a new set of realizations

I have been trying to put some sense and coherence into whatever is storming in my brain since the past couple of days, but I should know better by now. The storm shall pass when it passes, not a second before. So i'm not going to force it, i'm just going to try to let it go as I can within the limits of this text-box. I do apologize beforehand if at the end of it all it is just pure rambling (if I were you I would stop reading right about now).

Somehow, in some parallel universe, I have let go. It's like I have said the idea out loud in my head, my brain has strangely registered it and has proceeded to archive it deep within its own recesses while the words have formed on my lips and something within me pulsates with such force it is unbearable sometimes. But the feeling the creeps up is one of numbness. As if my soul just seems to have receded as well, down the dark dirty alleyways of my self, where it is humid and damp, where things cling to you and the voices in your head are almost deafening... yet sometimes I can still feel her, a timid touch, a sudden warmth. I reach for her immediately, but she is already gone.

The strangest of it all is the sudden weightlessness. The emptiness. A lighter burn at the pit of my stomach. It makes me try to run back to it all, try to catch the strings that are now cut in order to have it all back. To have the heavy burden on my shoulders, the cramping on my chest, the constant hammering on my stomach, but more than anything the constant lull of pain seeping in through every conceivable inch of me, the drowning. But the strings slip from within my grasp, every step I take towards them they take a hundred away. I can not run fast enough, plead hard enough, wish long enough.

And then there are the other feelings. For instance, I am well aware I am not happy, I don't think I will be happy for a while to come. And it is not that I am unhappy. No, I am not unhappy either. But I am surely not happy, as happiness as I once knew it is inconceivable in the present state of affairs. That I will have to make a happiness from scratch is something I have become aware of. Yet I am also aware I will not try to do now, now is not the right moment. Now I lack the right materials, the proper tools. Now there are broken pieces that need to be mended, because if I rush into it and fail to do so whatever attempt of happiness will just seep through it, through the broken pieces into nothingness. I am also severely angry, not raging as before, but angry. And anger is consuming me. At an odd pace, yes, but constant. I know myself, to get rid of this anger will be the hardest part of it all, the million dollar challenge, the all-encompassing task. This is the part where I can succeed or where I can simply just end up failing miserably.

Despite this acknowledgment there is little I can do about it but let anger run its course. At least this time around is not anger and pain racing to see which one would kill me first. Now it is just anger... and anger by itself is not as competitive... pain is no longer a threat. It is there, don't get me wrong. It is simply not being fueled any longer. Thus, anger is lazy... it feeds off every other insignificant provocation around me and that, for now, suffices.

Regardless of everything there is a sudden calmness, maybe it is the same one right before a nuclear holocaust... but whatever it is, it is calm. And it has not been calm in so very long. That there are feelings yet to be dealt with, yes. Undoubtedly. But at least the monsters have gone back to lock down again, the voices have grown tired, the demons scattered. My soul will eventually find its way back, as it always does... even if this time around the journey is bound to be longer. In the meantime my anger and I acquaint ourselves again, if we are to coexist in the same plane of space in time, we might as well do so as comfortably as possible.

burning and cravings

I feel I’m breaking down and I can’t find a way to stop it. I know this is all part of the process, I have crashed and now I’m burning… I get that. But now I want -I need it- to stop. ‘Cause I know myself, I can make the burning be eternal, I can make myself run in these infinite circles until only sheer exhaustion makes me fall and scrape my knees. But my knees have been scrapped a hundred times too many… I don’t need another one. Especially with the battle wounds… those don’t play well with others. On that note, I have battle wounds to be proud of, others I deeply regret, but they are there and there are mine and I have learned to live with them. But I am currently unsure where this particular wound is supposed to go. It is too big, deep, raw, painful, throbbing, and new to fit it neatly in one of the available categories. I know I need to let it heal. And to heal I need to burn a bit longer, I need to allow the pain the flow how and where it is supposed to flow, not force it, not chain it to something… I need to let go for once and for all. But most importantly I need to know when to stop before I scrape.

In the meantime I need to fall in love in a kind of vintage, dark, slightly messy, raw, and deeply intense way with something… and I need to do so soon. I’m back to my German classes, which I really like and which are really hard and which half of time I’m slightly lost (so yes, I feel I fit right in… seeing this is a constant feeling of mine). I’m also working out like there’s no tomorrow, and if there is something you have come to know about me is that I love working out, I love the cardio, the weights, the swimming, not so much the abs but who really does?... but I still haven’t been able to cut down on my anxiety levels (which translate to me eating everything at arms’ reach) and I am not sleeping. Not that I ever really do, but it has worsen. I sleep at odd intervals, and it is draining me… by the time I hit the gym at night everything aches far more than it should. The solution would be for me to move out, get a little tiny studio that is only mine… but that is not an affordable option right now, and I will not dwell in it. ´

But either way I have a constant craving, a nagging feeling, an itch in the pit of my stomach. I don't know if I need to go into a book-shopping frenzy, find a DIY craft to keep me interested, start cooking again, travel (back to what's not currently affordable), explore something new and unknown... but I need to find something, and I need to do so soon. To do so will eventually make the pain flow faster, undisturbed. And if it flows faster, I burn faster, and if I burn faster I will eventually need to start healing. I need to start healing...soon.

imminent disasters

And there it went... the giant band-aid keeping it all together. One quick swift motion and there it lay, motionless on a dusty corner. And like all imminent disasters the blowing up is not going to happen ipso facto, it will make me wait, like a kid whose balloon-string just slipped through its fingers and now looks at it getting smaller and smaller as it flies up up and beyond while knowing, deep within the recesses of its brain, that the balloon wont fly back down, that no one is going to go get it for him, that the giant band-aid can't be put back, that there is nothing in the great vast universe able to put it back and make it stay there. As the kid, I realize without a shred of doubt, that I am fucked. Do please pardon my french. But I am.

I wanted to keep my mind busy, I thought that if I kept every single hour of my day completely and utterly busy I would stop feeling, stop thinking about certain things, stop wondering and wandering about. I thought I could make the pain, if not go away, at least recede, at least be kept quietly buried deep within the nothingness of my soul. I thought that if I didn't stop to see I would have no need to feel. Oh, was I wrong. I just made the pain stretch to breaking point, and in doing so it was able to fill every little unoccupied part of me, I made it get into places it had no access to before. I made it mix with other emotions, I made it angry, troubled, enduring, continuous. I made it mutate into something violent and aggressive, into something that now wants to eat me alive because feeding into the problems other people share with me so I can help them figure them out (the irony, I know) is no longer enough.

But now it will burst, it will swallow me and I am unsure it will spit me out, at least not in one piece. The only problem with this realization is that I have to sit down and wait for it. I have to watch the clear waters turn deep and dark, recede in violent backwards waves feeding into one another, I have to see it build up into a massive body of water, thick and wide. And in seeing it I have to choose, choose whether to run and run and run until I can't help look back and see it bury me or simply stay where I am, right in the middle of it all, in front of it. There is no way to out run it, there is no shelter to hide in, there is no superhero left to stop it.

I am alone in this, and I better get myself comfortable, because when it finally strikes there would be no other option than to realize I am going to get hit.

so long as I get somewhere...

When you start using my full name when talking to me then i know whatever it is we are talking about is real (be that personal issues, family issues, job issues, life issues, discussions, fights). Today you did not even hesitate, it just came out every single time as if there was no doubt in your mind and heart that that was how you should address me. Today I felt as if we were just acquaintances from a recent past. Maybe, just maybe, I should stop reading into it, into the 8 or 10 times it came out that way, never the other way... never the way that made me feel I was 'it'.

I guess to acknowledge this, to read into this, to feel as I feel is just one more step towards pulling that giant band-aid that's holding my shit all tightly packed in one place in one quick swift movement. In any case, I am desperately aware that when the shit eventually hits the fan then gravity will do the rest. I just hope gravity is merciful.

It is not the rock that changes, it is you.

Hello? Anybody there? ... echo echo... shoot, did I manage to chase you away already? I do hope you are only out fishing somewhere around the pond and that you'll be back before nightfall. In any case I'll just stay here talking to myself, as I normally do... (and then I ask myself whether I need to go back to medication, seriously woman!).

Ok, odd behavior aside, I must inform you all (hopefully not all imaginary) readers that I have started climbing. Rock/sport climbing that is. And god only knows this sh*t is hard ma'friends! Here I thought that my seriously long legs, my somewhat decent flexibility and the fact that I spend 2 hours a day, 6 days a week at the gym doing strength exercises would help me. Guess what? They haven't! It's like learning to walk all over again! My knees are bruised (my own fault for forgetting the one critical element that knees are to be away from the body to avoid shifting your center of gravity) and my hands are a bit sore (no gloves no nada allowed). Don't get me wrong, I know from before even starting to practice it that it was a challenging sport, but I had left it there, physically challenging. Nobody ever said anything about mentally challenging. The physical I expected, the mentally? Well, let's just say it hit me like a ton of bricks thrown from a 10-story building.

Climbing means learning to trust myself (stop laughing! I can see you!). Trust my body, namely that the fact that I feel only the tip of my shoes on the crevice of the rock is enough to know I can stand, or that if 3 out of 5 fingers holding the grip above me are enough to propel me upwards. Trust that the legs I work on continuously in the gym are strong enough to hold my weight and my back and shoulders can finish doing the trick. Trust my strength, the one that comes with 150+pounds in a 5'10" (pseudo athletic) body is more than enough to make me reach the top every single time. Trust my mind and convince it I'm actually secured with the harness and that there is someone on the ground watching my every movement and taking care that I wont fall... but most importantly, that it [my mind] will be able to shut down for a brief span of time and let it all go, allow me to concentrate solely on the task at hand.

As you can imagine I have failed miserably in all accounts, but I keep trying, I keep falling and I keep standing up, and I keep pulling myself upwards even when my hands and my hamstrings and my forearms burn... because when I do manage to reach the top and look at the view and know that regardless of the fact that it took me 20 minutes more than everyone else to reach it, I finally did... and that's what counts in the end.

Moreover, I never thought climbing would define my motto for this year: It is not the rock that changes, it is you. The rock remains there, where it has been since the beginning of time. Constant, solid, eternal. You, on the other hand, are volatile, impatient, quick to anger... but you are also malleable, improvable, changeable. My path throughout this 2012 will be full of rocks, big gigantic threatening rocks and cliffs... it is up to me to let go and fall down back to the ground, tired and beaten, or keep climbing, until everything burns, until everything is sore and bruised, until I reach the top, look at the view and realize that I have made it through. Unscathed never, but through.

10,000+ft up and away

Well hello there.

Did you know I just hiked down a mountain? Well, not like in this precise exact moment but some days ago to be exact. I went up (and down) 10,000+ft (we have the highest peak in the Antilles and/or the east coast of the Atlantic) and dropped (intentionally lost) a bit of baggage I had been carrying on me like a dead body (or a couple) for a while now. I am starting to believe that I need to do these major couple-of-days trips somewhere, anywhere, alone (even if I have friends or random people I have never met that eventually I'll befriend (you see, my mother always says that my greatest virtue is the fact that I can talk even with rocks if need be) around). Alone in the sense that it is me against the world and its surroundings, that I wake up and go to bed alone, that there is no one I can cuddle against and tell them things, so they carry them around for a while, before I pick them right back up. Alone in the sense that I can't let things go on people, but that I need to let them go on me, let them go and run the other way as if hell broke loose behind me. Let them go and let them burn and let them not find a way to me. This trip allowed me to do so, and for that I am thankful and appreciative of the mercy of the gods.

I did, however, come back a bit bruised (to say the least) (and I do mean literal cuts and bruises and swollen ankles). But I prefer to think fondly of them as battle wounds, wounds acquired as a victor and not as a loser. I made it through with praises and glories (specially as a first-timer in this) and I welcome them with arms wide open. I have moved some things from my bucket list higher up the list, it is definitely time to try new things out, new challenges, fail and stand back up again and try again (because at the end that is the trick to it all, trying and standing back up again, eventually you'll get the hang of it and there will be no need or reason to fail, but every reason to stand up tall and straight... however long that might take). In every negative thing there is something positive, there are risks to take and rewards to get at the end of it all. I learned that as well while hiking...

I don't know if it was just the lack of oxygen or the purity of it all, the cold biting water, the hiking up and above the sea of clouds, the mountains and valleys extending themselves far beyond what my mortal eyes could see, the sitting around the fire, the lack of phones and computers and facebook and all those darn every day things. Maybe it was all of this and maybe it was nothing of this. It was the rawness, the emptiness, the silence broken only by a heavy breathing, a pumping heart, the twigs breaking underneath my tennis shoes. Whatever it was I was able to let some things go, and at the end that is what matters. For this time, at least, the lights at the end of the tunnel were not those of the upcoming train.