Why write this blog

My photo
It is a way of giving my other self, my unconscious and perhaps artistic self, a way of expressing itself, and thereby helping me working things out. It is somewhat cathartic in a positive way. :)

30 November, 2009

RELAPSE

Here starts a transcription of my very short diary that I wrote when I was on holiday in the Algarve, a few weeks back.

I decided to start on day 3, because it is the day that most closely resembles my mood today. I have not been like this for a while, distance has certainly helped in way, but then I have been reading certain past messages and conversations today so...

Anyways, here it is. I promise the other days are altogether more revealing and positive.

BLOG IN ABSENTIA - DAY 3

SIGHING / REMEMBERING / RECALLING / LOOKING AT THE SCARS



It was a good day. I should feel great. I did, actually. The majority of it, I did. It was a beautifully sunny and warm November day. I loved the beach today. The sound of the waves, the seagulls crying above and flying low near the sea. The water wasn't cold, I enjoyed going for a swim. I forgotten how nice it was to just float in the ocean. On top of that, I was really looking forward to watching the football tonight, Benfica playing Naval, it was a frustrating but ultimately succesful game for Benfica and I was very pleased.


Yet... When I came home, I remembered.


I recalled that I am heartbroken, that's the truth. It's been good, the last few days. I haven't even thought about it or her for at least 2 days. But I did today, and it still hurts.


I want to cry but the tears will not come. I shout: "It's not fair", literally.I drink. It does not help. It cannot be helped...

Maybe sleep might...

23 November, 2009

Does time and distance really heal?

So, I've been on holiday. I've been away for two weeks. I've had other things to worry about. Other things to resolve.

Does it mean that it has all gone away? All those feelings of frustration and pain and emptiness? They are not completely gone, but they have certainly abated. I certainly do not think about it night and day any longer, I can function and take my life further and onwards. I do not go to bed thinking about it nor do wake up with that on my mind.

Does that mean that I am healed already? Or is it just the distance that makes it seem that way?

These two weeks have been intriguing. I have met someone that has forced me to share a lot of things that I have only written about. I was forced to think a lot about myself and my life and how much control I want to have over it and myself. And it all boils down to how much I want to reveal of myself to everyone out there and how much I want to be me, fully. I was made to look at myself in a completely different light. I have been given that push that I have always known deep inside I needed to be given.

Not only a push but a wake up call as well. I have been too complacent and passive about a lot of things in my life. A lot of it I have already been realising myself anyway, hence the changes I had decided to impose upon myself. This was just a reinforcing of that feeling, a stripping down sort to speak. In a way I think it has made me stronger as a person.

I think it is that more than time and distance that has allowed me mind to free itself somewhat from that spiral of despair and emptiness.

Does that mean that I am fully recovered? That I am perfectly fine?

I don't really know. All I know is that I have to be. I cannot be hiding around, crying in the corners, just gotta take it on the chin and move on.

They're still there, the feelings. I can't just switch them off, it doesn't work that way. But I'm not consumed by them anymore.

So, maybe time can heal. And distance. I'm not sure. But they surely help. Distance is not a factor that will remain in the equation, so it is to time that I must deposit my hopes.

And myself. Relying on myself to recover and get over it and move on. To believe that I can do that, to awaken that inner force. It is that that has changed. And hopefully, it will be that, my inner force and belief that will heal the scars.

As someone wise once told me, "the scars are on the inside". So it is from within that they must be healed.

21 November, 2009

Quote

"Escrever é ter a companhia do outro de nós que escreve."
Vergílio Ferreira

English Translation:
"To write is to have the company of that other us that writes."

Back

Back at work, back home, and back to my life. I feel a semblance of control on the horizon, even if it'll only be an illusionary control, but what is life if but an illusion that you are in charge of your own destiny...?
More writing shall be forthcoming, I have been too tired and exhausted to string any sort of sentence together the last couple of days although there's plenty to talk about.
Good and bad, good and bad. As always, that's life. It seems somehow the balance may be tipping towards the good, so... things can only get better hey?
More writing to come, maybe tomorrow, maybe Sunday. It'll come to me when I'll need it to.
At the moment though, it seems that I am Back, back Living again. 
It's been a while I guess...

04 November, 2009

Holidays

I have had the unexpected chance to go holiday this weekend. It'll be great to see old faces again, friends and family.

It may be that I'll be able to write a couple of posts, but certainly not daily.

At least, hopefully, I'll have more optimistic stuff to write about though!!

03 November, 2009

Slipping back

I feel myself slipping back.
Into neutral mode.
Nothing makes sense again.
I feel like there is no direction.

Which of course it's rubbish. Nothing has changed. Nothing but me that is.

And so I slip back.
Into a state of lethargy.
I feel as if I am in a mental stupor.
Walking with nowhere to go.

Aimlessly. Is this what repressed feelings do to you? How far and how deep do the scars go? How will the healing begin?

I cannot say I don't feel.
I do.
A sort of sadness, a despondency towards life.
Frustration and confusion.
The main words in my mind are most definitely bullshit and why and how.

But I cannot talk about the present. I'm not allowed.
And so I talked about the past.
And I shall write about the past.
In the hope that the past will not come back to censor me.

As someone said, writing the truth about has happened to you is the road to recovery and healing. Since the present is forbidden, I must work through the demons of the past.

The demons of the past do not haunt me as the ones in the present do.
They are not life affecting.
They do not drag me down.
Yet, they are still there.
Hidden, waiting for exposure.

Maybe, it is time to bring them out and cast them forever to the void.

01 November, 2009

Love at first sight

I will never forget the day I fell in love at first sight. It was possibly the first time I really fell in love as well.

She walked through the door. I was busy cleaning tables and setting up for lunch hour. It was the Summer holidays and I was back in Portugal after my first year away at university in England. I needed a job, and I was lucky that a lot of my friends had been working at the pizza place we used to go so often when we were growing up into young adults, 17, 18, 19. I also knew the boss pretty well, he was a fairly young man, ex-footballer and maintained a good relationship with people. We always referred to him as the Boss, it was like a nickname, friendly enough but not familial.

I was working from 11 till 3, or until there were people still left in the restaurant, and then back at 6 until 10.30 or 11 at night.

It was early in the day, when she walked in. Her name was Anabela and she was due to start work soon. As soon as I saw her I knew I loved that girl. She was pretty beyond comparison, incredibly well-mannered and had something about her that resonated with me.


That image has stayed with me as if it had happened yesterday.

I was working the tables, sometimes behind the bar but only when we required cover, I was mainly waiting tables. She was working in the kitchen. We talked often throughout the night and the shifts when I went to get the food. There was a partition where the food was passed over to be taken to the customers. You could see the kitchen and what people where up to. Anabela was new, so she mainly washed up and passed the food over.

We immediately got on really well. She used to laugh at my silliness, she had the most incredible smile. At lunch break we used to go to a coffee shop for an espresso. Sometimes on our own, sometimes with other friends. That's a regular thing to do in Portugal, a social thing going to a cafe shop. We went to Trigo Limpo, then a fairly new place, or to Centro Comercial Parque, because it was close. We talked about everything and anything. She was smart, intelligent there was never a hint of shallowness, I always loved that in her. I remember going to the public library as well once, and talking about Princess Diana, and arguing the point that one person can make a difference, somebody like Princess Diana simply by raising awareness with her charisma did a lot of good, she didn't have to do it, she could have chosen different public functions other than going to hospitals for people that had their lives affected by the leftovers of war. I could always hold a conversation with Bela.

I think she liked me. At least a little bit. Don't know if it was because I was studying in England and that made me appealing and different. Don't know if it was because I was quite enthusiastic and quite optimistic in those days. Maybe it was just me.

But it was never to be. I confessed my love for her, I also will never forget that moment, we had just finished our shift, and we were sitting in a bench in the plaza outside the pizzaria. She revealed to me that in actual fact she had a boyfriend, even though they didn't get on well and she was thinking of breaking up with him. And of course, I was about to leave for England pretty soon. This kind of situation kinda set the tone for impossible relationships in my life from then on.

Our birthdays were very close together. In fact, all of our friends birthdays are incredibly close together, so we decided to have one big party. We arranged a dinner at the pizzaria, oh I have mentioned that the food there was delicious as well? Funnily enough, my mon came as well, for whatever reason. After it, she knew straight away that I loved Anabela, I never until then realised how perceptive my mum was.

My friends gave me a Benfica shirt, I was really touched. I cried that night, I was to leave for England a few days later, my emotions got the better of me. I felt so right there, and thinking I had to leave and leave all my friends behind and the girl I loved...

But anyways, I remember giving Anabela flowers and promising her we would be Friends Forever. We traded addresses and for the whole of my second year we corresponded by letter. I always looked forward to her letters. I saw her again briefly went I went back for the holidays. Don't remember very well what happened at the end of year 2, can't recall if that was the year when I decided to pursue it further once again, but she told me she did not feel the same for me.

I remember thinking that fair enough, there was nothing to be done, but always had an inkling that she really did not want to have the commitment of a long-distance relationship which I can fully appreciate.

My parents split up during my third year at uni. It meant that I did not actually return to Portugal for more than a year. At some point, for some reason, the letters stopped. She was in her final year at uni I think, she probably did not have the time.

I do recall afterwards, when I was already working at the cinema, sending her a message over the internet maybe, or perhaps it was a letter, can't remember now, with some particularly, not nasty but unfriendly words. And I think it effectively terminated our friendship. I have never forgiven myself for it. Especially after I had promised her we would be always be friends.

A couple of years ago, we tried to re-connect, but it was never the same, it was too late and I am too far away. That beautiful girl become a beautiful woman, but what I rue the most is that I lost a friend, a lovely and intelligent person, because of my frustration and arrogance at the time.

I decided never to let that happen again. In fact, I tried my hardest. Somehow, it has happened again. This time, CENSORED.

Hopefully I will have learnt from it enough this time around.