Fair Warning

I always aspired to be strong.
I think I am.
At least I am strong enough.

Don't worry, I'll deal with it.
I can take shoulder my own load.
It won't even show.

Words that stick

It's no news that I don't really understand how people perceive me. I've known that for a very long time. Friends have told me that at first I seem very distant, haughty or even unpleasant. My former boss told me the same once.
I have the reputation of being scary and harsh.
I am fine with all of this. Being an introvert and rather shy, I am a bit distant with people I don't know.

I lack patience and indulgence, especially when I am tired.
I try not to take it on anyone but apparently not well enough. Or so I understood.

Apparently I scared my friends into submissions during a dnd game.

Was it my general demeanor? Was it just my acting (my character can be an arse with 0 patience)? Was it something else?

The hell if I know.

I played my character. who did get fed up by other characters bullshit. I, the player, was tired and had been annoyed from not be able to say anything.

All I know is that when I came back with a friend at the flat on the next day I got caught into an unexpected lecture of how I should pay more attention to others and how I scared everyone and may or may not have ruined the game.

It was mentioned that being the DM's girlfriend probably had influence, but is it in my benefit or not, I don't know.

I am wondering about what I should do. It's been on my mind since. Some part of me thinks I should apologize to my fellow party members but some other part of me hates this idea. Since I don't understand exactly what I did wrong, I keep replaying the evening in my head, questioning what I did, what I said. Was it in character? Was it fair? Was I being an arse?
We were playing at my place for the third time and As always I had cleaned the place, I had been in charge of making sure the pizzas were put in the oven one after the oven. I was tired and not in the easiest spot to move. So yes, I was probably a tad flippant at times. But to the point of scaring people. actual people? not their characters? I don't understand.

I hate this.

I consider leaving the table but I hate this idea because that would be giving up, while I can't even understand what I did wrong.

My best friends and sister are playing on this table. I just can't fathom not being part of it. being excluded of it. too. again. Shit it still stings.

So there. What should have been a source of fun became a heartache. cool.
I can hear my darkest parts say that if I am not part of it then no one should.
But then I never pretended I was all kindness and support. I just try not act on my darkest thoughts.

I am feeling the wind blow and wonder when I am going to disappear again.

A moment between

I don't know where I am.
I've got ideas and projects, but the moment I sit down to get anything done, my brain just goes black. There's nothing left. The words feel wrong. I don't know where to start.
I want to draw but can't find a model I like for the life of me. I want to knit but I don't want to start any new project before I get those I currently have finished.
So I am in a weird spot. In limbo.
I hope it gets better soon because I hate not being able to focus on anything. I want to throw myself in something. It hurts.

Be your own hero

I signed up at a gym a couple of weeks ago. I've been going two to three times a week since. It feels good.
I don't especially like the place. I feel exposed and a bit uneasy, out of place, even if everybody's super nice. But I keep going back. With my headphones and a cool podcast that makes time fly. I keep running and exercising.

Sport's always been part of my personal therapy, a good way for me to get healthily tired. A healthy way to hurt. To bend that body of mine to my will.

I need that to feel at peace. I need the exhaustion, the sore muscles, the little pains that tell me I am alive. I need to prove to myself what I can do.
I don't think I'll try to really get stronger, but at least to stay fit. To be able to run and to lift whatever I need to. An adventurer needs to be fit.

Zoya - Extract

The forest is endless and empty. An army of naked tree trunks growing from the never ending flat ground. The moss on the floor is of a green so vibrant I can almost percieve it, even in the dark.
The ground is flat and devoid of any landmark. I can see far ahead. No low branch, no fallen tree, nothing to hide.
I can't hear the beast behind me but I know it's there.
It was there when I had woken up with a start, startled from my dreams by a muffled sound.
We had set camp in the forest. Four girls from three countries, unexpected friends, bonded by the same experience of studying in a foreign country. It was the first time I had ever been camping. They had said it was going to be memorable.
They had no idea.
Cathy's face had been turned towards me, her blue eyes seemingly looking at me but unfocused. It had taken me a moment to notice the blood across her cheek. My eyes slowly travelled down, to her open throat, white skin catching the moonlight.
The beast's head was buried in her, gorging on her guts, hidden to me by her bag.
I stayed there, suspended in an pocket of eternity, frozen, entirely unable to move, dazed by what I was seeing.
Someone had started to screamed.
I think it was me.
All hell had broken loose.

My feet keep hitting the ground. I don't know how.

Lucinda and Bell had woken up too. The beast had looked up.
Bell had been sleeping next to Cathy. She hadn't stood a chance.
With one fluid move the beast it had just buried it's muzzle in her throat.
What Lucinda did, I don't know. I had scrambled to my feet by then and started running.

The chemistry of a stable couple - Or lack thereof

I don't know what bonds us anymore.
Whatever we used to share we now enjoy separatly.
You used to admire that I lived a packed life, now it tires you and you resent me for not making more time for the things we said we'd watch together.
I used to love going out with you, meeting friends, training, I used to love writing with you, talking for hours, now I resent you for being such a home bird.
I wanted to listen to this saga with you. I discovered it on Tumblr and wanted to share it with you. You ran away with it because I didn't have enough time, and now I resent you for that. It feels like you stole it from me. I know, it's irrational. Nothing prevents me from listening to it on my own, but I can't help but see in it a symptom of our relationship: what we could have shared we don't. Because I am too busy. Because you are too lazy. Because I am never in the right mood. Because you can't wait.
I want to go running but you hate running. I want to go swimming but you hate swimming.
Our lifestyles are similar and yet so different. I hate noise in the morning, you watch videos. I wake up early and I am active quickly, you're not a morning person.
At which point are we too different to make a good team? I am afraid of those thoughts because I know them too well. I've been there already and I don't like those clouds on the horizon.
At which point are we too dysfunctional to function together?
At which point are you going to realize that you have no reason to love me anymore.

A discussion on pride, interest and mental health

We had one of those conversations again. Those that last hours and I get out feeling like I just wasted time because I learnt nothing. I still don't understand you.
We don't deal with our demons the same way and I am at loss when it comes to understanding how you function.

I say often that I live in denial, but it is just a useful lie to make it easier to explain how I deal with my demons. It might look like I ignore my problems and pretend everything is okay, but if this blog shows us one thing, it is that I actually spend quite some time dissecting my problems.
I know them. I know what stresses me, I know what hurts me, I know what haunts me.
How could I ignore them when I spend hours feeling like my ribcage is caving in, when claws burrow in my guts, when my bones are made of lead?
When I say I hurt, it is not a metaphore. I hurt. Physically. Those are not just images, those are the very real pains that plague me.
Not all the time,
Not everyday.
But often enough.
That's depression for me. The phantom pains of my emotions. Of numbness, of emptiness, of fear, of self depressiation. They weight me down and wreck my brain enough that I can feel them.
But I refuse to let them affect me. Because they are only emotions, because I know my demons and I just refuse them to hold me back.
I rationalize everything. I recognize that yes, I am procrastinating because that task stresses me, then I take a deep breath and I kick myself into doing it. I get my shit together and get stuff done. That's what I do. It hurts, but that's what I am good at: gritting my teeth and ignoring pain. I used to dance on broken feet. I used to run with broken ribs. It's fine. I can deal with the pain, with the nightmares, with the panic attacks, because I know how to rationalize them, put them in a box small enough that I can live my life carrying them.

You on the other hand, I don't understand. You once told me that you knew yourself and that you knew your demons. But time passes and I wonder. Do you? We talk for hours, slightly unearthing things that keep you down, that prevent you from living.
You turn a blind eye to them and function the best you can. As long as you don't look too closely at them you can function. you can wake up and go to work and when you are not at work you drown yourself in comics and videogames hoping to hold the shadows at bay. Is this really all you expect from life?
I fell in love with your passion and your curiosity and your imagination. You used to create, now you only consume. You used to shine and make me feel challenged.
I don't feel that way anymore.
You said you used to have nothing to loose and maybe that's what made you shine. Perhaps you felt freer then and enjoyed life more.
Now you are afraid of losing all those things that you finally managed to get. A job that challenges you, a place of yours and a long and healthy relationship.
But I'm not sure you'll keep that last one for long the way things are going.
You hate yourself for not being good at your job but whatever spare time you have you squander trying to avoid thinking about how bad you feel for not being good at your job.

Anyhow. We all deal with our demons the best we can.
I don't know any better.
I am just not sure I can settle for what that makes of you.

Hello 2019

For 2019, I wish to:

• Sort my paperwork out
• Write a new story
• Draw at least once a month
• Go climbing at least ten times in the year
• Dance at least twice a week
• Finish my knitted throw
• Sew at least one item of clothing
• Visit at least one new country
• Practice my foreign languages
• Read four books a month
• keep in touch with my friends
• get a new tattoo

Good Bye 2018

We are saying goodbye to 2018. It's been such a long and full year.
I had taken a bunch of good resolution and I guess it is time to see how far I've come.
In 2018 I did not get any new degree but I did pass all my exams, leaving me with only my internship, thesis and a couple of papers to hand to get my degree.
I read 48 books, not counting comics and among them were wonderful discoveries for which I must thank my friends. I am still not over Carry on, or Six of Crows. I loved A Darker Shade of Magic. I've discovered with immense pleasure that diversity is now a thing in literature. Thanks Those-Two-Front-Row-Nerds for this.
I read some feminist novels such as the The Power and got to educate myself further. Thanks My-Weird-Sister for this.
This year, I finished the second draft of my novel and it feels like an accomplishment in itself. That story had been haunting me for a while and it now feels like I can finally move on and write something new. Thanks to That-Blond-Gryffindor-Kid for having been such a cheerleader for this project. Hope you'll like it.
I wanted to open my very own Etsy Shop to sell out all those stuff I make but don't know what to do with, which I did, but did not really do anything of it so that will be a work in progress.
I worked on my drawing skills and finished the Inktober, and I am kind of proud of it. I'll try to keep at it. I'd like to really develop my universe a bit.
I finally kicked myself into signing up for a contemporary dance class and I am so glad I did! It takes me out of my confort zone but God, I love it! Thanks That-Quiet-Girl for motivating me without knowing it.
I travelled quite a bit this year. We went to Switzerland several times, to ski or to visit my in-laws.
I went to London with My-Weird-Sister for my birthday, and to Birmingham in the summer to visit That-Girl-I-met-in-Bucarest. (and God I was happy to see her again and test our friendship. She is a treasure.)
I visited Latvia in the summer and Budapest in the winter with My-Lovely-Monster and My-Sister-That-Nerd.
I went to Barcelona as Mrs C, the English Teacher.
I went to Thailand to visit LEAAAAA, and I discovered that travelling by myself wasn't so bad.
I was at my friends' side when they got married and saw couples form and break down. I got closer to some people and farther from others.
I faced my very own nightmare and spent a weekend with my aggressor and still mamaged to live to tell the tale, managed to stand tall, to walk with my head high and enjoy myself. I think that was one of my biggest victories this year. I shall not let this dictate my life anymore. I've proved it to myself.
I got to get out of my confort zone and try new things.

Everything considered, It has been quite an interesting year. hard on my nerves but enlightening.
I've hurt, I've felt hollow and caving in, but I've also felt fuller and more inhabited.
I am slowly getting to know myself and my body.

Some people seem to walk through life, having everything figured out and never doubting anything.
I don't.
I've fallen quite a few times. I've gone through some tragedies. I have been hurt and I have been abused.
And yet I am here.
I don't have everything sorted out, but I am going in the right direction, heading down my own path.

Hairs and feminism

One of the things Budapest is famous for is the bath houses that can be found anywhere in the city.
My best friend, who is travelling with us, is staying at a five-stars hotel that has its own spa, and we decided yesterday to go and relax there.

For someone who's been doing modeling, I am quite prude. I both want to been seen and notice, while being terribly self-conscious.
I am tall but I feel small. I feel too thin and too fat at the same time, never fit enough. My ribs are showing and I am flat chested.
I've always had trouble seeing this body as mine, if that makes any sense. I sometimes look at my feet and wonder when they got so far away. I've tried drawing myself once, and realised that even with a selfie, I don't know what I look like. I look at the picture but it doesn't ring true.
Domesticating my body has been an on going battle for as long as I can remember.
Not that I feel my body hideous. No, no. It's a nice bag of meat. It's just that... It doesn't really feel like it's mine. More like I am getting away with something.
I am both that cute girl in a pretty skirt and that boy in the leather jacket.

That means that I don't pay much attention to my body. I wear make up only when I feel like it.
And I shave on a very irregular basis. Which means that when we arrived at the spa, I realized that I was to walk around in a bathing suit (and not the one I like and chose and feel okay in) and that I was very definitely hairy.
My legs, my armpits, my bikini-line were not the way it is expected for women to be.
And despite all my education about feminism and all the things I know about how hairs are okay and normal and that I wasn't doing anything wrong my not shaving more regularly, I must admit, I felt ashamed. I wanted to recoil in the small cabin and wished the bathrobe would be longer.
I felt... dirty?
But My best friend had invited us here and there was no way I could not go, so I walked on. I kept my bath robe until the last possible moment and I just ran away with it.

I am a feminist and I don't care if a girl is hairy or not, though I confess I made fun of men who were really hairy. And I know I shouldn't feel bad and I should be proud of my body, no matter the way it is. But... I wasn't.
My point here is that... maybe it was okay.
It doesn't make me any less of a feminist to feel uneasy. I guess.