Wonderings

 Porque somos tão interessados na vida das pessoas online? Alguém que você nunca viu na vida real e você quer saber, por que aquela pessoa fez aquilo, por que ta agindo daquela maneira, onde ela anda, com quem ela está?

Por que, tamanha curiosidade? É que é impossível conceber que alguém teria tantas questões sobre mim. Ou me sentiria super incomodade se alguém quisesse saber isso tudo de eu. 

Porque então queremos saber tanto do outro? Ou por que quero eu, saber tanto do outro? O que a vida do outro me informa? É por entretenimento? Ou será que o outro agindo de ta forma me dá noticia de algo sobre mim? Um outro similar ou completamente dissimilar. Até onde vai a verossimilhança? 

Exploração. Questionamento? É possível explorar coisas dentro de si, ou melhor dizendo, sobre si, quando muitas coisas são estáticas? E é por isso que muitas vezes usamos uma exploração segura através da lente do outro? Daquilo que fantasiamos ser a realidade, quando só temos noticia daquilo que nos mostram e mesmo a interpretação vem com nosso viés? 

Tiny beautiful things or tiny awful things?

 I used to think that my mom dying was the worst thing that happened to me. But in my head I always thought that I was not going to let that define me. I would not be pityed and people would not see me as the person who lost their mom. 

Somewhere along the way it seemed like I was determined to make my life even more worse, so that losing my mother, was not the worst thing. And as much as I tried, dispite all my efforts at hurting myself in such terrible ways, it was still the worst thing that happened to me. I always thought that I was pushing through the grief of losing her, after the sadness and crying in that first year I just buckled up and kept on going, and losing my mom became just this one bump in the road. 

With this I did not let myself feel, did not let myself grief, did not let myself mourn her. Mourn being momless, not having her in my life afterwards. I used to feel so bad for myself, as if I was not in my own body, oh look at her, the girl without a mom, her life would have been so much easier if she still had her. 

But it wasn't. Life with her in it, was also very hard. Less hard than not having her, it's true. But hard still. The abuse I suffered when I was a kid and never in my mind I thought, she'll protect me from it. She was simply not there when it happened. But I always had such a great attachment to her. I couldn't sleep when she wasn't there, I would wait, awake, for hours, as child for her  return. When she moved to another country without telling me, it broke me in so many ways, my 11 year old mind could not compreheend. When I was away from her, and she couldn't physically be there, I was thriving in some ways, singing, reading, making friends, doing sports, a normal childhood it seemed. But still, I missed her. There were plenty of moments I would want to share with her. Finally, at 13, when we were living together again, she was there, but she wasn't actually there. That was when my depression was consuming me, even though we were in the same house, I still didn't have her attention. It always felt like preparing to lose her, for me to understand what life would be like without her. Bit by bit she was slipping away. Bit by bit, I was isolating myself. I was destroying myself. And when I had to leave, that's when she died. 

My mother was sick and tired of having to work as a sex worker in a foreign country. Of being away of her family, of not being able to spend time with her kids, of not having a support system. So she decided it was time to go, time to end this. So she sent us back, sent us away to our homecountry. With the help of my stepfather, she would rent our house here and comeback to us, he would stay until she got a steady job. 

All those plans were derailed when he lost his mind and quit because he wanted to come with her. And her plans were washed away in the current. They were shook out of their foundation and it quickly seemed that she had just given up her kids yet again and had to stay all the same, selling her body to make a living, alone, with no family, so she could provide for us. I tell you this so you understand what kind of situation she was in, I tell myself this, because in my head it's the only type of explenation that fits as to why she did not take care of herself, that she let herself get so ill that she was just helpless. 

My mom got sick, because she plunged into an enormous depression, pumping herself full of medicines, not eating properly. Her immune system was so debilitated that she got meningitis, and even though she went to the hospita,l they would just say that she had an urinary infection, it escalated so badly that she had her tongue swollen, her mouth filled with sores and was hallucinating. When someone finally payed attention to her, she had to be put on an induced comma, to take the medicine and recover. But she never came back from that induced comma, the disease had swollen her brain so much that she was brain dead. We spent seven months hoping that she would be okay. She was in one contry and we were a whole wide ocean apart. All we knew were from relatives who went there and showed us videos of her body in a hospital bed. Sometimes tears streaming down her face, something doctors said were only reflexes. 

But still I hoped she would come back. Like she always did when I was a kid. I would count the minutes, like I did on tv, waiting for her to come back. 

And she never did. 

My grandma finally travelled back and went to see my mom at the hospital. a week after my grandma arrived my mom passed away. A restitant hospital infection they said. Her heart stopped, her organs failed. They had been failing for 7 months. My mom was not there. 

In my mind, she was perpetually there, at the airport, when she said goodbye to us. When we all hoped to see each other again, be with each other again, be back at our home country and be with our family. Things were not gonna be as hard anymore. I would go to college and mom would go as well. She said so one day. 

But now, none of that was going to happen. I didn't know what was going to happen anymore. 

So I stopped thinking, I stopped dreaming. 

Because my mom couldn't, how could I? 

How could I be happy when she would never find that hapinness? 

How could I go to college and make something for myself, when she so obviously couldn't? How could I be in a healthy relationship when she was never in one? How could I be healthy and take care of myself, of my body, of my weight and she didn't? 

I just stopped feeling, I dissociated completely. Time stopped for me at 17 years old and now, at almost 30, how am I meant to carry it foward? How am I meant to dream my own dreams? To think about what I want? I feel like I'm in the path, but I feel like if I I'm not like her in each and every way I will just lose her forever. How can I hold on to her? How can I keep waiting for her to come back when I know she won't? 
I think right now I'm on the path, I don't know where it's going to lead me. I am just now starting to feel things, really feel. And be present. And try to dream. And for once I'm not hyperfocused on the result. 

Where is my mom? Where are you? What am I going to do with you mom? What am I going to do with the fact that I have lost you?

A lot of times I blamed myself, you know mom? For not always being the daugher you wanted me to be. For not being feminine, for not being present, for not hanging out with you more, for being a bratty teenager with you, for not staying with you back then. 

Maybe I could have stopped you from dying. Maybe you'd have me and I could take care of you, and I would not let anything bad happen to you.

But by saying that, do I want to save you or do I just want to save myself from not having you anymore? Kind of selfish if you think about it. But like my little brother used to say. We didn't really know you. We didn't know what you liked, what dreams you had, or even what you thought about me being gay. How can I think about saving someone I don't know. Saving your dreams when I don't even know what they were. 

I was watching American Fiction the other day and one of the son's who turned out to be gay, said that it was a shame their dad had died before he'd told him he was gay, and the other brother questions, 'wouldn't you be afraid that he'd reject you?' to which he replied 'No, because at least he'd be rejecting the real me'. 

And it's quite like that isn't it? Bittersweet. I have ran away from the real me for the longest time, because you would never know them. So I'd just be no one.

From all of the things, looking back now, I wish I could have just said goodbye. I hate goodbyes, you know that? When I leave somewhere I never go the last day because I don't know how to. 

I couldn't say goodbye to you, so I have just forsekened all the goodbyes that I'm owed. I wish I could have looked you in the face, and touched your body and hands when they were still warm, hug you and say that I will love you forever. That you'll always be with me. That even though some really bad shit happened, I'm still here. We're finally okay. That what you did was the right thing, in sending us away.

 Of course, I WISH I had known you better, but for the little bit that I did, I think I liked it.  I would say: Mom, I think I like girls and I'm in love with my best friend, I'm sad because I might never see her again. I would say: Mom, I want to be a writer, or a singer. I would say: Mom you're not alone. 

I hated and still hate the idea that you were so fucking alone when you got sick, that you stayed like that for so long. That you died alone in a hospital bed. And I only got to see you seven days later. You were cold and grey, there was no smile. Your eyes was cold. But it was funny, your hands looked the same. Kinda like mine do when I look at them now. I will never be able to smell your smell. I would never be able to hug you again. 

I know you won't comeback, and that makes me so incredibly fucking sad. 

But I HAVE TO say goodbye to you. 

Tchau mamãe. Eu sempre vou sentir a sua falta. Você sempre estará comigo.  

When the past reaches out to the future

A dream is a wish your heart makes...

Há quase 3 anos atrás me encontrava num desespero. Sem esperança e me voltei muito para a escrita. Com isso deixei algumas perguntas para que a eu do futuro respondesse. A eu do futuro, com a eu do passado não tem comprometimento nenhum e não respondeu as coisas um ano depois. Mas agora a eu de agora, voltou pra terapia e está mais centrada em si mesme e já consegue responder as coisas. 

Aqui vai o prompt:

"Eu, conscientemente, com toda a lógica, sei que vai chegar um dia em que eu vou poder viajar, esse ano ainda. Mas não consigo deixar de desacreditar nas coisas. Não querer nem sequer me deixar aproximar desse pedaço de esperança. 

Talvez, o que eu possa fazer é deixar algumas perguntas para eu de daqui um ano. Saber se ela vai responder do jeito que eu espero. A eu de daqui um ano, supostamente vai estar em Portugal. "

1) Você está em Portugal? Sim, há quase três anos, acredita?

2) Como é estar com ela? Maravilhoso, nada do que eu esperava. Todos os dias são bons, tem dias menos bons mas acho que tem a ver com eu ser eu. É bom vermos each other crescer.

3) Foi difícil encontrar trabalho? Sim e não. Trabalhei 6 meses em limpezas, saí quando caí das escadas de uma cliente. Depois trabalhei em um supermercado. Saí dois meses depois de responder a pergunta quatro porque estava perto de um burn out. Hoje trabalho part-time numa loja no shopping, dou aulas de inglês e sou sócia da Cheiro da Calma!

4) Já está perto da sua documentação sair? Já saiu tem quase um ano e eu vou estar perto de renovar daqui 3 meses!

5) Já está perto de comprar a casa ou estão pelo menos a meio do caminho? Não, nem perto. Portugal está numa crise imobiliaria horrivel e não estamos estáveis com o trabalho! 

6) Diga cinco das suas memorias favoritas com a Mariana e se puder poste fotos. 

Dificil dizer só cinco memórias quando todos os dias são memórias favoritas.

1) Making her pancakes

2) Travelling

3) Dacing together at a wedding
4) Doing stuff for our nephew together
5) Spending time with friends and family

7) Seus irmãos estão todos com você? Onde eles estão? Conseguiram ser um pouco mais felizes do que estão neste momento? O Gabriel voltou pro Brasil, mas comprou uma casa. O Gui está aqui comigo! Parece estar mais felizes, apesar de dias difíceis.

8) Quanto tempo demorou até você conseguir viajar? Foi difícil o tempo que você ainda teve que esperar? Depois desse texto só consegui viajar 6 meses depois. E mesmo a viagem demorou ao todo 11 dias. Foi difícil, mas acho que houveram dias piores. 

9) Como foi a viagem?  Horrível. Acho que estou traumatizada até hoje da viagem. Ainda não consigo falar bem sobre. Mas teve coisas boas no meio também. 

10) Para que outros lugares vocês viajaram? Nós já viajamos para Sintra, Lisboa, Porto, Aveiro, já fizemos caminhadas até a Lagoa de Óbidos a pé. Só não fomos a França por que bem na época a fronteira Schengen fechou. 

11) O que você já sabe e vai fazer para atuar na sua área? Sei que ainda é um sonho distante, quero, mas sinto que há outro sonhos e outras prioridades. Ainda bem. Não é uma questão de "e se". Eventualmente vou correr atrás, mas finalmente estou num estágio em que gosto do que estou fazendo e isso me anima. 

12) Como é ter uma família perto de você de novo? Acho que a sensação de paz é enorme. Se fosse um ano depois que eu escrevi esse post ainda estaria numa situação completamente diferente. Sem minha família, num trabalho exaustivo, apesar de estar em Portugal e com Mari ainda me sentia completamente perdida. Mas agora, já sinto que muita coisa vai dar certo e as coisas estão melhores. 

Espero que em 1 ano, eu consiga responder as perguntas e que eu esteja onde eu sonho em estar. 

The night watch

 

Podcast Magnus Archives by Rusty Quill - Magnus Archives #120 - Eye Contact

What is it with me and being watched? Or wanting to be invisible?

I feel like I have felt like this for the longest time, that it has just become a part of me. To exist I must be watched, I must feel watched. 

Or being watched causes me discomfort and to exist I need to feel discomfort?

Is it to externalize the discomfort I feel inside? At my own self, at my own being? Is it discomfort just a part of being alive? Does everyone feel a small degree of discomfort within themselves? And is it just a normal "becoming into existence" kind of thing? In a sense that to exist is to experience discomfort? I seem to never be comfortable in my own body. In the way I exist and how I exist. 

Inside my head there is chaos. A whirlwind of thoughts, I think so much that I make up things, that I don't yet have an answer to. 

Is it a gender thing? Is it a sexuality thing? Is it a sex thing? A trauma response?

Being a stranger to my own feelings and my own self, has led me to a state of deep misunderstandment and misalignment. If I change will the discomfort go away? Or will it be perpetually there, because I can't run away from myself and being me is being in discomfort. I am discomfort. I made up the word, for my ownself. 

At the eye of the hurricane there it is. The watchfull gaze of the D - blinking everytime I glimpse at it. The I- bending over and laughing, laughing at how I gasp with uneasiness everytime I STARE unblinkingly at the eye of the cyclone. The S slithers around my body, squeezing it tight. Enclosing me and making me feel wrong in occupying the space I occupy. As I close my eyes and try not look at discomfort looking back at me - I miss it. 

I miss the comfort - right next to it. When the DIS blends with the background. When it gets swept away by the whirlwind and taken away with the disaster. The disturbance. The distress, the dispersonalization. Along with the other DIS. Comfort is there. 

And by closing my eyes, I keep missing it. 

How comfort is warm and how it glows, how it pulsates, how I can just rest in it. How it's like releasing a breath. 

I know discomfort pretty well. I wake up feeling it. This unappeasable and unresting energy inside of me.

But what is comfort?

It's a well-meaning well-needed hug. From her, from my siblings, from my friends, from my grandma. From strangers who mean well. 

It's waking up and not feeling pain in my body. 

It's not feeling gripping anxiety.

It's not constantly feeling mentally exhausted.

It's not feeling like my body is not mine. Like it's just a weight.

I feel like some pieces I just want to cut them out and throw them away. Like they are just some useless limb attached to my body. Most days I don't even feel them. 

When I do, the dis comes around. 

The fatness makes me feel discomfort.

Seeing that I might look thinner brings me comfort. But at what cost sometimes?

I experience great levels of comfort when I'm not being watched, when I'm alone. But I sometimes experience a great deal of loneliness and abandonment. 

I'm always performing when I'm being watched. I'm not when I'm alone. 

If I don't have anyone to perform to, how do I even exist?

I don't know how to be by myself. Or I DO and I don't want to look at it. Just like I don't want to look at comfort, trying to run away from discomfort. I keep missing it.

 Running out of time 

It's funny, funny how you think that you will have time for things. That you'll just do it another time. And that even through difficult things, you can just... predict the problems and keep carrying on. Believing that there will come an opportunity to do them.

But then you can't do that thing anymore. Along the way, something changed and now there's no way to go after that thing anymore. - I won't end this story saying seize the day. Enjoy while it lasts or do it or otherwise you never will. That's just not how life works. Life, it's busy and you always, always think you'll have another opportunity.

For me, this is about food. But for you, it can be about anything. Anything you have a strong attachment to. Even if you don't realize it. That thing that is always there, always present. That habit or that person that keeps you afloat. I now have a condition that keeps me a prisoner. And I am my own jailer. Once again, I feel like I have fallen into the trappings of my own body and I, willingly put myself there.

I cannot eat anymore.

Not the things that I like.

I cannot eat freely anymore, not the things that I want. All those tasty things that used to bring me pleasure. I cannot eat them without consequences. I know, they always had consequences attached to them, but before they weren't on my mind. Or I ignored them. Or they seemed inconsequential. But right now, I have to think about everything. And eating, for now, it's not about pleasure anymore. It's about nutrition.

I mourn the loss of it. The loss of things that I was saving for later - and now there's no later. There's only today. What am I going to eat today, and later tonight? I have to plan and prep meals, I have to organize all of it because I cannot eat out anymore. Only a few things, and I'm always thinking I'm going to start to feel ill again; this is gonna make me have a crisis. And all of this makes that much more stressful. - As if it already wasn't.

I'm always waiting for that gnarling pain. I'm always mourning the pleasure, as the displeasure washes over my taste buds.

It's ironic how after the longest time, I am now, - because of health reasons and because I choose to actively not ignore it - more present. I'm here. I have to be. I have to be more aware of what I eat, my time management, where I eat, how slowly I eat, and how much to eat. This idea has always felt very disconcerting and traumatizing to me. Being here. It always put me in a fugue state.

I would avoid it and save it for later.

Coming full circle. I guess that somethings that you save for later do come to you. Just not the way you expected. Not how you wanted it. It's ugly, it's sad, it's terrifying.

I feel like it's three parts blame, one part negligence, and the rest out of the whole... it's just falling down a bottomless pit as images of food I can no longer eat are displayed across screens on the walls of said bottomless pit.

I fall and fall and fall and never wonder, not once, if I'm ever gonna land somewhere. I can just stare at the foods and think: I no longer have you. You are no longer mine. Who am I without tasting you? Who am I without that joy that you've always brought me for so many years? That I have treasured so dearly. There are no tears.

I think, just a quiet resignation.

It feels a lot like accepting a fate you knew you were always heading towards.

In parts... I also feel relieved. That now I am forced to change things, for the better of course. That these changes are gonna bring me health, that I might be able to organize myself better. That I can invest all of this energy I invest in food and invest in something that actually does me good. Not just some fleeting pleasure, to be drank, and spilled, and eaten, and spoiled.

Something nurturing, something that I can grow into. And it's okay to fall into a bottomless pit, as long as I believe it's gonna lead me to something better. It just means it's not gonna be easy.