Free writing and free to write

They tell us that we need to try harder, but that I don’t believe it, no, because I try and I try and it makes me sadder, makes it harder, tougher, cooler and darker.

They tell us to try and do more, work harder, longer. To smile and laugh, to be nice and be pleasing, be amicable, be polite, be good, be an example. Be this and be that, but when do they ever tell us to be ourselves? 

I haven’t be raised to think like this. I have never been told to be myself. I have been told that me being myself was an issue for others and that it caused me to be bullied, so maybe I should change to avoid this kind of moquerie. I have been told and taught that being myself would be a problem and would cause me to get hurt. I have been told and taught to change to please, to smile, to be polite, to tell them what they wanted to hear and be who they wanted me to be.

It helped, somehow, it helped to grow up, to get better jobs and earn more money, but in the midst of all this pleasing I lost me. This me who was telling the world to piss-off because I was who I was, full fracking stop. I could swear and would not apologise for anything I was. I lost me and my confidence with it. 

Why don’t they tell us that who we are is THE thing we need to never let go. Compromises are possible, but letting go should be a no-no. 

They never told me that it was ok to be me and that it was not ok to feel the hatred others were throwing at me, and from being victim I went to be the one responsible for my misery. They never told me that this, this sense of self I had and was doing my very best to hold on to would be my most valuable possession in the future, as an adult. 

Because if you tell a teenager that they shouldn’t be just this, knowing yourself that everything is a phase that will lead to the adult they are meant to be, then you are setting this teenager for failure. The failure to hold on to certitudes, to beliefs that are proper to this very own and unique personality. 

I am an adult who doesn’t know who I am. 

I am an adult who has no idea where to go and even who I love. 

I don’t know if I love my partner for who she is or who she once was. 

I am an adult who knows nothing other than that I know nothing. 

They took my right to be myself away, one day, mocking me the way they all did because I chose to be different and because I decided that I needed help from adults to fend off these attacks, ending up being told by these same adults that they kind of saw why I was being mocked and that I should change if I wanted it to stop.

Adulthood is a fucker we all dream about when we are kids, teenagers, because we know we won’t have anyone on our backs, ever, to tell us what to do and not to do, and here I am, 35 and wishing that someone would tell me what to do. 

Here I am, 35 and wishing that someone would show up and boss me around and tell me who I should marry, love, where I should live and what job I should have.

Here I am, 35 and wishing that someone would strip me of my very basic right to chose what I want to do with my life. 

How sad is that?

How sad is it to think that there is someone out there who think that not having to make their own decisions would relieve them from a lot of pain and suffering? 

What if the truth could only be revealed if I let go?

Let go of the chains that keep me so grounded that I feel stuck in dried out concrete? 

Let go of this idea that life is about money and savings, house and dogs and cats and normality.

What is normality? 

What is normal?

Who said this was normal?

Why is this supposed to be normal?

It doesn’t feel like the freedom I was dreaming about when I was a kid. 

When I was dreaming about being an adult, I was dreaming about going to bed as late as I wanted and do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. 

When I was dreaming about being an adult, I was driven by this sense of self that was still mine, that they hadn’t stolen from me yet. There was no girlfriend, no owning a house, no having a great job and earning a big load of money from a job I hated. 

When I was dreaming about being an adult, I was dreaming about the freedom to be me, to do me and to not care. Not be disrespectful, but make their voices go quiet, go distant and disapear, not have their expectations drown me, like the sound of the alarm in the morning, causing an immediate headache and heartache. Eyes barely open, head dry and throat tight, there was none of this. 

I dreamed about endless nights writing about my pain and the pain the world felt.

I dreamed about being free to write all night and go far, far away where the words had the meaning I would give them.

Never did I dream to binge watch a TV show all night, never did I dream to spend my nights watching Netflix. Never. This was never a dream because it was not a reality at the time. 

Is it ok to stick to the realty from back then? 

Would it be more realistic to accept the polution we are subjected to and live with it?

I don’t accept choosing to watch a shitty tv show rather than work on a Novel I have been writing for more than 6 years now. 

I don’t accept giving in to this urge to chose the simpler version of life. Giving up is easier. 

It’s easier to chose a takeaway over making your own diner, easier to stay on the couch rather than go for a run. It’s easier to watch TV rather than work on my lifetime dream, because these things, they are pure and simple instant gratification. 

It takes work. It takes work, time and effort to do those things, and we don’t, because we want the results now, the satisfaction now, like an addiction.

We don’t want to work out our relationships, we don’t want to give each other a second chance because there has to be someone out there with whom it is just easier, right?

I never dreamed of giving up. Who ever did?

I never dreamed of being a slob or being a coward who just takes what life gives. 

I never dreamed of suffering when life was not a routine. 

I never dreamed of being so lost. 

That little girl wanted to write. That’s all she wanted, all she liked, all she enjoyed. 

That little girl wanted to be creative, wanted to create, to share these feeling that were taking over her when life was tough in her house. 

That little girl, she was a warrior. She got me through the toughest moments and I owe her a big thank you. I owe her to fight the way she fought the tears and the hatred. 

That little girl, she’s a fracking hero for doing what she did.

She never dreamed of being a sad adult with a relationship she couldn’t get a grasp on, and a life that didn’t mean much. 

She never wanted to be a corporate number, of course not, because she didn’t know what it was, but still, she didn’t want to be one of those adults. 

She never wanted to be a hairdresser, policewoman, a nurse. She wanted to write songs. She wanted to be better than the adults around her. 

What could I tell her? 

What would I tell her 

Would I tell her that life got in the way, and people too, tell her how some of them took a little bit of my soul away? 

Should I tell her that? Really? 

Because from what I can see she is the one who had to go through the toughest times, the abuse, insult and more. She is the one who had to be tough. She never let any of them take anything from her, regardless of how horrible they were to her. 

Should I tell her that I got weak and tired to fight them, that I just thought it was easier to go their way, the main way, the highway, the way they all went? 

Should I tell her I am a coward? Tell her that it was just easier like that and at the time the price to pay was all worth it?

Should I tell her the amount of excuses I make up everyday for not writing?

I would be ashamed. 

If I had to face her, I would be ashamed. She would make me feel even worse than that, and rightly so. 

I lost my dad today

I lost both my parents last year.

I first lost my dad.

I don’t like calling like that, because he was never a “dad” to me. I remember vividly being a kid and trying my best to never use that term with him, in any circumstances, and if I did, it was because I really had to.

Sometimes I think he did his best as a man, but most of the time I struggle to forgive him the nights I spent as a kid on that pissy couch, refusing to fall asleep on that horrible thing. I fail to forgive him for not helping me as a young adult when I was there, broke and unable to put food on my plate, pretty much starving and months away from being on the street.

We had good times, but they were too rare to make up for the fact that he never made room for me and treated me like a stranger in his life. Like that time, when I was 12 and he told me he didn’t have enough money to buy me a Christmas present but an hour later made us stop in a supermarket to buy a Furby for his godchild. That time hurt me so deeply I can still feel the pain in my guts 20 years later.

He died on a hospital bed, alone, after several epileptic fits which cost him his independence and in the end his life. He ended up alone, paying the sad price of not cherishing his daughters, his family.

I knew nothing about him, just as he knew nothing about me. I never knew he self-checked himself in a home at the age of 62, never knew his health was that bad. I was just informed when he was pretty much on his death bed, letting himself die by not taking his pills, because the epileptic fits took away most of his motor abilities. He retired at 60 and got into a home at 62 and died at 64. How sad is that?

I knew nothing about him. I don’t know what he looked like when he was young and fit, when he met my mother and fell in love with her. I know he cherished her, loved her so much he adopted her daughter, a kid she had with another man. Admittedly she didn’t even know who, amongst the men she slept with, was the father anyways. I didn’t know him, but I know he loved my mother and never loved another woman after she left him.

He is now gone. He is gone and has left behind him a life where he gathered money and got all the things money could buy, failing to enjoy the real things, the ones you feel in your heart and soul rather than in your hands.

I am sad and I wish I had known he was sick. Maybe I could have talked to him and asked him about his life, his regrets, because I do hope he left with some regrets. Maybe he could have told me how he wished things could have been different, or maybe he would have stayed the big bear he always was, until the end, hanging to that pride, wrongly but surely… which sadly sounds more like him, really.

Instead of being there for him, as a loving daughter would do, I am here, resentful and unforgiving. I am sad, not as a daughter but as a human being, sad that this man died alone, and maybe sad that I didn’t get to be a daughter and have a dad.

He will never know; never know that I wanted him to treat me like an equal, respect me and give me a bed on the weekends I had to sleep in his house. He will never know the sadness I feel for him, as a man, sadness all over my body and soul, because he never gave himself the chance to be loved.

I wrote this when I learned about my dad was about to pass. That was in September last year.

I lost my mother as well, who I also had issues calling “mum”. I was informed of her death when one of my sisters tried to get in touch with her to inform her of our father’s death…. But that’s for another day.

This is the song I chose to be played at his funeral (funeral home). I was the one who had to that. I remembered a poster of Queen he had in his living room and thought this song would be appropriate.

It has to start somewhere

Lao-Tzu said that a journey of a thousand miles needs to start with a single step, and this, everyone, is definitely not the first step that I am taking. 

I wrote blogs, insta posts, posted pictures and wrote in an endless amount of notebooks as well. This is not my first blog and not my first step either. 

It started a while ago. Well, pretty accurately I can even tell you that it started 29 years ago, when I was watching a video clip on TV while my mother was ironing. I was just doing my thing, mesmerised by the light of the TV and enjoying the music, when I felt what I would call now “inspiration” but what I couldn’t name back then. I grabbed the first piece of paper that was there (a red piece of cardboard, the kind you put in binders to create categories) and a pencil, and I wrote. I wrote and wrote and I felt this urge inside of me and all of a sudden I just knew: I wanted to be a song writer. I just knew it. There was something about the rhymes and the sound and the beauty of making it all work. 

I was proud of myself, proud of my work and I decided to share with the only person that was there, my mother. I got up and asked her to look, because I wanted her approval, of course, I was 6. She stopped for a second, looked at the piece of paper without even looking and said “that’s great” before getting back to ironing. This was the first time my mother broke my heart a little, and it would not be the last. 

I had a calling on that day. I can still feel the feeling in my guts, the light coming on and brightening my entire existence. Suddenly I wasn’t a kid but a kid with a mission. I discovered that I wanted to write, that it made me feel good and alive. 

Everybody can have a calling. Not everyone listens to it, and not everyone can go for it. Life comes in the way, you can always be sure of that. I spent another 3 years with my mother and her abusive partner, being bullied and abused, before she finally made a choice: her relationship with her man was more important than me, and because I was growing up accepting his crap less and less…she abandoned me, and I let. 

That’s right. I saw my mother walking with my baby brother, in the opposite direction of our home, lost in the crowd of all the parents after school. I saw her and she saw me: we kept walking. I was 9 and I knew this was the best thing for me, however hard it would be. I was right. 

It’s the short version of a much longer story, but it’s the first step towards a life that I decided to dedicate to people who are going through transitional times and need a healthy support. Mental health professionals are great, but some people would rather talk to someone who knows about their struggles, and that’s where I come. 

My approach is simple: we are even. A coach and a client are on the same level, but the coach is there to provide tools and a holistic support to know how to cope and move on. Be it a change of job, a loss of job, a burn out, a breakup, a need for change, to find purpose and reconciliation with your true calling… I am here. 

A letter to my ex.

I know things have not been easy lately, for me mainly, but I haven’t been the easiest and I would like to start with apologising for my fits of anger; as short as they were, it was neither nice nor good to feel angry at you.

We are exes, but I love you as much as I did before we broke up, a long time before we broke up, actually. I love you in a way that makes me want to hug you, protect you, take care of you in every possible way. I love you so much that when you cry I forget all about myself.

I shouldn’t love you like that, I know. I shouldn’t love you so strongly and deeply and not want you as my girlfriend at the same time.

Loving you like I do is confusing. I want you in my life, I want you in my heart, but not like that anymore.

The thing is, I never knew what I wanted and I just jumped into our relationship, both feet in. Jumped without thinking, because I was so happy to be loved by someone good, someone kind and so loveable. I felt lucky and I felt like I had to go with the flow. I shouldn’t have.

The thing is, and you know that, I shouldn’t settle. It just doesn’t work with me. I need adventures, travels, escapes and just spontaneity. You need love, romance and to be cared for as much as you want to care for the other.

We were not meant to be together and life told us that a long time before we broke up. We just wanted to give it a chance, believe in it, believe it could get better, believe that I could change and accept a life that was not mine. I believed I could give you the love and affection you needed, but I couldn’t, and yet we stayed. We stayed and closed our eyes to the truth, making the future more difficult for ourselves. Making the future what it is today.

You want a girlfriend and I can understand this, because this is you. You live to make people happy, bring a smile on their faces and put delicious food in their bellies. That’s who you are.

So we need to stop hanging out together the way we did the past year, stop our routine of watching TV on the couch, holding hands and texting first thing in the morning and before going to bed. You need to make room for whoever will win the the to your heart, whenever that is, to make sure you are ready, make sure you have room for their love, make sure you are not confused.

And me? Well I need to go back to live for myself and not for you, because that’s all I have been doing lately. I need ti get out there and be a better me than I ever was. Loose the fears and the angst, loose the uptight attitude, loosen up, really. But I also don’t want to know that you are alone, that you suffer. I hate knowing that you need to feel that void in your life and deal with it… because you don’t know how to.

I want to be here, and I will be, but I want my role to change in this story, for our own sake and in-spite whatever the pain is to go through that new phase.

You’re my best friend and always have been.

You’re my best friend and always will be. What we have is so special, I hope deep in my heart that nothing can ever taint that.

So go be you and I’ll be me. We will take a different path, because that’s what is meant to be.

We’ll meet again, less often. We’ll meet again, in the open, with our hearts a little bit more closed out.

I love you and I miss you just as much.

I am here though, always.

What’s gonna happen?

I am scared

I can’t lie, I am scared. I am scared of the future.

This pandemic is taking a turn, a good turn: people are getting vaccinated and things will go back to normal little by little. We will be able to go back to the movies, the restaurant, the pub, the library… but will we be able?

With all this, a lot of things changed in my life; I stopped drinking, smoking and well, that’s not a change, but I realised that my only friend is my ex. Almost in this country and I have one friend.

I used to drink and have loads of friends; drinking buddies that kind of all disappeared with time, the lockdowns and just because, really.

So when everything goes back to normal, when we can go out again, what’s gonna happen?

I will be alone, more alone than I am now. More alone because I won’t be like the others, lock in their houses because of a government decision, but because I have no one to go out with. And what if I do go out? Will I be able to talk to strangers without actively drinking? This is something I have never done in the past.

No, I don’t know what it is to socialise without drinking, and I don’t want to go back to that, because that is simply not me.

So I am scared, and somehow, I think – or maybe it is wishful thinking – that I am not the only one.

I don’t have children. Let’s start with that.

I don’t have children, but one day, maybe I will… I hope I will.

When I do, if I do, I want them to know a few things.

I want to tell them that being famous means nothing, and that if they want to be known, they are much better off being known for their brains rather than their physiques. Because there are a lot of pretty women and handsome men out there, but far from as many are famous for the right reasons.

I watched an interview today that made me think. People want fame, people see fame as the ultimate goal, and I find it so sad.

This is where the world is today; that girl who is famous because she shocked the public on a TV show, that man because he broke his neck jumping from the roof of his house and survived. Don’t even get me started on those blond dudes doing… I don’t even know what on their YouTube channels and getting millions of subscribers. We give those people way too much attention and credit.

Being famous…. how about we try first to be a good person? That’s what I would tell my kids. You first goal in life is to be a good person, and good things will come from that. Work on the beauty inside as much as you work on the outside. Give room for your feelings, allow yourself to be critical, because darling, that’s how you make your opinion about people. I am not saying that people should trash others in their heads and be hypocritical in front of them, but make your opinion, criticise yourself and others, and more than anything else, be honest about it.

Be good to yourself and good to others, be fair, be honest, and never apologise for your honesty, as long as you choose your words wisely.

I want my kids to know that being famous means nothing. What is meaningful is doing something you enjoy doing. I don’t want them to study for the sake of studying, to make me proud or make me puff up in front of others.. because that’s not who I am, and that’s not who I want them to be. I want them to study if they want to, to be a chef, be in the army, be a cleaner, an artist, a coder, a garbage man, a teacher, a nurse… it doesn’t matter as long as they are good people and happy.

It sounds great and maybe it will change, but I don’t think so.

The world has too many people going in that direction, where fame is the target, regardless of how it happens. They want to be actresses and end up being porn starts, because that’s what they settle for. Arf, it’s a bit of a dramatic scenario here, but you get the gist. These values, they come from somewhere and whatever happens, these values won’t come from me.

I want to tell my kids to listen to their hearts, to love regardless of colour, gender, social status and anything else. I want them to love with their hearts and not their eyes. Love can last years, decades, but I believe that what makes it last is not a great ass, a great bosom or a 6 pack. But that’s only my opinion.

IN FACT, what I want to tell my hypothetical kids, I want to TELL THE WORLD first.

Wake up, listen to your voice; love, write, sing even if doesn’t sound right, dance even if you don’t know any cool moves, run even if you haven’t run since high school and you were bad at it then, jump, meditate, sleep more, learn how to play an instrument. I want to tell the world that we all judge each other and in the end, who cares. What that teenage dickhead I met earlier (and didn’t move his ass on the sidewalk because he was too cool to do so) thinks and thought of me, probably not nice things. But I didn’t think much of him either; but he was too self conscious to even care about what I thought and I am too fracking over all of that shoot to be bothered. I will sleep at night and so will he.

Life is too short to aim for fame when being a good person is already pretty hard work. Being a good person is a good start and it’s also a good finish.

I am personally not quite there yet, but as everyone else; I am a work in progress.

I didn’t have the time… so you say

I almost didn’t write today.

I wanted to write and I did other less important things instead, such as watching a pitiful TV show about Elisa Lam and how the web sleuths are just sad little things with no life and no purpose, and how they not only did not help (why didn’t anyone ask if the hatch was closed when the handy man found the body? Why, seriously?) but also ruined the life of that poor guy in Mexico. So yeah, I almost didn’t write because I lost an hour of my life watching that last episode.

To be honest (TBH, as they say), I almost told myself that I did not have the time, but I stopped and told myself that “I did not have the time” is the worse reason to give yourself. It’s not a reason, it’s an excuse, and an excuse is nothing other than a bad reason. A bad excuse is a pleonasm.

When you say “I didn’t have the time to do this or that, I am sorry” to your colleague, sister, mother or whoever, it’s wrong. You had the time, you just didn’t take it. We all have 24 hours in hour days, 7 days per week. We sleep (or should sleep) an average of 8 hours/day, and therefore (if my math is right) have a total of 16 hours left: 8 for work, another 8 for the rest. You have 8 hours of your day for yourself, your dog, your family, your hobbies, your mental health, anything you want. That’s scary, to think that you have that much time in a day for yourself. SO, when you say “I didn’t have time, I am sorry”, the fact is that you should say “I did not take the time, I am sorry”. Now you have a good reason to be sorry, it makes sense to be so.

When you say “I can’t, sorry”, the same applies; what you really mean is that you “don’t want to, I’m sorry”. Again, yes, you can apologies, if you want to, but you don’t have to, really, you just don’t want to do this or that, and there is nothing to be sorry about (generally speaking, of course).

We all need to be a little more honest, with ourselves first and with others as well, but that comes naturally. Of course we say “I can’t, sorry” and “I didn’t have the time, sorry”, because we don’t want to hurt people’s feeling, and that’s nice. But think about it:what’s the degree of you saying it to make others feel less hurt versus the degree of saying it to make yourself feel less guilty?

In my opinion, this is where feeling better starts. When you are honest with yourself, it means you listen to that voice and that you connect with it. When you are honest, you feel a connection with your inner-self. Oh, it sounds so cheesy it is not even funny. But it’s true. Imagine saying to your colleagues “I don’t want to participate to that coffee meeting on Zoom, but thank you” instead of saying “oh, sorry guys, I can’t”. Imagine how you would feel, knowing that you have been true to yourself? I mean, maybe give it a go, because we all need a bit of socialising, but say you don’t want to if that’s how you feel. You’ll feel better for being that person.

Tonight, I could have told myself that I did not have the time, could have grabbed a book instead, go under the blanket and read for an extra hour. I could have done that and that would not have hurt anyone. Or that’s what I thought at first, and then I realised that it would have hurt me. I knew I had the time, I was just too lazy. So I turned on my laptop, pressed the keys, took the time away from reading and wrote instead.

This blog is a silent promise I made to myself and that I want to keep. It’s my challenge, like going for a run 3 times a week, every week. I will do it and I will find the time.

As usual, thanks for reading.

Enjoy Tété

(P.S. I am French, so you’ll see some French artist popping from time to time)

It takes courage

I saw my ex today.

I saw her, not by accident but because we agreed to meet up in a park and have a walk with the dog, our dog. I was missing her and our dog Edi terribly, and so did she, so we agreed on that.

I just left her, Edi her head out of the window, watching me as they were driving away.

It takes courage to break up! It takes so much courage to say to the person you shared all these thoughts, moments, issues, conversations, tears with, that you don’t want to be with them anymore.

Everyday I see it. I know that many people out there don’t break up because it is too hard, too complicated and they prefer being miserable rather than alone. Let’s face it, we are also at a time where sometimes your companion is the only person you see for days, weeks and breaking up would therefore mean being alone, for real.

Here (and probably in a lot of other countries) it’s even harder because when you are alone, you can’t really have your own flat, even a studio is between 750 and 1000/month… and same applies for a mortgage; if you are alone – and on a reasonable wage – the mortgage you will be given won’t even get you a derelict. Unless you want to live in the middle of the country, have no neighbours and isolate yourself from the rest of the world. Even with that, you will still need to bring money to the table for the deposit. Story short is: people stay together because it is easier, because it is more convenient and because they get a better life being with someone they like (rather than love) rather than being alone.

So it takes courage. It takes courage to let go, admit that love is not there, that you hurt when you are together, that what was there does not exist anymore. It takes courage to pack up your bag and start up again, by yourself.

Why would you want to miss the chance to be with your soulmate and stay with someone you only like? Why would you pass that? For comfort, convenience, money? I am not willing to pass on that and never will be. I will spend the rest of my days on this earth alone if that’s what is meant to be. I don’t want anything other than soulmate, endless night talking, loving, kissing, making out, cooking, laughing, talking, snoring and more talking.

I want talking. I want to be attracted, and talking is such a big part of the attraction that I can’t even start to explain. If we don’t talk about everything and nothing, all the time, then the rest will die…. it took me a lot of courage and more than a year to understand and accept that I needed to break up, that I was not happy and that she wasn’t happy either… Because GUYS (and I mean PEOPLE), if not for you, do it for her, for him. Do it because she could be better with someone else and moreover, she could be happier without you.

So we are happier living our own lives. We still love each other very much , but we are happier not being together. She lost weight, I lost weight, we exercise, do things we never did, she sees her friends and reconnected with them and I reconnect with my creativity and my independence, two things I missed greatly.

Listen to yourself, everyday, and whatever that voice tells you, listen to it. Let it speak, let it scream and let it be. This feeling in your gut, this anxiety, it’s not just the shitty weather or the shitty day at work, it’s also that voice, telling you something.

Listen to it: what is she saying?

Writing

What do you think about when you write?

Do you think about the money you could make if a lot more people were reading you?

Do you write to one day make it a leaving or do you write for fun, to help your mind sort out the daily shit storm that overwhelms you without ever failing?

I always wanted to be published. Since that day I grabbed a pencil and the first piece of paper I could find and wrote my heart out. I was 5, I think, maybe 6. I was inspired by a song and I had this urge to just write. That day I knew I needed to write and that I wanted it to be my life. Then I grew up, went on to live a chaotic life full of sad jobs, very little money and loads of beer, and I forgot about my dream, because it was silly, a child’s dream, unrealistic, idealistic.

Life catches up with all of us, one day or another; we need to eat, drink, pay the rent, the bills and just live, really. I have survived for 8 years. Survived with jobs here, there; working in McDonald’s then in call centres. I survived with pitiful salaries, never being able to buy myself anything nice, never being able to work and afford holidays. Then I found a good job and even love, here, in Ireland, and I put my bum down and decided to write again. Gosh, I wrote so much in the past 5 years that I don’t know what to do with all these words…

I look at all of it and the only thing that I tried to write to make money out of is pure shite. The rest might not be of better quality, but it doesn’t make me feel like I am trying to hard; it makes me feel like me.

I write to let go of my monsters, fears and angers. I write for me, for me and the rest is bonus. I also write because I want to share.

People need to know they are not alone. People need to know I have been through a lot of crap, like nasty shit, really, and it GOT BETTER.

No, it didn’t get better THAT WAY. I didn’t become a famous author, actor or influencer. It got better as in life became calmer, I got a good job and I live in a nice house, have enough money to put something other than pasta on my plate and even save a bit. I can afford to go on holidays (and gosh will I go when all of this is over) too. That’s how life got better. Before? Before was lows, a lot of lows; physically, emotionally, personally, psychologically, work wise. It was mayhem. And before that? I had a shitty adolescence, and a shittier childhood with abusive and sick parents. Shit my mother abandoned me when I was 9, so yeah, life did got better considering.

So there. I wish I were writing stories for a living, but I don’t do it, most likely because I don’t have the talent for it. Well, I heard somewhere, someone said “there is no talent, there is hard-work… and it is amazing to see how talented you are when you work hard” (I think it was Masterchef Australia, but it doesn’t matter, it’s brilliant). The point is, I am not an author but I am what I consider some kind of accomplished adult who didn’t bury herself in drug and/or alcohol.

I write because those demons need control and yes, I nourish the hope that one day, I will reach more than a few readers. Not for the fame of it all (oh, the fame of it all!) but for the pride of knowing that my voice is heard and listened to…

Don’t think you can do everything on your own

That’s what my ex just told me after having a video chat for one hour.

We spent 4 years and some together and she knows enough about me to know that I do, indeed, think that I can everything on my own. The fact is that I’ve HAD to do everything on my own for most of my life and it is difficult to think differently.

That’s life isn’t it? Finding that one person who will make you want to do things not on your own. It was her for me for a while, and then it wasn’t, but she is still there to remind me that it’s not what us human are supposed to do.

She said that because I made a decision recently, which was to go back to studying psychology and I find myself torn between my creativity and that box they want to enclose me in with their essays here and presentations there, and above all their stupid sources and references. Not a single idea can be mine, no. If I have an idea, chances are I am not the first one and they will accuse me of plagiarism if I don’t find someone who thought the same thing as me (in that order yes, even though they wrote it first).

That’s life, isn’t it? Just living through someone else’s idea of what life is. Life should be rich, full of travels, new phones, beaches, money and bitches. Living in someone’s else’s footsteps, being pretty like her, handsome like him, having muscles like them, flat belly and thigh gap like them. Think outside your own box, try it; you will not be accused of plagiarism if someone else has done it before, you will be the flavour of the moment or a new one. Think too much outside the box and they will call you WEIRD.

Different is WEIRD for those who DON’T UNDERSTAND. That’s as simple as it gets.

I want to do me, separate myself from the models they sale me everyday, everywhere, and just do me. My beautiful me, however weird that can be seen. I just want to forget about everyone else and listen to myself. No degrees, approval from the family, friends, approval from the world.

Listen to that voice, there, deep inside, that little voice that tells you that it’s wrong. It’s that tingle in your throat, that pain in the pit of your belly, the discomfort when you do that thing or that other thing. Just listen to that voice. A little bit everyday, just let it be louder, stronger and let it tell you what it is that will make you happy.

For me it is that voice that cries out loud when I try to write a paper about how the environment and genes influence the development of the brain, its structure and functional activity. For me it’s that scream when I can’t say what I think when I read those studies. Yes, that’s not what it’s all about, but that’s also not what I want it to be about. I want to learn and be philosophical about it. I want to question what I learn the same way I question life. Life and everything in it should be questioned, criticised, turned and pushed around, bullied until another truth comes out of it.

I don’t want that. I want to listen to music. I want to write and let anyone who dares listening to my words know that I am an angry woman who is rebuilding her life after a break up. I want to write, more, more, more until my fingers bleed and my heart sinks into a cushion of words neatly knitted together.

I want to know people, how they think, what they think, why they think and just share, more and more.

As usual I leave you with a lovely song.