i "should be" excited

Tonight i'm flying out to Europe. I'll be staying with my in-laws for a few days before heading off to Copenhagen and onto Illulissat in Greenland. In freaking Greenland. A once in a lifetime trip! Entry number 14 in Floris' impressive bucket list which would have been 27 out of 116 by the time I'm done. 

I should really be more excited.

Knowing myself though, I'm sure I'd enjoy it. There are other people in that expedition that I'd be bunking in with for 16 days, so I'll make the most out of it. And if not, the icebergs would probably pick me up. Hopefully it wouldn't remind me too much of that Iceland trip, that was by far the most memorable adventure I ever had, which unfortunately happened to be with you-know-who. 

I'm looking forward for this trip to top it off, though, because this trip would be all about me. Maybe being away from it all, and being literally at the edge of the world, would stir some sort of enlightenment in me. Maybe seeing the simplicity in life in those remote parts will help me appreciate what I have, what I still have, and aim for getting my life back together.

Maybe. But who knows. It's always easier to be glum and wait for the end of the world, right? 

trinkets

If you know me well enough, you'd know that I like using the word trinket to describe that place where I put my memories - good or bad - that have especially affected me. 

On a day when I feel down, I go to that storage room filled with trinkets, select one in red (the happy ones), open it up and savor the moment again to pick me up, and once satisfied I close the trinket and put it back in the storage room and close it behind.

You would think that any normal being would always only select the red trinkets. But not me apparently. Once in a while I take a good look at the black ones - the ones that hurt the most; the ones I wish to forget; the ones that made me feel like a worthless piece of shit. It's never been very clear to me why I do this, but the one thing I'm certain of is when I do, I'd bawl. 

Maybe I'm a masochist.

Sometimes though, when I know that I'm in the storage room and looking at the black trinkets, there's a voice in my head that tells me to stop. Don't go there, it says. Why'd you do that for? You got better things to do! It is when I listen to that voice and stop on my tracks, and indeed focus on doing something positive instead - that's the Cindy that my friends refer to as strong. That's the Cindy that everybody expects to be. That's the Cindy that gets dismissed with a "you'll be fine" because that's just my reputation.

Perhaps because I know it's (sometimes) necessary to wallow in sorrow. It's good to watch sappy movies about fictional love that conquers all, only to remember that this kind of bullshit is really just meant to be on-screen. Because in real life, love is meant to hurt, and life is meant to suck all the time from time to time. It's what gives meaning to our mortality.

When I look at my imaginary storage room, I can see trinkets of other colors too. There are orange ones from my days of adventure and fun and doing crazy shit. Gray for the ones when I've acted like an asshole towards someone. Green for the ones when I chose to do something right and humane. Many colors, yeah. Because you know what? No matter how shitty my life is at the moment, overall, my life is colorful. It's filled with many moments of magic and darkness and fun and stupidity and love. 

And because of that, I have one thing that I cling to that is the epitome of my survival: hope.

As long as I have hope, I will not jump off my balcony. 

waiting for the end of the world

It was only recently that I've watched the movie The Big Short (which I loooove, by the way) and in that movie they've quoted the famous Haruki Murakami: "Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come". 

It was so powerful I decided to buy the book 1Q84 the next day. Damn it.

There is a resounding truth to this sentence though, if you're a confused and depressed little fuck like me. That's exactly why I'm here, updating a blog that's been in hiatus for more than a year, while sending my 'non-life changing' date home, so I can sit in a bar by myself and have a moment of 'media' enlightenment, so to speak. 

This year has not been kind to me so far. I've gone through a very ugly breakup. And then signed myself up on these "dating apps" that has been exciting for a limited period in time, and just downright pathetic for the rest. The breakup was cruel, because it just made me realize that no matter how much you give, it will never be enough with the wrong person. It also severely crushed my overly inflated ego, and maybe rightfully so, because I had to be pulled back to earth so I can be on my knees, on the dirt, to kiss the gravestone of the one who, for a short period of time, had completed me. I realized that I have never really truly, completely, mourned over the loss of my greatest love. I had to move on, thinking I had to do it for my son, when maybe I was only cheating mourning itself, because I don't know any better. I just knew I had to get there somehow, and soon.

I supposed I needed to be truly alone, truly miserable, so I can maybe crawl out of my hole in whole (fun puns, yes). Trying to come out of my grief by soliciting the help of others can only move me an inch. Having to actually go through my misery, by myself, and consciously surviving each and every day by choosing to be alive is perhaps the only way out. It sure as hell ain't easy, trust me, I probably haven't seen the worst of myself yet, and I'm quite scared of how much uglier it can get. But no one else could and should see it, but me. There is yet another movie I watched recently called Colossal (which I also looove) that quoted, "There is a monster in all of us". Well, my monster is screaming and bickering and kicking and moaning because its steel arms are brittle and its joints are rusty. I am just so fucking tired of trying to be strong. 

Will I come out of it alive? It's a matter of for how long. All I know is, when I think of Lovro, I fucking try. Until that day, when I'm done trying, then we will all find out whether it's the strong or the weak who truly wishes for the world to end.