Then, I thought that it was a terrible idea, that I should be alone, bla, bla, bla… And, lately, I’ve been thinking that if I don’t do something, I will, definitely, loose him – that’s a cloud I’m decided to avoid. Well, to be honest, soon I’ll be celebrating my two and a half years of loneliness, and I don’t seem to like it. R. seems to be a pretty nice guy, a little older, reliable, so sweet and he doesn’t seem to have an avalanche of issues I’d like to solve! I mean, I always feel interested for complicated guys that I’d love to fix and, for a change, this one seems to be able to give me the peace and the stability that I need, the embrace that will always make me feel at home, the love, the care and the joy that will, without a doubt, keep my heart warmer.
Oh, and in this last months, I’ve been missing my writing so much, but I just don’t seem to find the time to do it. This year, college is demanding much more work and effort, and my mind is always on Fashion Design. Still, even though I’ve improved my drawings, and actually feel that I’m better, it doesn’t seem to be enough. I maintain my insecurity, my insane fear of failure and of showing my drawings [since I always think they’re not good]. Everyone outside college almost gets hysterical when we’re talking about something related to my course, but I always think it’s normal and that I don’t need to be that excited. So, in the end of day, I love fashion – I simply don’t think I deserve to make it. Well, I guess I just need to keep working and pushing myself to the edge, and take every chance I’m given.
Oh well, the almost farewell to 2011, the year of the change. Again, I can only hope 2012 can be as fun as this one has been.
“I do not know, but happiness is within my grasp and I cannot help myself”
One of the greatest sentences that Jane Austen said on Becoming Jane. Gosh, I feel exactly like her.
[and it feels sooo great that I can’t almost find the words to explain]
I mean, I could actually write about it, but it would absolutely be novel-like, and it would take me a lot of time to write it.
By the way, one great event I’ve experienced last week made me want to start another period novel – just to include it in a masterpiece and write even more about it.
[yes, because I’ve already wrote pages about a few seconds, and I can’t get it out of my mind. Oh, and of course, that moment was exactly what led me to remember the quote, and want to pursue and achieve my happiness, instead of simply remaining quiet, waiting for its arrival]
I accidentally stumbled on a movie I’ve never heard of. An old look I could easily grasp for the clothes. The british accent I’ve loved my entire existence. A gently lightened wood. It was only after seeing it that I decided to read the title.
But no, I’d never guess it would be about Jane Austen, until I read the resume.
I forgot the time and, of course, of everything I should and had to do. I simply continued to watch.
Being a complete stranger to her own life, I shall think that most of the events portrayed in the movie have, indeed, occurred. Of course I heard a mention to Jane’s “Persuasion” at “The Lake House” [a 2006 movie with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves that I simply adore] and to her “Pride and Prejudice”, whose movie I haven’t watched yet.
And being, myself, the truest type of the lonely romantic creature, I just couldn’t bear that she gave up the love of her life, Tom. Yes, yes, I completely understand her choice, her position – indeed, despite being here, with the truest indignation in my heart and fingers, if I were her, I might have done the exact same thing.
Yet, it seems so painful to live with that sort of loneliness, specially when Tom has said “I’m yours, heart and soul“ and sacrificed everything and everyone who relied on him to be with her. I know that would, at some point, affect them and that she’d always feel worried – and, worse, guilty – for putting someone else’s life at risk. And I also know that knowing that would destroy her and keep her from being entirely happy.
Yet, being on the outside, having never heard a sincere “I’m yours”, and standing two centuries after her, I think I can provide myself the joy [I wonder if I can, even, consider it a joy] of saying that I’d also never forgive myself for letting him go away.
As a mere XXI century watcher, I felt so relieved when he came back and proposed an escape. I truly felt everything would be solved and relatively good.
She ended up not having great things, loosing her beloved one and staying with almost nothing but her writing. “I will live by my pen”, she said and, well, she still does. Even being dead to the world, Jane is still truly alive in her words, in her books.
Again, as a mere and solitary XXI century observer, I can only wonder how everything would be if she hadn’t found the letter, if she actually got married to Tom and they went to Scotland, as they wanted. I can only wonder how life would have been if, along with her characters, she could actually have accomplished what she wanted.
[Obviously, I can’t avoid thinking what if it was me?, what would I do, as a single young woman who had to write to live. She lost love but she kept writing. Well, of course she did. And, I guess, she actually wrote even more, to compensate her inner sorrow.
Oh writers, so predictable, aren’t we?! Creatures who live – or try to – and end up so confused and overwhelmed that they have to write. And no, it’s not just a will, an evidence of being spoiled. Writing is, indeed, for people like us – who have loved a lot, but also suffered a lot – a need.
A need that is, truly, equivalent to the need that everyone who doesn’t write has to breathe.]
Unexplained, unpredictable, evident yet unsaid farewells are, definitely, the worst ones – exactly because you struggle, day after day, night after night, loosing hours of sleep and wasting inner tears trying to find a reason, and your search leads you to… nowhere.
Yes, I admit that was always something I had to handle with: the absence of words [which is ironic, since words are exactly what I most have, in my mind] and that always bothered me. I wonder where did I go wrong and, obviously, I feel stuck right over there, looking around, looking everywhere, searching every single thing and finding nothing.
I wonder if I wasn’t supposed – simply – to let go and move on; to forget it all and start over; to stop thinking about all of it and begin to build new thoughts, new reminders, new memories. So, if I actually I’m supposed to do it, I wish I could.
I wish I could simply let go – which is, exactly, something I don’t ever feel able to. Letting go is such a hard thing to do, specially for someone like me, who enjoys the unforgettable things and feeds them several times a day, even when they’re not good.
How can a person start over, or, at least, mend, accept the present, and continue to live and quit melancholy? I wish I knew, and could do it. In the meantime, I’ll simply wonder.
I often wonder if it’s enough. Drawing to earn my life, while living, in so many ways, for writing.
I wonder if I chose the right way, if it’s the right thing for me, if it’s really what I want to do.
I’m not trying to say I don’t love fashion, drawing, design, art in general – that would be the ultimate lie, and I’m simply not able to say it. Yet, writing is like breathing to me. It’s the thing that catches my breath, that prevents my heart from beating, the only thing I want and need to do when my thoughts are overwhelmed.
I always remember passing by my college – without having the smallest idea of what it was – and wonder about it. Thinking something like what are those two grey buildings over there? I never got the answer, until the day I actually went there. After a long while of tears, pain and suffering, I’ve actually felt home there. I felt like I was really supposed to be there, and wouldn’t picture my life in a different way.
I read college programs, many abroad, and I dream about seeing my collection in a catwalk, waving at the end of a show; about casually finding one of my pieces on a magazine, or reading my very own interviews as a designer. But I can’t help wondering if it’s enough.
In the other hand, if I had chosen a writing related course, everything would have been so different. I wouldn’t have lived half of the things I lived, wouldn’t have met none of the people I met – and who mean so much to me – ; probably, would have kept sat at the bottom of the mainstream, and wouldn’t have turned in the person I am today.
I don’t regret my choice, but sometimes, I find myself feeling my heart tighten, and this particular anguish whose provenance hasn’t been released – at least, not for me. I don’t know if I’m deceiving myself, and that doubt, that absence of answers [and also of ways to find them] destroys me, piece by piece.
As I’ve already made clear, I do love fashion and design, but I also love photography [the magic of the moment you keep safe in your memory for an entire eternity is something that I just can’t explain properly. It’s like I could go back in time, whenever I wanted. As if someone could actually stop the time, and have it as one wishes] and, of course, I’m so devoted to writing, painting scenes, pictures, entire exhibitions in my mind, and describing them with my very own words, without getting close to an end.
In a certain way, writing and drawing have always been together in my life. When working on actual projects, like novels, I always draw the places where my story happens. I carefully draw the houses and plan their inside, placing objects in order to give more reality to my scenes, and to allow everyone to imagine the actual place without problems. Of course, I also think about the way the characters are dressed, and even research – when writing a period romance – , to find out how was life in that time.
Surely, design has a strong connection with writing, since the entire history of design was built by designers and architects, people who worked with design… But the authentic question is: will it work for me? Will I be happy just devoting a part of my existence to words, while devoting the other part to fashion design? Will I be able to manage my love for photography, too? Will I ever feel complete, living like that, without having one passion – like everyone else does – but several meaningful ones? Will I find the time, the willingness, the strength to dedicate myself, with all of my heart to design, so that I can sincerely improve, and still do everything else? Will I ever manage my time correctly, so that I can do everything I love?
In the end, it all comes to one question: who the hell am I? What do I want?
Will I ever find those answers, the real ones? And will I ever cease the anguish I have, exactly because I don’t know them?
So many things, so little time. Gosh, I often feel like my head is a few minutes to blow. I keep thinking, and don’t seem to find a thing. Soon, September will arrive and I’ll need to prove that I deserve the place I have in that Fashion Design class. I have to be stunningly great, yes, I do. Yet, I wonder where will I find the strength to do it; what is, in the end, my carrot, the goal I want to achieve and will make me fight , no matter what, to get it.
Gosh, Amy, take a breath. Or, better, start acting. You can’t stay like this any longer. You can’t wait anymore. You need to do something.
I’ve been struggling with a thought for a while.
After being away from the one I allowed to cause me the massive heartbreak I mentioned on My Very Own Hard Way to Self-Forgiveness for almost two years, lately, I was feeling slightly inclined to check on his online life. I resisted – a lot, I must confess. I thought it’d be a terrible choice, since I’d probably want to recover everything I thought we had. So, I was always saying to myself: Amy, you don’t want to do this to yourself. Not again.
Yet, today, I gave in. I truly did, even knowing what it could do to me. I gave in, in spite of being aware of the shock that would, doubtless, attain me. I confess that I didn’t seem to succeed in holding on resistance anymore. I was, actually, feeling the need to have, at least, a small idea of how he’s been doing.
In a way that looked completely weird and unexpected to me, things quite didn’t happen the way I suppose they would.
The first sign of weirdness and that a lot of time had gone by since I left him was that I didn’t remember the name of his online page. I truly had to search, and search, and search [almost dig, to be honest] in my brain to find the name, and, consequently, the page.
The second evident sign was that I didn’t feel like crying nor my heart ache [things that always happened, before].
The third sign of everything but normality. Well, I must confess that the whole page kinda freaked me out. [haha, I know I don’t usually write like that, but that was the most sincere way of explaining the moment]
I truly felt scared for the things I was seeing, related to the one that used to be my home. [Just remembering, there was one or another time I’ve felt scared, but – as always – I made the whole set look just fine] I felt exactly as if I had entered a horror movie without being properly warned, or as if I was watching a weird scene at a thriller. The kind of thing that leaves you uncomfortable, you know?
I wandered through his photos, obviously, and each and every single one of them led me to the same thought: “this guy is so lost”. To say the truth, he was already weird when we met but, as time went by, he got worse. The tenderness of his look that I knew so well is simply… gone. I did everything I could while we were together – more than what I should have done, probably – but I did it. So, nothing represents a weight in my consciousness.
Anyway, I couldn’t avoid thinking about who I was, back then. I really thought about that girl who devoted to him in a way she shouldn’t have, the girl who is also gone.
I simply wonder how she could find hope in someone who she knew that was falling apart, how she felt he was home, how she turned him in the center of her existence.
I wonder how she couldn’t see the truth, in all the times she said her life would never be bearable again, because she’d lost him once and for all. I wonder why she did it all. I wonder how could she hide the truth to her own eyes, pretend everything was just fine, devastating herself in order not to upset him with her opinions, thoughts and actions.
And, of course, I still think that is relatively weird for me to say that if he ever needed anything, regretted of his own choices and wanted to be a different, better person, I’d be around – in the friend zone, obviously, because unlike her, I know that’s not a healthy option and it’s not the best thing for me; but I’d be there to help him.
Well, she didn’t know how life would be without him and, also, she wouldn’t even suspect how free she’d feel when, finally, she could be able to do what she actually wanted to, without worrying about his opinion.
I can’t say that love, in general, has blind people as main characters. What I can say – exactly because I’ve been there – is that this case was, doubtless, a matter of blindness.
I confess that I had been quite nostalgic before seeing who he is now, remembering the past and the like… But, I also must confess that when I saw it and grasped the reality, I became utterly sure that the story wasn’t, at all, meant to be, and that I didn’t need to put myself in that sort of situation again.
Maybe resisting wasn’t the best move. Maybe what I really needed was to know that the one I had in my memories was actually gone. Probably, what I truly needed was to see reality as it is, and not through my charming, dream effect lenses.
Yes, I may be right this time. Watching all that made me see that I don’t want it. Not anymore. And, that way, I feel way more relieved.
So, from now on, no more haunting dates, no more haunting feelings. No more sense of weirdness. None of those things.
From now on, it’s just me, starting over. A little later than what it was supposed to be, but way more mature than before.
I wish I would know how to start this, my love. I wish I would.
I wish I had you right next to me, instead of needing to write this – that’s the truth, the actual one. The truth that holds no lie, no omission – nothing but all I’ve always hide and denied.
I miss you, William – more than words can describe. It’s been a long, long time since the last time I saw you; since the last time your smile brightened my existence just for being around; since your eyes caught mine and I felt so embarrassed I had to look away, fearing that you could notice the brightness I wasn’t allowed to avoid.
I wish I had been allowed to say how much I care for you, that I didn’t have to restrain myself every time I wanted to be in your arms.
Oh William, how I wish things could have been different – you’ve no idea of how much.
But no, I can’t stay, love, even though it breaks me into small pieces. I can’t stand the idea of giving you what I’ve got, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I ever got to hurt you. I just can’t, William.
Of course I don’t seem to be able to forgive myself for this, for not being good enough to have you, for being broken and needing time to figure out who I am, to mend and move on.
I’m so sorry, William, so sorry. Specially because I know you’d say you’d help me to find all the answers I need, and I simply can’t take that offer. I can’t put you into the situation I’ve already handled – trying to heal someone who needs time and reflection.
Don’t even try to think I don’t love you, William. Please, don’t – I loved you since the first time you smiled at me, a long, long time ago. And that’s exactly why I don’t want to cause you pain.
Still, I miss you. And, to be honest, if I could, I’d go back in time and tell you about my feelings while you were near me, while, in a certain way, I had you. But no: one, I can’t turn back time; and two, I never told you because I was afraid to lose you.
Anyway, I ended up loosing you. And now, you’re gone without a clear reason, without a word. Now, I’m alone, missing you despite having figured out I need to be on my own to pick up the pieces and rebuilt my existence.
I never thought I’d lose you, love. Not like this. Not when I thought everything would change, that I’d feel whole again. Not when I had finally found exactly what I’ve always searched. Not when you looked at me that way and I knew, I truly knew you loved me back. Not when I tried to extend each and every single farewell. Not when I wanted to be in your arms, endlessly. Not when we had such a beautiful, tender connection.
I never thought it would end up like this, the way I’d never imagine, the non obvious way, the one I’d never saw coming closer.
We had everything to be great – if I wasn’t that broken and needed to be certain about my own choices. We had, not anymore.
At this time, I can only wish that, one day, when I’m completely aware of myself, it could be different, and we’re finally allowed to be with each other, like we truly wanted to.
In the meantime, I’ll be away.
I’ll miss you, love. Everyday. But it’s the best thing to do, and the best time to do it. I need to clear my mind. I just couldn’t delay it anymore.
First and foremost, I need to know who I am, what I want to do, where do I see myself in a few years, which are my dreams and fight for them with all I’ve got, with all my soul.
Then, I’ll feel good enough to return.
sketchablepaperfold 