Today’s Thoughts

Maybe it doesn’t need to be anxiety. Or paranoia. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a result of a difficult childhood or bullied adolescence. Perhaps, it isn’t necessary to meet up with the requirements listed in a fancy Wikipedia article about heavy mental disorders for it to hurt. Each seemingly vague collision with this world’s cruelty can leave you gasping for air, clinging at the stitches. Each lover that abandoned us, each friend who turned their back in a crucial moment … it piles up. Waiting for the timer to count down the seconds. And when it hits, the bones in your body will be screaming to surface, burning in an infinite parallel universe. Immeasurable will be the crushing weight of the piling thoughts, echoing in that sad head of yours. But do not ever, under any condition, permit somebody to restrain your right to feel pain, only because they have suffered far more severe injury. Do not let anybody count your scars and tell you to “get over it”, after comparing their number to yours. It is not a contest. It is not a race on who can get fucked up beyond repair first. Respect others’ misfortunes and approach them in a kind manner. But expect the same in return and do not settle for any less.
If it is human to ache, it should be human to sympathize. Why have we let the course of our civilization reach this point? Why did we permit such constant comparisons? Not only do we now compete for having the best body or hottest outfit, but for who exhausted their hearts first, who gave up the fastest and who can romanticize depression to the fullest. We crossed the boundaries long ago and eloped in a twisted, sick environment. In a place, where scorning is ranked higher than lending a helping hand. Where sorrow is excessively inflicted. So forget them. Turn your back to each hurled remark. Never give a care about how they criticize the way you choose to cope. It depends on you and you alone. Be that hero you dreamed about last night or that inspiring person you overheard in the subway. That’s all it really is, life, I mean – learning how to cope and move on.

#ReaderSubmission by Kiki

What’s That Again?

At the first kiss I felt something melt inside me that hurt in an exquisite way. All my longings, all my dreams and sweet anguish, all the secrets that slept deep within me came awake, everything was transformed and enchanted, everything made sense.

— Hermann Hesse

Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

It’s not puberty that hits you. It’s your deliberate choice to cope with society’s standards of beauty. You shed fats, you wore makeup, you fit in. Truth be told, if you aren’t beautiful to them, you’ll surely won’t be treated right.

I discovered lipstick when I was 48 and I started wearing them only two years ago. I don’t care what society wants and expects, I have my own rules. It doesn’t make my life any easier but I don’t go with the flow and life is too short to worry myself about things that don’t concern me really. I’ve been treated unfairly because of the color of my skin and been accused of many things I didn’t do because I refuse to be part of the social herd but what judgmental, simple-minded prejudiced people think say and do tell more about their narrow one-track mindedness and characters than about me. Eat their hearts out for all I care. Shakespeare once said:

My beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues

That means beauty, like supreme dominion
Is but supported by opinion and exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.

TO THE MAN I WILL ALWAYS LOVE

Someone asked me if I am over you, I just smiled. I have always ached every time I realize it’s you, and it will always be you. The idea of me loving someone else is a blur right now.

As much as I wanted to say, “I am over him, I don’t care anymore,” and mean it, I can’t, because I care. Even if you happen to stumble on my way ten or fifteen years from now, I still and always care.

A lot of people misunderstand this concept of moving on and say you won’t care about the past if you’re truly over it. For me, it doesn’t work that way.

Moving on for me is merely accepting what happened, with no regret for what will never be. And for a person who loves too much, I can truthfully say that one can never really get over someone who once meant the world to them. We can just get used to the pain and feeling of missing someone until we make ourselves comfortable in it, and I believe that a tiny spark of hope can always reborn what we thought is already dead– love.

It’s been two years since everything ended but I can still remember the vast happiness I had when I was with you, and I just want to say that I miss you.

I miss those moments when we glance at each other and smile because we both know words are not enough to explain what we feel. Even if every day I am dying to feel these all again, all I could do is sit here, try to be happy for you, and pour out all my feelings by writing about you.

Love, if ever the time comes when you remember me and come back, just know that I am always here, waiting.

However, love, if the time comes when you come back and see me loving someone else, just know that it took me too much courage to open my heart to another guy again after what I’ve been through for you, for us. If you happen to realize that he could have been you, just keep in mind that my heart, no matter how much it endures every pain for you, it gives up.

I know I’ll be in love again. But for now, I’ll continue holding on to what you said, “If we are meant to be, love will lead us back.”

You see, I don’t believe in destiny and such things as “meant-to-bes” for I know that only our own choices influence what happens in our life. But you, you made me believe in dreams and fantasies.
But I guess it’s time to wake up.

I’ll smile for you again because I know that one day, I’ll be seeing you.
Until then, I will be missing you.

I am not asking for you to come back. I see you are very happy now and it somehow eases the feeling of longing for your presence, for your happiness is my delight, even if I am not a part of it.
—
Written by Tin Sarmienta via Berlin ArtParasites

I’m Just Not Cut Out For Love

“She’s a special kind of woman…She’s the one with the ability to be that rock and that foundation. She’s the woman who will sacrifice for your happiness, support your every dream and be your biggest fan. She’s the one that will inspire you, motivate you and challenge you to become a better person in every aspect of your life. She’s the woman who will fight to make things work and never take the easy way out. She’s a special kind of woman. She’s loyal. She’s intelligent. She’s passionate about life. She has a soul. She has substance. She has a heart of gold. And she knows how to love unconditionally. She’s a special kind of woman. And she’s entirely too special to be with anything less than a king.” ~ Unknown

I’m beginning to think that maybe I’m just not cut out for love.

I suppose it isn’t love but rather reciprocal love. Or at the very least, the kind of love that would make someone want to do anything to be with me. The feeling that two people get that inspires them to move mountains to make their love as real as the sunrise.

Maybe my problem is that I just think love is supposed to be magical—not logical. My soul craves electricity, sparks, poetry, and the way the kiss of a soulmate can make the world disappear.

Yet as much as I crave this, as much as I give this love to others, it’s never given back to me. I am never the one who sits across from someone while they hold my hands telling me, “Baby, there isn’t anything in the world that I wouldn’t do to make this work, because you are the one thing I know for certain.”

But I’m tired of lying to myself, and I’m tired of pretending that friendship is the only possibility. And I’m even more tired of believing in love and having faith that one day I won’t be putting myself to bed alone each evening.

I think I’m finally realizing that, just maybe, I’m never going to be loved in the way that I need to be.

Maybe it’s my destiny to be alone, maybe it’s my lot to give but never fully receive.

I suppose it’s my fault in some ways, because I always see the light even in the darkness. I never focus on the reasons why it won’t work, but only the reasons why it would. I don’t look at how difficult it could be, but how worth it it would be. I don’t spend a minute thinking about how a love would affect others, because I know that when you find a love that feels like home, you hang onto it.

I’ve always been a romantic, someone who loves the dramatic climax in movies when all seems lost but then love wins. The kind of woman who wants a man to drive hours just to feel my lips against his, or to get woken up in the middle of the night just because he couldn’t wait until sunrise to see me. Maybe it’s not even love I’m after, but just being so special to someone they would do anything to not only get me, but keep me.

Yet, even with all of this, I refuse to change.

I won’t budge even an inch, because I am unable to accept anything less than the kind of love that spins my world around and lands me in another dimension. A love that kisses me like Sunday morning, and has me on my knees praying in gratitude that our souls were brought together in this lifetime.

I don’t want a regular love. I don’t want others to approve of us simply because we have things in common or because he would be a good addition to my family. I don’t want a man to say “we make sense.”

What I want is the man who tells me I drive him crazy, that I kill him slowly with my love and realness. I want a man who breathes me in and refuses to go through life with anyone else by his side. I want a man to struggle with the idea of me and feel that no matter what he does, he just can’t get me out of his heart.

I guess what I’m really after is a man who will fight for me, for us, in the same ways that I would for him.

Someone who not only tells me I am worth it—but shows me with his actions.

Even with my heart draped in bittersweet love, I still don’t think I am asking for too much. I don’t think that it’s crazy to think that sometimes love does grow in the most unlikely of places and that when that happens, instead of running away, we have to plant our feet firmly and remain determined to protect something so special.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if perhaps one day there will be a man who throws caution to the wind just to be the one who wakes up to my starry eyes in the morning.

I don’t know if I will ever be loved in the ways I need to be. Maybe I’m just not cut out for love. Maybe I am meant to walk this life alone, giving out unconditional love as gifts to those I cross paths with. Perhaps it’s only in my loneliness that I am able to love like I do—because when it’s undiluted and pure, it becomes an unstoppable force.

But I don’t really believe that. Because I know I am not wrong for what I feel and what I want. Because I’ve learned that in love, you only get the amazing stuff if you actually believe it exists.

As for me, I’d rather spend my days alone believing in this messy, imperfect, difficult, beautiful vision of love than settling for the bland taste of companionship without passion.

Author: Kate Rose

It’s That Time Of The Year Again

…to go on holiday away from everything and everyone, to have a longer me time and be in the sun.

By the time you are reading this, I’m already halfway to my destination. I left around 8:00 a.m. Two hours earlier than necessary but better safe than sorry you never know what could happen in between. Starting a vacation with stress is not a good thing so, better avoid it if possible. I have chosen to drive myself to the neighboring country’s airport because of an ongoing strike at our own. They say the situation where I’m departing is also far from ideal but I have to choose the lesser of two evils and I hope I have chosen wisely.

As usual, I will be gone three weeks and will not be able to post or read and answer comments because as always when I’m on vacation I don’t go online or take any gadgets aside from my camera, but I scheduled posts for my readers so when they visit they will not go away empty-handed.

This year will be different also because I will take three annual vacations instead of just one. One this Spring, another in Autumn and two weeks between Christmas and New Year. I don’t want to spend another jolly season in cold.

Well, bye for now and see you in three weeks. Be good! 

 

Liquid

In a liquid modern life, there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, as quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change – as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

Pedigree

…mine is shocking. Both in tales and in reality. At least from one side. Father’s side. If I’m going to believe (which is very difficult not to when evidence is staring me straight in the eyes and based on my own personal experience I have no reasons to doubt) I came from a family of cheating conniving  incestuous gypsy witches and nomad warlords who were/are fond of betraying and molesting each other in all possible ways. From my maternal side, I can easily describe them in few words: They are a bunch of upper middle class (possibly even rich) educated prejudiced narrow-minded tyrannical self-righteous people who have written my mother out of a will (for marrying my -to their eyes substandard- father) and refused to recognize our existence till I married my (foreigner therefore rich) ex but by then I was a rebel enough already and only too happy to defy them. Our very own little family… Well, what can I say? You have to read few of my post to get a little bit of insight how dysfunctional and pathetic we are. End of my pedigree sum up.

 “All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
― Mitch Albom

Slight

Somebody said to someone:

“You’re lucky you’re ugly, at least you know people aren’t around just to fuck you.”

And it brought back memories…

…of the time someone has rowed a boat for four hours because I got it in my head to spend a night in an abandoned lighthouse on a sandbar somewhere. I said:

“I envy her -indicating another couple in a boat a few meters ahead of us- he is rowing for her.”

My companion stated the obvious. So, I asked him:

” Would you still do it if I were she/her?”

The relationship was practically over before we even hit the shore.

Skewed

Skew – make biased or distorted in a way that is regarded as inaccurate, unfair, or misleading.

Because of who I am and my unconventional habits (in a world where men are allowed to do whatever they want and be admired and praised for their shenanigans and double standard is regarded as the norm) I’ve been accused and labeled everything I am not. My reputation quickly went down the drain and never comes back. Misunderstood will be a huge part of my epitaph when the time comes. Does it bother me? It never used to.  But looking back, given a chance, probably I would do a thing or two differently, for my peace of mind. But I will never alter what had happened because I don’t want to miss out on all the fun, just adjust some things a little bit, give it a different approach without losing myself completely in the process. But yeah, what’s done is done all water under the bridge now. If only people have no long memory and limited cranial capacity when it comes to understanding others due to the fact that most will feel good if they think they are better than the next anyone even if it’s only in their own twisted imagination. Stood tall and stood proud standing on someone else’s back, right? What a way to feel big and strong. What else is new? Anyway, I have lived a colorful life that’s for sure and with it comes like it or not colorful descriptions and tales (which is laughable at times) even if they are not exactly accurate they are certainly graphic. Sayonara for now and see you when I see you. 

Forest

I walk slowly into myself, through a forest of empty suits of armor.

~Tomas Transtromer

Rebel

Oh, that’s me. 

But then again not. I’m not really a rebel, I just don’t follow the herd. I rather march to the beat of my own drum. The sound is sweeter. 

No, seriously I am who I am and that’s it. 

Some might say I’m an individualist, stubborn, solitary, hard-headed, idealist, pessimist. The truth is I’m a freedom loving honest realist, crusading for the truth, equality, and justice who likes to see a more peaceful harmonious world populated with tolerant people who have respect for nature and each other. That’s all. 

 

My Place In The World

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.” 
― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

I’m a nature lover, I can’t live without a (preferably cottage) garden. That and books. 

I like to be in the city no doubt. Especially when I want to be alone but not lonely, then I want to be amongst people I have nothing to do with. Strangers who don’t want something from me. I can happily be lost in anonymity while surrounded by life itself. I thrive on that.

But nothing can compare the joy and peace nature brings to my daily existence. I love to see things grow, watch the progress, observe the changing of seasons and admire the beauty of everything, the sunshine on the water, moon’s reflection on a lake, the turbulent sea and the buzz of insects.

I love to wake up in the morning with the birds singing outside my window, love to watch them do their things, I love to paint the different species of flowers and photograph their life cycle. I love to bath in the rain and chase rainbows, jump from the top of the waterfalls, hike mountains and walk; walk the beaten paths and road less traveled. I’m not only a nomad and a gypsy but a country girl at heart.

My place in the world? Definitely in nature.