Why write this blog

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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. :)

26 December, 2012

Finally, the answer

So I have found it, at last the answer. Thanks to David Wong (alias) and his insightful article at Cracked.com.

Answer or answers, in my case is more answers, plural.

To the question of why am I so goddamned lazy and sloppy in my personal life? Yet I know I am hard-working I have shown it at work, I know this, yet I cannot bring myself to do it, or I do it only sparingly. I have been analysing myself and my life and writing about it, yet I couldn't quite make it out. I could, and did, point lots of fingers, to myself included, but could not pinpoint the ultimate final reason.

But now I know. It's because misery is comfortable, and happiness takes effort. And it takes courage to break free of the misery. And I have not had the courage to do it. And because I haven't had the courage to do it, and because I haven't done enough, I hate myself for it.

It is as simple as that.

And what follows from that realisation, from this dawning, is another answer, one that I had already partially fathomed out myself.

The answer to the never quite formed or written down question: why am I alone and why am I different from those people that easily find girlfriends? Or happiness? A friend asked me once, will you never find happiness? (I didn't answer you M, because I had never phrased it like that in my mind). For the answer is, in the end, the same. If I hate myself for it, and if I hate my life or parts of it then how could anyone else want spend time with me? Because that is what is needed to find a partner, someone that wants to spend time with you to be part of your life.

If you don't want to be in your life half the time why would anyone else? Why would they want to be a part of it? Even if they don't know the particulars you must exude it, from comments and body language and other.

Again, it is that simple.

So, yes, change is needed. I have known this for some time. I just couldn't figure out exactly where and or why even though I felt it, and it is why the only solution I could ever see was a radical and complete change, but that is even scarier and harder to make happen!

So, little changes. Little things. What do I really want? I don't know, but I have always wanted to make a difference and help people, well let's start there. I may not be able to be a doctor but there are other ways to help. Not because I am selfish and I want to feel good, but because I like to help and I think I would be good, and in the end if you help someone they've been helped. It's a win win, I don't know how I have ever managed to rationalise it into not doing it.

That's step 1. Step 2 is to create something. I love to write. I do and I have used it as an escape to work things out. Which is fine, but it's for personal consumption, and very dear friends. It's time to create, and actually do it. The idea is there, it has been for so many years, and I even wrote the titles, so, let's just do it.

Step 2 done, onto Step 3. Learn something new. Well I have already signed up for it and did very little about it and almost gave up on it. Why? Is the reason now less valid than when I signed up for it? No, so, let's just crack on with it.

Step 4. Enable steps 2 and 3. I don't have "time" to do them, because it's too easy to be distracted by television. Well let's have the courage to do one thing and cancel cable. This will "create" a lot of time that can be used for learning and creating and helping.

It's scary. It's kind of monumental. But I have to do it. I am going to do it. Very recently I wrote about choices. The choice to have a fancy phone, and to have a car and to have cable tv. Well, I may well still need the car if I need to find a job out of town, but the other two I do not really need, however I may be tied to a phone contract for a few more months. But cable, sorry but you're going.

And this is it. I have worked it out. Not on my own. But I have. I know the answers and the reasons and what I need to do. I just got to do it. So I stop hating myself, or at least part or parts of me.

And therefore, this may well be the last post on this blog. Maybe it will, maybe it will not. But this was an exercise in exorcising demons and writing for the sake of it. Well, I think the demons are well and truly out and I have worked out a lot of things, on my own and with help from friends, and I wrote, pretty regularly, so the reason of its being may be over.

Maybe it is maybe it isn't. Maybe I'll write a different blog. If I have the time.

Goodbye 2012 and the last 35 years. Hello 2013 and the rest of my life.

PS - M, este e' realmente, e verdadeirament, uma epifania. Ufa, andei tanto tempo ha' procura dela! Mas suponho que so' se tenha uma vez na vida, se for assim, tive-a agora.


Significado do Natal

As palavras não são minhas mas não podia concordar mais: prendas e doces é tudo muito bom mas... só tem significado com a família toda reunida à volta da mesa.

Sem dúvida estás mais velho, mas ainda és suficientemente novo H, no entanto já tens grande sabedoria!

Também concordo, se bem que parte da minha família ... enfim.

A outra parte, gostava de aí ter estado convosco, seria como um novo Natal para mim.

Suspiro.

Talvez para o ano?

23 December, 2012

End of the month end of the year

It's 6 o'clock and I feel like the day is over
It's 6 o'clock and I could easily just go to bed

It's Sunday and the world has passed me by
It's Sunday and life is passing me by

It's the last month at the end of the year
And the end of the world did not come

It's Christmas but it's just another day
Another Christmas in my life
Another Christmas that is passing me by
It's Christmas and it should be every day

Another Christmas
Another year
And 2009 is 3 years away

It's December
It's Sunday
It's Christmas time
It's the end of the year

Where is my Christmas?
Where is my new year?
Where is... my life?
Where am I?
In this world of holidays and family and relationships?

I am here and nowhere
It's the end of the year
But it's not the end of the world

Can I, next year, be somewhere?

22 December, 2012

September 1997

As I listen to Fun's We Are Young I am driving past what was the first street I walked in Leicester back in 1997 when I first came to England.

It's difficult to cast your mind back and remember what you were like and what I was feeling and what the mindset was.

I like to think I was more determined back then and full of confidence but I'm not sure that's exactly true, I think that came after living here, in England, and experiencing this new culture, new attitudes and university, its life and its lectures.

I think I was actually very low in confidence when I first arrived, fresh if 19 years old. Slightly scared, more bemused than scared and somewhat determined, I think I took it all quite naturally.

That day I waited on this very street, outside my friends house, the only address I had, I didn't even know where the university was or the campus in Scraptoft. I waited for ages, I had come a week late and my friend was in lectures. I remember clearly reading the Leicester Mercury (don't remember how I had it!) and reading about Leicester City football players, I didn't recognise a single player lol, now I could name half the squad from back then, of course winning the league Cup and having a league parade through the city centre helped ;)

I remember finding my friends place very strange, a room with a mini-kitchen, then shared bathrooms in the house. But then I got to campus and my room and the rest is history.

Every time I drive through here it reminds me of those days on my first year, that first day and other times visiting and spending time with the other Portuguese friends that were here.

15 December, 2012

No title

I keep looking...
For something
An answer
A reply
An epiphany
An unknown

I keep looking
On my phone
Obsessively
Unconsciously almost
For something

I keep looking
Staring at the visor
In and out of apps
Checking news
Checking status
And tweets
For something

I keep looking
But it's never there
There's never something
Only nothing
Because I don't know what it is
That I am looking for

But
I keep looking
And hoping
That nothing
Will become something

One day
Somehow

11 December, 2012

Who's nice?

People think I'm nice. Apparently. They tell me this, freely, and rather quite frequently.

And in a lot of ways I buy in to this. And I can even act the part.

But I'm not nice. In fact I'm not a nice person at all. People that say that, generally don't know me, they've only ever seen the mask. They think they know me because I'm voluntarious and don't mind doing a favour.

The truth is, is that it's all to make me feel better and superior. I am actually quite arrogant and self-aggrandising. I play the victim role so well, just like I learned from my mother. Whom I use, to deposit a lot of blame and therefore eschewing responsibility from myself.

There's many ways I'm not a good person. I'm pretty selfish and self-involved. I like to do what I feel like and when I don't I get moody. And I even throw tantrums. Because in fact I'm also quite immature.

I am socially awkward because I'm too much of a coward to tell people that actually they're talking bullshit or that their conversation is boring and that ultimately I don't actually like their company all that much but because I don't have many friends I put up with it. That outright deceit is one of my worst qualities.

I'm also insufferable. I complain and whine all the time about a lot of things and people get fed up hearing me whinging. It's very rare that I'm positive, I'm quite cynical and therefore quite negative about most things. Because I know this and because it can be offensive and I'm too much of a coward to deal with it I tend to say very little and thus people think I'm just nice because I'm not on the whole loud and obnoxious.

But I can be cruel and tactless under the guise of telling the truth at all costs. Which is quite hypocritical because I hate it when they do it to me.

I am really quite nasty and I have a vengeful rancourous streak in me. When people upset or hurt me I want to do the same back even if it was unintentional. Even more so because it annoys me that people that should know me seemingly don't and thereby causing the hurt that I felt should have been avoidable. This is because I am way over-sensitive and ignorant to other people's feelings.

I play the listener card well and advise out of all the tricks learnt on films whilst throwing in a good dose of tough love to come out as wise but that is nothing but a superiority complex.

So, in essence, I would not describe me as nice. Because in reality I am not very nice at all.

I am selfish, and arrogant and prepotent, stubborn, always think I'm right and I despise most people.

That's the truth.

10 December, 2012

My life

It would be nice if people were interested in my life.

Interested in me.

Just as I am.

Tell them Bridget.

Rip it up

Choices, we all have choices.
We can all choose.
We have the freedom to choose.

It may not look like it at times, but we do. We can choose to do things.

We can choose to do right things or wrong things. Just because something isn't allowed by law or permissible or acceptable in society it doesn't mean you can't, physically, do them. We're just afraid of the consequences, prison, fines, fear of being socially shunned, whichever, whatever. Everyone makes their choice and there as many choices as there are people in the world.

Before going off too philosophical and on a tangent that is not my point today.

I look at my situation today and the majority of it is due to choices I've made irrespective of my awareness of some of their consequences at the time.

But regardless of my way here, my present and my way onward is still largely dependent upon my choices. It's not in my power to force someone to give me a job but it is within my power who and where I apply for a job.

My current situation is one where I can carefully balance the books but there isn't a lot extra, money wise. This may seem at first glance precarious and it is, in a way. It is precarious because I earn just about enough for the life I choose to lead.

And this the key, the life I choose to lead.

I could instantly make tons of money tomorrow. Well, in a manner if speaking. I could certainly raise a few hundred pounds in the next few days or even thousands. Furthermore, on top of that I could save myself about a quarter thousand pounds a month.

In order, this is what I could do: I could sell my car, that should rake in at least £1,000 perhaps. That, in turn, would save me £70 a month in car insurance. Secondly, I could cancel my cable TV, landline and Internet, that would save me £80 a month. Since we're at it, I could sell my mobile phone and cancel my contract, that's another £50 plus whatever phone charges I accrue monthly. That's about £200, let's throw in the petrol money I would save and call it £250.

I could do all this and accumulate some money very quickly. But I chose not to.

That's because I choose to have the facility of having a car and being able to drive. It's not something I desperately need, currently, but I chose to own a car. Because there may be jobs where I would need one to travel. And because I like having a car. I feel like I am an adult. This may perhaps be foolish but it's a choice I make. It's my choice.

I chose also to have a mobile phone. I don't need need one. I didn't have one for five years I know what I'm saying. But I also know what I'm missing if I do not have one. I know that these days everyone has a mobile and furthermore everyone communicates through text messages. On another level I choose to have a mobile with Internet. Because I know that people communicate also through social media, which requires Internet, (Facebook and Twitter). Out of all the mobiles with Internet, the so-called smartphones I choose to have an iPhone. It's not because I like to show off, it's because I like how it looks how it works and what use I put to it. I choose to have an iPhone because its a very efficient portable computer. I use it very little as a phone as a matter of fact. I use it to read the news. And to listen to music. And check my emails. It's a choice I make. I don't have to, but I want to lead a life where I own one, because it allows me to do the things I like. It's my choice.

It's the same thing with cable. I don't need it. But I like watching television. And I like being able to watch sports. And having the Internet at home so I can use the wi-if on my phone. I choose to watch television when I get home. It's my choice.

I don't need any of these things. They're not food. Or electricity. Or water. Or heating. Or shelter (rent). But I choose to have them. It's my choice.

I choose to have a life with these things in it. And therefore, I endeavour to find a job that allows me to have them. And I want to continue to have them and I am prepared to do some financial exercise to ensure that I can carry on having them.

It's a choice. My choice. One that I have made and continue to make on a daily basis.

This is because without television, and Internet, and music my life would be a lot poorer. I think. I believe. I could be wrong, but the fact of the matter is that I don't have enough friends and enough of a social life to keep me busy outside of work to allow me to not need these things.

I do not have any other priorities in my life and I bore easily. There's only me and no one else to think about, and I need to be entertained when I'm not at work because otherwise I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Actually I do. I would think, a lot. In fact, I would probably obsess over my life and my shortcomings. And I would despair. Not fleetingly and on occasions write to compensate. No, I would write all the time and despair constantly. Because that would be self-reinforcing. And I know where that spiral would lead.

I still do, despair. And get sad. And ultimately hopeless. I'm on the arm of the spiral and I don't want to descend into it. And so, I get over it, even if only temporarily. I get distracted. I escape. Into other worlds. On TV. And Sports. And music. And that allows to plough through and carry on. Hoping that it'll get better. I'm not sure I could carry on otherwise.

Maybe I've got issues. Maybe I've got deeper issues than I previously thought I had. Or maybe they are more serious than I have thought they were.

I don't know. Maybe I could change. Maybe I could change radically. I could change my life instantly and with little effort.

But at what cost? Would that other life be different than I envisage? Could it be better rather than worse? And what if the grass isn't greener on that side, as it is so often proven,?

I don't know which I'm most afraid of: change or not change. Well clearly change, otherwise I would have done it, but where is this one leading?

Is it leading somewhere or nowhere?

Am I prepared to risk it and rip this life apart to discover?