turning twenty one

Fuck, what a weird year. Almost half of it eaten by a global pandemic, another big bit eaten by my own fear about academic success and path, a lot of it spent alone or feeling alone, a lot of it spent sad. Twenty was a dull year, a dark year compared to nineteen, which sparkles looking back at it now - I am aware that I tend to think that about the past a lot though. It never was as sparkling as I remember it. Twenty was a lot of growing pains, a lot of jumping into cold water just to realise it's a little deeper than anticipated, a little colder than I'd expected, and remembering, head under water, that I forgot to bring a towel. Sometimes, it was getting out of the water and seeing a friend waiting with one, too.

Twenty brought a lot of new friends (a lot, I say, because two people added to an inner circle is a lot) and twenty brought a big step career-wise. Twenty brought powering through my Master's application, jumping over my own shadow once or twice or ten times maybe, twenty brought a new rhythm in my work and in my life. Twenty brought a lot of time spent with family, too (thanks to said global pandemic and me, luckily, retreating home to my parents before any of us realised how bad the general situation is going to get).

I don't even feel like complaining about getting older this year (what? Liz deciding she doesn't want to bitch about getting old? What parallel universe are we in?), about the lines on my forehead and the creases next to my mouth, but that might be because time hasn't been passing normally. Days went by without anything changing but suddenly March had turned into June and here I sit, wondering what the hell happened while I blinked for a second too long.

I realise I haven't written much for the blog this past year (although I think 2016 was the only year I actually did do that, so I'm not sure if it's even important) but these yearly posts feel somewhat significant to me. A way to mark time passing, a way to mark how my voice changes, how I change. I'm just screaming into the void here, pretending (or desperately wanting to believe) that I'm more important than I am.

Here's a truth I learned at twenty: days just keep beginning and ending, no matter what happens. It's all so big and scary and it hurts so much, but no matter how bad it gets, the world keeps on turning. There's been so much shit going on in the world and it doesn't seem like it's getting any better, but I think it actually is. Because the world keeps turning. People keep learning. We keep fighting. Here's another truth I learned: the stories in my blood will boil until I get them out, so I might as well just do it even if it scares me more than anything.

The last birthday I was so unsure about what the future was hold was my 18th when I didn't know if the BA program I wanted would accept my application, when I didn't know where I would live in half a year, when I didn't know if I'd be able to find people who understood how my brain worked, and I'm almost there again. I don't know if I'll be able to do the MA I want. I don't know where I'll live by the end of the year. I don't know how my career will progress. What I do know though is that I have a safety net of loved ones that'll be there to catch me in case I fall. I'm pretty sure that's the most I could ask for anyways.
This is the fifth year I'm doing this, sitting down before my birthday and writing about the year past, and I've realised: isn't it ironic that someone who despises birthdays as much as I do writes about hers every year? I have decided a thing in March or April (I'm not sure when, because the pandemic made me lose all my sense of time): I will stop hating my birthday. Sounds hard, but isn't that hard to do, in theory at least. I just have to realise I'm making my life harder than it needs to be in order to change things like that. That's how I stopped hating it when people touched me - I decided it was much more exhausting to jerk back and keep explaining that no, I'd so much prefer if you didn't touch me right now than just starting to enjoy physical closeness - I'm such a hugger now (although considering the current gobal health crisis going back to the "Get the fuck away from me, if you touch me I'll rip your arm off"-stance I had at fourteen seems like a good plan). So I've decided I´'m not a birthday hater anymore. I might just keep ingoring it for a few more years.
The world is a weird place at the moment and the majority of this post was written before the police officers in Minneapolis murdered Geroge Floyd because of an allegedly forged check (the check was fine, by the way), before JKR decided once more to spew her hurt- and hateful transphobic bullshit onto her huge audience. The most important thing I've learnt this year, especially in the last few months is this: The fight is never over. It's never done. There's always more to do, especially coming from a place of privilege. In my position as a white, thin, able-bodied straight-passing cis woman in this world (and that's an awful lot of privilege if you add it up), it is my duty to fight for those who would be in danger if they fought. It is my duty to shut up and listen to and raise up the voices of people who don't tick every box on the privilege bingo. The fight isn't over. It has just begun.

Cheers, twenty. You were a lot of unexpected things. Here's to twenty one.

a loveletter to my dead childhood pet

It's been a year since we lost you, and boy, what a year it's been. There was no one there to eat the tinsel off the christmas tree, there was no one to lie next to me or dad when we were sick, there was no cat on a lap while watching TV - you know how the little one only lies on the couch. There haven't been any falling asleep on my chest cuddles, because the little one prefers not to touch you - he likes to be pet, but he doesn't like to be picked up or to cuddle like you did.

I still cry when I think about saying goodbye, how you didn't want to get off my arms because you knew - you knew we were saying goodbye, you knew this was the last time I could put my nose in your fur and you could lick my fingers and you knew it was the last time we'd be able to touch each other. You knew this was the end and that probably hurt more than anything, that I couldn't pretend you didn't feel any fear or any hurt - you'd been hurting for years. We all knew it was coming to an end. I lit a candle on my windowsill that night, so you'd have it easier fnding a spot to rest, somewhere, out there, between the stars and between the countless other pets who'd been so much more than that. You were my TV buddy since I was three, you were my co-reader and co-sleeper, you were my family, my sibling even before my sister was born. You have been in my life for four fifth of it. You have been my biggest constant and my most comforting friend, and I still cry when I think about you, but most of the time, I smile, because we got to love you, and you loved us, and there's no doubt to that. We adopted a new kitty. We said it was to have someone to play with the small one, but in all honesty, I believe it was to try and fill the void you left, but of course there never will be one like you again. There will never be a love like your childhood pet, no matter what. You'd hate the new kitty. She's so tiny and energetic and even the small one who doesn't look small anymore compared to her - he detests her the way you detested him. I hope you feel at least a bit satisfied knowing she's annoying him as much as he annoyed you. Losing you was losing family, and it's been so hard since. I miss you still.

My friends and family recently gifted me an album full of letters and photos and there are tons of photos from when we were small, and you weren't sick and still double the size and it makes me so happy to look through those photos searching for you in the background, sitting on a chair, so much fatter than I remember, so much healthier - the fact that we saw it coming for four years hasn't made it easier at all.

This has been the longest time I've had to be without you since I was barely three. In two years, it will have been the longest I've had to be without you ever. I guess this is to say - I love you. I always have. I always will.

E

turning twenty

18.06.2019

Another year gone by. That went quickly, huh? Now it's here, the big 2-0, the second decade of my life done with. That's 1/5 of a century. When my grandparents were my age, they already had their first child and had gotten married (imagine! A child at 20! Then again, if you've seen the war at 10, I don't think there's much that can frighten you anymore). And me? I'm living in a shared flat in a (still somewhat) strange city, drinking way too much coffee everyday and trying to get my anxiety in check (might there be a correlation between these two things? Who knows?)
My new train pass arrived a few weeks ago and to be honest, I was shocked. My old one is valid until one day before my birthday, and to be quite frank, I was NOT aware we already were close enough to that date for them to send me the new one. Nineteen has flown by, or so it seems looking back on it now. Time passing has always frightened me.
I think I'm starting twenty at a better place that I started nineteen, or eighteen even (let's be real, that was a shitshow). There were a lot of things I learnt in the last year; one: opportunities will not simply arise for you. They will not fall into your lap. If you want them, you'll have to work for them and create them for yourself, even if that means submitting your writing to be published and being absolutely horrified with it from the day you press "send" on the edited thing, and even if that means talking to people (not too good at this one yet). Two: I can't just wait for my next great story to write itself. I want to write, so I have to start writing and stop talking about wanting to write. Another thing I learnt (I want to say the hard way, but I'm not so sure it actually was that hard) is that in order to overcome my loneliness and my fear of people I actually have to talk to people, and that sometimes, I might even be surprised by how much they actually don't dislike me. I learnt that sometimes, there is a major difference in what you seem like and what you feel like, and that sometimes you can use that to your advantage. I've learnt that keeping the right people around you can make a huge difference in your happiness.
Nineteen was the year that marked my fourth publication in short story collections, so yay for bravery (a thing I noticed: I tend to name my short stories after their protagonists, and it's not a short story of mine if not at least one person dies), and nineteen was the year I sucked it up and went and read my story out loud in front of an audience. Nineteen was also the year that the flat I share with two other people might have just started to become a home.
Nineteen was strange, it took ages and also, didn't I just blink and wasn't I like thirteen about half an hour ago?
But all in all, when all counts are done and all is added up: nineteen was a good year. Here's to making twenty an even better one!

deep and meaningful

I struggle with making deep and meaningful connections with people. That is something I realised yesterday night as I sat at our kitchen table with my flatmate who has quickly become one of my best friends.
See, I struggle finding new friends and meeting new people. I am absolutely petrified at the thought of having to talk to strangers and I need at least a week to prepare before any sort of social event (more if people I don't know will be there) and afterwards, I need at least a week to recover from that.  That leads to me not really interacting with people, and the rare times I do attend a social event, I sit in a corner, scared of what people might think of me, that they might not like me, and don't talk to anyone, let alone anyone new. New friends mostly find me, and if they do, it's mostly in situations that have been forced on me (sorry to all my friends who's birthday parties I've attended and not been able to strike up a conversation with anyone except for the people I know very well already). When I am forced to come out of my shell and actually feel like the person I'm talking to does not hate me I do tend to overshare quite quickly. I don't even want to think about the amount of times I've probably missed a really great person because I was convinced they did not like me - that's actually a problem, and it has only come to my attention very recently when I met someone new a few months ago and was utterly convinced they disliked me so much that they'd rip my head off if I spoke another word to them again (hi, anxiety! why don't you fuck off?) only to have that person later tell me they thought I was pretty cool (take that, monkey brain!).

So. Oversharing. Once I've decided I like someone, I talk too much too fast and share too much (sorry to all the people I've rambled to about my stove or books or university or musicals or anything, actually. I know I tend to do that.) very very quickly. If I've known you over three months and I haven't shown you a photo of my cat yet there must be something wrong. I tell the people I like so much about myself, they probably don't have any space to tell me about themselves. I talk and I talk and I talk and I don't stop unless you tell me to because I want to keep the conversation going so badly, I want to keep people interested so badly, I want people to like me so badly I share everything I can. Which then leads to the "problem" I've noticed tonight at around 1:24AM in my kitchen drinking tea: because I share so broadly and widely and with so many people, there barely seems to be anything special about me rambling to someone about a musical I've enjoyed or a book I've read or something that happened. It's like if I invited someone new over to my house and instead of telling them "This is the bathroom, here is the kitchen, this is the living room, sit down if you like" I give them the full tour of the house, every drawer, every closet, and I do that for every guest ever.
I think I struggle with making deep and meaningful connections with people because I want to have that so badly that I stop focusing on each person as an individual that I can give my attention to, but become one big sharing machine dashing out information over information instead of thinking about what connects me to that particular person. I want people to like me so desperately that I forget that it's not just about me presenting the best version of me - it's about a connection. So this will be a goal I will add to my make-my-thirteen-year-old-self-proud-project for this year: engage with people, pay attention to people; make deep and meaningful connections with people.

turning nineteen

18.06.2018
And here we are again. The dreaded date on the calender, the "Happy Birthday!"s and the God, I wish they would stop. I think my last birthday was the hardest so far, but this one will come close second. My birthday is on a monday, which leaves me no chance to be with my family for my birthday. This is the first one where I'm away from home. I don't feel as awful about turning nineteen as I felt about turning eighteen, still it's not really something I can be happy about. Birthdays still suck.

It's weird how much happened in the last year. Last year around this this time I knew my deam university didn't want me but something similar to it might and I was scared even that might fall through. This time around I knew I made it into my backup university, I've been studying this for almost a year now (I had the test for it a year ago in three weeks!) and it's been going as well as it can. I have a plan for the next two years (assuming I'll finish my BA in three years total) which is quite nice, it's more than I had this time last year.
I noticed a wrinkle near my eyebrow today (it definitely comes from scrunching my nose when I wrinkle my forehead), and it scares me, not in an "Oh God I'll look old!"-way but in an "Oh God I actually am getting older."-way. I've said it a million times but I'm fucking scared of it. Growing up and growing old is really not my cup of tea.
It's 9:35am now, by this time 19 years ago I think I might have just been born (I know it's 9something, not too sure about the exact time), and I have spent the day thus far like this: I woke up at 6am because my flatmates alarm clock went off. She's at home with her family. I have no idea how to turn that awful thing off. I tried to fall asleep again until at half past 7 my brain decided that a little nightmare would be a wonderful idea! So, I've had about five hours of sleep on top of a nightmare, I went to the store at 8am to get some dirt to repot my tomatos and my strawberry plant, at the store an employee said a few things to me that made me quite uncomfortable. Great start. Really.
This all sounds very cynical. I can assure you I'm not that cynical anymore. It's gotten better. Still, birthdays are kind of meh. Tonight, I will drink a glass of wine (but not more, I have uni quite early tomorrow) and contemplate my existance. Happy fucking birthday to me.
(I promise tomorrow the world will look different and the next post should be a little more upbeat.)

failure and fear

So, babes. Let's talk about failure.

For me, failure is one - if not the - scariest thing to happen. Or to might happen. I've had a huge huge struggle with failure and being afraid of it the past couple months and it's not over yet. Stupidly enough, this is a thing I can actually fail in, not just not succeed. So, how have I been dealing with it? Long story short, I haven't. Long story long: I've been crying myself to sleep, I've been crying all the time, I've made my parents and my boyfriend go crazy with worry and getting very annoyed with me because I've got this (semi-)irrational fear of failing in that one thing. It's crippling, honestly. It's so awful that I can't sleep, can't eat beforehand because it feels like I'd have to vomit after eating anything.

I am so deeply afraid of failing that it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I will fail because I am so afraid of it. Especially with this thing, I don't think if I hadn't been so afraid I definitely hadn't failed, I might still have, I'm pretty sure I would've, but that is not what's important here, because that is in the past.

What I tell my friends when they are very afraid of something is: "Fear is in the future. You are now.", which is the wisest thing I've ever heard about fear. Doesn't calm me all that much though. I can tell myself a million times that fear is in the future, I'll still be damn scared. One party is telling me it's not that big a deal and they're will be a lot of way more important things I could fail in, the other one's telling me how we've been trying this for so long and how have you not gotten better at this?
And there I was, in the middle of this mess, trying and trying and trying and it's not working. When do I reach the point where I give up? When is it enough and I have to admit to myself it's just eating up my money and my time and all my energy and happiness - and I decided, no matter how the next try turns out, it'll be the last time I try. (Now, I'm pretty sure that helped a whole lot, that I was so sure in my head that whatever happens, this will be the very last time I'll have to do it. Also, the universe saw my struggle and gifted me with three hours of brand new snow right when I needed it.)
I am not absolutely sure why I wanted to share this or what exactly I wanted to share, but I think it's something along the lines of: Sometimes, failure is giving up. But giving up isn't always failing, sometimes it's realizing there are much more important things you could give your energy to.

chasing dreams

It's been a while, I know. I promised to post more, I know. But I do have a good reason: I've just started university in October, which has made the past few months quite stressful. I didn't want to say anything before it actually happened because I didn't want to jinx it, but now that I've succesfully completed six weeks and already made a few friends, I feel safe to tell you: for the next three years, I'll be studying Creative Writing and Cultural Journalism.

Writing has been the Big Dream since day one for me. I've never wanted to be anything but an author. This is a huge huge step towards that dream (and considering only 15 people have been accepted for this BA at my uni this year, it's also quite a big chance) and I am so so excited I get to take it.

Up to now, I love all my courses, I love the atmosphere and I have not been complaining too much. The people are really nice and I get along quite well with everybody (for probably the first time in my life), and once I've gotten used to everything I hope to be far more productive.

This is what I've always wanted to do. This is everything to me. This is my chance to make my dream come true and I'll be damned if I don't seize every little opportunity. So this, kind of, is a promise to myself: I'll make this work.

From the point in time I'm now in, writing this, I'll be moving tomorrow, and then hopefully I'll settle in a bit more and get used to the routine and I really hope I'll have more time and energy (and ideas) to write more on here. Two posts are done and just wait to be published, a winter books post is in the making (if you have any suggestions, then please, tell me!) and a few more are started and are now waiting for more inspiration to strike.

I hope you've been well!

Lots of love from

me, chasing my dream