Halloa readers :)
So it's a New Year and all, five days in, according to the Western calendar. I would say "Happy New Year", except I must have said it in a previous blog post, and of all people, I realize that the New Year is nothing but 365 days added to a life - what ought to be celebrated is a life change of some sort, and not a maybe-undeserved life-extension pack from Heaven Unltd. Someone sounding morose, maybe a little too real? Wait, it gets colder.
I probably won't talk too much today, but while I was typing that, my mind just went "ha!" We'll, the purpose of this blog post is to write down an excerpt from my journal, which I might like to revisit later on. This is my journal from 2009 till 2011, and it's nestled on one of my bookshelves in Lebanon. It is a pink-and-blue friend without a name, and it has had to stomach a lot of bullshit from this young person. I thank you, dear journal, for not chastising me and putting me down and being patient, although you really should have pulled my leg a little at some instances. Anyhoo, I won't be taking this journal back to the Czech Republic - let it stay here, in this attic of memories, where it belongs. But this is an excerpt I've gone back to over the years, and it's one of the less personal observations I've made in that book.
Here it goes, a glimpse into a fourteen-year-old's mind. It's pouring torrents outside now, btw - jugfuls of water spilling out of the heavens, punctuated by bolts of Uranian lightning:
Sat., 28th of Nov., 2009
Dear Diary,
Soon the date I have here written will change to the 29th of November and so on. It is changing even now, drawing closer and closer to that bigger second digit. I'm growing older; every second, in thought and in spirit, in mind and in body. All my life I have grown up too fast, too soon, too early, and sometimes even too late. I would turn around frantically once and my childhood would have run away with my youth, hand in hand, leaving me stuck in an interphase that has puzzled me every waking moment of my life. I am possessed by the look of youth; yet my heart is weary; my soul obscure and opaque to everyone, not excluding my own self. Soon I shall be an old hag looking back at these pages, and this very moment, and at the song stuck in my head, having forgotten my present feelings and embraced their heavy World (hardly, for I will never be good at following their rules acceptingly.) I shall be old, with wrinkles under my eyes and on my cheeks, wondering in disbelief where my days had gone, and why I had let them go and pass. Yet I hope that death is peaceful; they say it is, yet they have never died; then I could leave my wear and heartwrenched state behind and unite with the elements of the world (the flowers, the soil, the trees) and pay them service and gratitude. Maybe someday I'll become part of a young girl's bed, dreaming her dreams and whispering her secrets, longing (maybe) to be back in her place or looking fondly at her, waiting for her to join me in Heaven. Life is strange, and music is sweet. Death will come, and I can never express what's inside me; the way I feel about change & growing old. It's too complex for the most complex words to describe; words can only describe a small part of it.
Before you ask, I'll answer: yes, I was on my way to depression at that time. Or maybe I was depressed - how can I remember? I don't remember anything of the past few years, except some captured moments, I suppose. I used to think I have a good memory, but when I really examine that statement I'm not so sure. Details have become fuzzy, there are people I've forgotten and moments that have to be brought to my mind by others who do remember them, and there are definitely feelings I've left behind. Hell, I don't even remember what happens in a book after I've read it. Why all this detachment, I wonder?
Anyway, the passage above jumped out at me today because yesterday night, when I got back home from my aunt's, I thought aloud and was overcome by a sense of nothingness in my world, and indeed the whole world at large. What do we do but grow old and waste Time, watching helplessly as it passes by and rubs it in our faces as well. "Ha, you're old, and lonely, and nobody's gonna be there for you. Loser." Time is like a mean jerk of a player, constantly out of reach, and always eager to leap over your shoulder at the next new conquest. If there's something I never have enough of, it's Time. I don't know where it goes, it just does. And the more I try to hold onto it, the more insistently it wants to go. Bla bla bla. What I know how to do is talk, fill pages and pages with meaningless talk that doesn't explain to me the mysteries of the universe. There's so much I don't know. I feel like I'm in a darkness, and constantly running, always with arms wide open, despite past hurt and frustration, because the only path I know and believe in is the one labeled "forward". I resent living in the world of memories. It annoys me. And people who won't let go of the past, and let who you previously were go along with it, annoy me to the point that I feel a gunshot to their head would be too much of a service to them. Nah, come on, I'm not that hot-headed. I don't care. But I just want to be released. From what? I'm not too sure.
You know, there's this quote I've seen before. Nothing intellectual or fancy, just a quote that says something like this: "Before diagnosing yourself with clinical depression, first make sure that you are not just surrounded by assholes". This isn't another post on soulmates or relationships or anything like that. But I'll just say I can think of a few people who really shouldn't be in my life, because they're so negative and unwilling to change along with and embrace life as it comes. It's your choice to be stuck in the past, but I don't want to be, and I choose differently. I'm not gonna start saying, "Oh, I'm depressed, nobody loves me, flalalahala". Depression doesn't do this. It shuts me down completely, or at least much more profoundly. I'm not some melancholy owl sitting in an egg-cup. I talk, I read, I go out with my friends, I see my family, I work on my stories. I eat, I drink, I emote. I function. Therefore, I am not undergoing clinical depression.
I have a hard time knowing what I want. Look at this life, and tell me what is missing, what the hell is making me itch so damn much for changes.
A Life:
Female, eighteen years old. Spry and attractive. Some good friendships, others not so good. Love available for action and reaction. Healthy. Forward-looking. Financially relaxed. I hate describing my life, and labeling things. But what the hell is missing?
Oh, God isn't missing, by the way. Nothing is missing. I don't know. Recently, I visited the residence of a deceased Lebanese saint. Walking through those grounds and that monastery, I was overcome with an extreme sense of love. It was too strong and too potent, to charged for me to be able to carry it. So I let myself drop before it instead, on my knees, in some of the most sincere and hungry prayer I have ever let myself submit to in my life. I forgave everyone then and there whom I had ever felt had done me an injustice, including myself. I wished I could pray forever.
I love God. But why doesn't it last? Why doesn't anything last in my life? Because I don't want to grow up. A friend of mine once told me I'm stupid, and need to grow up. The "stupid" made me cringe a little, but the growing-up suggestion rings true. Kids are unsatisfied. Kids don't settle down. Kids look for changes everywhere they go, for new names and faces, and interesting horizons and expansion of their mindframes. Adults have real lives - they touch down in reality. I'd like to say I'm really grown up and all. Some people seem to think it. "You have wisdom", they tell me. And maybe I do, by their standards, but if anything I'm a wise fool. Then again, wisdom is a little foolish - because once you see how non-lasting things really are, you don't take anything too seriously anymore. What lies ahead for me in this lifetime? More work? Responsibilities? Restriction? If this is what lies ahead, then I must face my life with a cool head and a courageous heart. Or is it a good deal of fun that lies ahead? If so, then I shall be jolly, and wear flowers in my hair. I've always been a mixture of both character types, actually. And now I'm short on Time. Oh, Lord, where do all the moments go?
There's one thing I'm afraid of. It's the knowledge that I can't go on being Peter Pan forever. What happens when childhood's over and Wendy is no longer there to hold my hand? Where do I go? Do I continue to seek, or resign myself to what I have? This is meaningless. It all is. And that's the great joy of it. At least I'm not sad, and there's a new adventure to be tasted every day. Another phase of my life shall soon begin, and we'll see what the next day brings.
Okay, I'm going to go now, to a new village. Journeys and travel are the best things in life.
Once again, e-mail is bemgcasrbaquarian@gmail.com
Salutations.
Signed, your friendly Water Bearer.
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