Wow What a Ride

The last few years have been quite special. Some things have happened and they were very sad. Some other things have been very happy.

Now that the end of the year approaches, it’s time to do a little review. I am not a big fan of doing what everybody else does, but any excuse is as good as other to rewind, and consider where we are to then decide where we want to go to.

We all have goals (if you don’t, please stop reading, find them, write them down and have them somewhere close when you can see them every day!), but what’s a goal without knowing where we stand at the moment.

Picture yourself in an unknown city, standing in the middle of the street. You are out for sightseeing and there is a certain place that you would like to go to. You search for it in a map. Did you find it? Cool, that is your destination (your goal). What’s next? You guessed it: you need to know where you are in that city at the moment in order to map out the way that will get you there.

This time around this goal setting exercise is a bit different from others. This year I’ve reached an age that makes me feel like I am in the peak of the mountain and then everything else is downwards… I don’t really feel “downwards” but when I look back at my life up until this point, it feels a bit that way.

Then I know I tell everyone otherwise but in a way it is what I feel. It’s like I don’t really believe it is the peak but sometimes in certain things (goals) I think about, my first automatic response or reaction is “I’m too old for that, I should have done that so-many years ago”. Then I realize: “no, not old at all, I can do that anytime!”

This year has been a lot of looking back and realizing that a long time has passed but I actually feel the same I used to when I was twenty or even twenty-five years younger. I am still that person who loved music and wanted to travel the world, have an exciting life, and not regretting anything.

Did I do all those things that I wanted? Most definitely. I have done all that I wanted. When I look back I’ve had amazing years and experiences. I feel the same though, but I don’t see myself the same way. I’ve realized this when listening to music.

I’ve listened to pretty much the same bands over the years since I was a teenager or since I was in my twenties (you can tell by the songs I choose to accompany my posts here). Their music has evolved, just like we all have evolved. I’ve been “rescuing” this music mainly this year and have been listening to it again. While I still enjoy the music, maybe I don’t feel as identified with all the lyrics anymore. I guess we match (or at least I did) what we listen to to our state of mind at the moment.

At that time, awkwardness or the feeling of inadequacy mixed with certain level of rebelliousness and wanting to be different at the same time made me prone to certain type of content in everything I listened to or read or watched. There were many contradictions and opposing thoughts, but I guess that was normal at that point in life.

Now that music takes me back to how I felt when I listened to it. It is that powerful and I love that about music.

Now one of these bands I used to listened to published a new album with lyrics that resembled those of those years, but well, actually a little more “decaffeinated” and “soft” and it almost like they wanted to bring back those years… To me it just sounded strange that fifty-year-olds were trying to sound like twenty-year-olds again. It sounded a bit frivolous to me and of course, very disappointing.

What I realized after that is that we all have “calmed down”. The relentless dissatisfaction of youth has been substituted by the realization that taking action is its best remedy. If I don’t like something now, I work to change it.

When I look at my every day, it just looks like I’m not accomplishing enough or fast enough, but it is only when I look back, when I realized that I have accomplished a lot. I am sure you have too. If you doubt it, write in a piece of paper, decade by decade of your life, every success you have had, no matter how small and obvious it might seem. You will soon realize you have done a lot and also how much more you have to go.

I feel the same (I am the same) but my priorities and goals have changed, my way of approaching things and dealing with issues have changed, how could they not?

I’ve said I’ve done everything that I wanted so far. I’ll make sure I’ll keep it that way and continue to do whatever it is I want.

To many more successes.

This post best read while listening to “You Only Live Once” by The Strokes

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Playing It Big

 A few weeks ago, amidst the wild storm of events I’ve been submerged into lately, I had a very interesting conversation with a really good friend.
He’s an amazing person who doesn’t tell you the right things, because he’d rather ask you the right questions, and I absolutely love him for that.

We have spoken so many other times of life and love, of love and hate, of hate and forgiveness, of forgiveness and happiness.
Last time, it ended up being a 3 hour-long conversation that lasted until almost 5am on a school night. This time it was a 4 hour-long discussion that felt like a few months worth of talking but condensed in what felt like just an hour. It was a very much needed talk.

Amongst the many things we discussed that night, one of them came back to my mind unexpectedly a few days ago, like the sort of things that you remember from a dream when a few hours have passed: it really hits you and you remember and think about it nonstop for a while. Since remembering, I can’t shake it.

This time it was about life, and how in order to make it big (meaning having a complete and happy life) we have to play it big. True that we could lose big too. But if we don’t risk because we are afraid to lose, we would be living only halfway. And living halfway is like losing somehow.

It seemed so simple, but at the same time so complicated. Sometimes we lack the push, the will, the guts, because we are scare of losing. But losing the chance of doing something because of fear, it’s still that: losing.
So let’s play it big.

I’ve recently put myself (or circumstances might have put me) in a position in which the result could be a huge win or a huge loss. This hand has being played for many many years but it feels this time is the definite one. The best (or the worst) could be yet to come.
Wish me luck.

(This post best read while listening to:
Lightning Risked It All by Songs:Ohia)

A New Perspective

For quite some time I’ve felt I’ve been swimming upstream: constantly fighting and struggling to see no result or at least not the result I’d expected.

One Saturday morning a few weeks ago I had a sort of revelation, a sudden change of heart that felt so right it has made my life easier by the minute since then.
It felt like in a matter of seconds a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

My new approach to life implies that from now on I’ll do my best to be the best person I can be, both mentally and physically, meaning certainly not to become a saint, but the best in the sense of knowing many things, experiencing everything that I can, traveling to as many places as I can and enjoy life to its fullest, with no regrets, no fears and nothing to stop me from trying.
Of course my “serious” life, such as career and so on stays the same for now, but sports, a healthy diet, challenging reading and learning are becoming great sources of pleasure, as well as socializing when I feel like.

It’s like I’m starting again. I feel strong and ready. I feel highly demanding but also highly willing to give to those I demand from.
It feels good and it feels like me, which is more than I had been able to say for a while.

How long will this wellbeing last? Who knows?
Whatever happens in the middle it just will, in the meantime I’ll be the best I can be.

(This post best read while listening to:
Bullets by Editors)

The Story Behind

The other day I was driving back home down the usual road. One of the passengers of the car in front of me seemed to have thrown a cd out of the window, so the cars behind were driving over the round piece of plastic on the road.
As I continued driving I saw a second CD being run over, then a third one…

Being an absolute lover of music as I am, it made me a bit upset to think that someone was throwing away CDs in such a disrespectful way. It made me think about what kind of music they contained and why that person decided to get rid of them.
Maybe they got tired of the music, maybe they were the remains of some hurtful experience.
Who knew… But of course, all this was going through my head as I drove on.

Another couple of minutes later I passed a huge truck that was transporting hundreds of gas bottles, each one with a paper collar around the cylinder valve. The CD- shaped paper collars were flying off the bottle necks as the truck sped along the highway.

Solving the mystery of the discarded CDs made me smile quite a lot.

It was interesting to think that if I had exited the road before passing the truck I would have never found out that the CDs I thought someone was throwing out a car window were in fact paper collars flying off gas bottles.
I would have missed my discovery if the truck had taken another turn, if I had driven faster, if the truck had been slower, if none of the collars had flown off while I passed the truck…

Then I started wondering whether there is a time when we’ll know all the answers, when we’ll resolve all the mysteries, whether we’ll know the story behind our story, behind our life, whether we’ll get to a coherent ending, a moral, a reason…
I wondered whether when we die, we’ll get to visit the backstage of our life, understand why things happen, what other people were thinking when they did the things they did, what they saw from their side, and every other thing that happens around our lives while we live them.

I wondered whether there’ll be a way to know what was the whole script, what happened to the other characters of our story when we don’t consider ourselves to be the main characters.
I’d love to know at some point the other stories people live and that are conditioning our own ones.

I wonder whether when we’ll die we’ll know what it all meant.

(This post best read while listening to:
That’s All by Genesis)

Hopeless

And the time has finally arrived.
This is me refusing to keep trying, this is me just sitting down and refusing to walk. This is me refusing to believe that things will be better, because they won’t, they never do.

I’ve finally ended up losing faith. I’ve lost faith in things working out for me in the end. I’ve lost faith in people being there. I feel completely hopeless. I’m done with this ride.

This is the inside eating out toward the outside, and I can’t be bothered to stop it. I’m done trying. I’ve done it long enough.

I give up. I’m tired of always being there for nothing good.
I’m tired of hearing just echoes at home, I’m tired of going to places on my own.
I’ve lost all faith and therefore I’ve lost it all.

[This post best read while listening to:

The Ungrateful (vous avez bien travaillé)

Three different ones in 30 days. That is how many countries I’ve been in the last month. Three countries not including my own, so that would make it four countries I’ve set my feet on in a little over four weeks.

It seems it’ll always be like that. I’ll be running away and looking for places in the hope that they will feel better than my own. But I am afraid that no place will ever feel good.

Always on the run.

I’ve always traveled on my own, and never minded it. Now it’s starting to become a burden, whether it is for work or for pleasure, I don’t enjoy traveling by myself anymore. Transits and connections and delayed time in airports give me a lot of time to think. I think of the places that I’ve visited but also of the people left on the way. In the end, places are always there for you to visit again, but people come and go, they change or leave. They’re also on the run.

My big plans for the near future included starting a family, even if it’s on my own, but lately, I realize that I don’t have anything to offer to a little one when all I feel is so very alone. There’s no close family to bring them into, I wouldn’t even know who I would choose to be godmother or godfather. That’s how sad it is, but that is how I feel. I wouldn’t want to raise a lonely person. That wouldn’t be fair. It’s more than enough with just me.

You try your best but it is never enough. Most people are ungrateful by nature. And I get the short stick every time. If anyone who’s usually sweet, happens to be unpleasant for a while, I get to be the “lucky” one to experience it. Any bad moments? All specially for me. Any bad experiences? I’ll be there. Any problem? I’ll carry it and take it in. Then everyone is eventually gone to do their own thing and I am left with the trail of waste they leave behind. I know a few people who check me online to see where I am and how I am doing, but they never bother calling or writing to ask directly. Very charming.

My life is getting to a point where I don’t know how to handle it anymore. I feel so insignificant that is beyond belief.

And it has started to haunt me in the shape of wild dreams at night.

 

(This post best read while listening to:
This Weight by Midlake)

Utterly Speechless

A while ago I came across a movie: Wuthering Heights. Many years ago I was given that book by a very special someone, but I never got around to read it (no special reason behind it, just that it started being a well written-therefore-hard read). But I watched the movie. Boy I did. Black and white. And I was rendered speechless.
Behind the fact of having been given that book there stood a reason.
I thought our story was more of a Bitter Moon kind of plot and that’s why I recommended it to him: a extremely strong physical passion that becomes almost the only straightforward and active communication in the relationship, a relationship that moves along but each of the involved seems to have a different speed (or a different goal). Her struggle against his seeming indifference and her downward pathway to unworthiness while she’s getting so lost in him that almost loses herself on the way.

It is not very often that we realize how little we are known to others.
We not always realize why people recommend us to see things or read things.

But our story was Wuthering Heights? Really? How can someone stay so close to a person for such a long time and not know her at all? I’m stunned. And sad. It makes me incredibly sad most of all.
I am sure now that I cast a wrong shadow to some. I reflect something that I am not to those who are nearest. Either that or we all have our demons, and the demons that I was facing on the other person were bigger than I could have ever imagined.

A new colleague at work told me that in the beginning I appeared to be the “girly girl” type. It didn’t take long to see otherwise though. The “body art” that I “wear” (see my post: Living Passion to see it) shows otherwise. My hobbies say a lot about me. The music I listen to (try to playlist the songs of this blog, I have) talks about me.

Sometimes even people that talk to me for a couple of hours are able to figure. Why a person that I stayed so close to for years could not?

Less than a month ago, on my one day trip to London for an awesome job interview, I was told not to “ever forget” that I have a “huge potential”. Of course I do have potential. I’ve been working my ass off all my life. But definitely not for money, and definitely not for power or anything else that sounds remotely like that. I do it because I need to feel proud of what I do, I need to feel that I did the best that I could, not for anyone, not to get any recognition from anyone, but just for myself.

Never in my life I have or I would trade love for power or for any other earthly possession. Never in my life have I been involved (or even wanted to) with anyone that had a penny. Never in my life have I ever cared at all about that to ask, to wonder or to even think about it. I couldn’t care less. I’m a hard worker, yes, I’m somehow independent, so my partner could be doing anything that he wants as long as it makes him happy.

And I’d be happy if working my ass off will ever pay off just by having a job I like and having a family with someone who I madly love and loves me back. Then anything else could absolutely go to hell and burn.

 

(This post best read -while drinking Bordeaux- while listening to:

Heartbreak on the 101 by Band of Horses)