Love is a tribble!

Tribble. You know those cute fluffy balls of fur from star trek that multiply if you give ’em even the tiniest bit of affection? Well, love is like that. It is not like a jar holding 10 units of love, and when you give it all away you are left with nothing. The more you love, the more love you have.

That being said, I’ve had one of my crazy epiphanies again and decided to make you all happy by sharing it. (Yeah, I’m the greatest!)

I’ve been feeling kinda down this last week or so. Hurt and lonely and pretty much like a hedgehog – all those pointy sharp thingies pointing outwards protecting me. Keeping everyone at bay. Scared to death to get hurt ones again. Everyone is always leaving me, better stay alone and so on. You know the deal. So, I took a shower. A long one. I don’t know why, but I usually relax and get my thoughts straightened out the best in the shower. I guess I am not the best at conserving water though, since I tend to really loose track of time when I’m there in my own little shower world…

Anyway, I felt absolutely terrible, thinking about how my ex hurt me, feeling even more terrible because I should not feel terrible about that anymore – I mean we broke up over a year ago! Talk about sad and idiotic to still be upset about it! I have a tendency to over-analyze my feelings and to rationalize them instead of just feeling. Then when I try to feel what I feel, I tend to get all upset and anxious and really, really self-judging if what I feel do not coincide with what I think I should feel.

So, being upset with my ex a year after we broke up, is not acceptable – according to my self-judging critic. I might be allowed to still be a little angry and hurt, but not to the cause the level of anxiety I have been feeling this last week.

Thinking back though, I realized that when I do get to this level of anxiety, it is usually due to some unresolved issue. Due to something that is so hard for me to accept, that I cannot even think it. I also know from experience, that once I get myself to dig that thing up, allow myself to think it, then I realize that it wasn’t that big of a deal really. It just went against what I had rationalized that I should feel. I tend to forget; feelings seldom listen to reason. To get this block dissolved and whatever feelings I have buried up in the open, I need to put my inner critic on pause though. That is tricky. Sadly, it usually means I have to go through days of anxiety before I am so exhausted I just can’t take it anymore. Then I take a long, warm shower and then it might manage to force me to relax and then my inner critic might finally be silent for a while.

So, after first spending some time feeling what I rationalized I should feel (angry, hurt etc) , I got so tired I just wanted to give up. Not like dying, but like never feeling anything again. So I just did. I just stopped myself. Then I realized that once again it is my conflicted feelings that causes me to lock up and feel all hurt.

Yes, I do feel hurt. Especially because my ex said that she never felt I let her come close. She also said she felt like I just waited for her to leave, that I never expected our relationship to last. That is not true. I’ve never let anyone as close as I let her. She was also the first one ever that I actually expected to stay, no matter what. When I finally broke up with her, I still expected us to get back together, because in my mind back then, that was how it should be. That she felt that I felt and thought the complete opposite, that hurt me deeply.

I am also angry at her, because she did not speak up. A relationship cannot work if you do not talk to each other. She said, she had never been able to talk to me. Well, I had difficulties talking too, but at least I tried. I am angry with her for not even trying – she told me afterwards she gave up even trying already in the beginning of our relationship – something I have had difficulties to accept. If I had known that, we would never have lasted as long as we did. A relationship cannot work, if you do not even try to communicate.

So I rationalized that it is okay that I feel hurt and angry, but also that since it’s been a year, I should have been able to accept it and let it go by know. What confused me even more is that I think I have. I get a little irritated and at times I’d just like her to answer the question “Why?” as in why did she stay with me? How on earth did she ever imagine that our relationship would work on those premises? And most of all, if she did not know how to talk to me, that meant she did not let me close to her, so should that not explain why she felt I did not let her close to me? A relationship between two people requires that both people work to make it work, after all.

So, I have this rational feeling that I did feel, but they are starting to fade away, but for some reason I cling to them. I cling to them as a defense shield. I realized, that they are safer for me, that facing what I actually feel. At the same time, clinging to anger and hurt makes me miserable.

Then, somehow, a thought came to me. I do not know from where, I was starting to get so tired at feeling anything, and at think about feelings. So this crazy thought came to me, asking me that if she was so horrible, why was I with her? Well, because I loved her and because she actually ain’t that horrible. She’s actually quite nice. Kinda slow in her actions, and I had a real hard time getting her humor, but other than that she is a really lovely person. She’s kinda “the girl next door”. And she’s an excellent cook. Great at hugging. She has a great deal of patience, which a person wanting to be in my life really needs.

So, what happened to this love? I then find myself asking myself. The critic in me tried to stop myself, coming with arguments like “she lied to me by not telling me she could not talk to me and thus making our entire relationship a lie” and so on. My inner critic did not have enough strength anymore though, so I continued to think about love, and loving my ex.

That was when I put the thought out there, in my head. I finally thought the words. I still love my ex. I am angry and hurt and I love her. At first, I wanted to scream. I mean, that is pathetic, my inner critic told me. It did have even less strength now then. So now that I had taken the lid away, opened the lock, and realized what the conflicting emotion was, it all came out and I realized it was not conflicting.

You see, I have been genuinely happy for my ex, when she found a new girlfriend last winter. Which I have explained with being so angry with her that I don’t care if someone else “has” her. It is not that though, I realized. I am happy for her, because I love her, and I want her to be happy. I hope this new person makes her happy. I did not, and to be frank, she did not make me happy either. Love is not always enough. It should be, but it is not. We were and are so different. I love her, she makes me angry, and she did make me at times more miserable than happy. It took me until now to realize that and confess it though. Someone you love should not be able to make you miserable. I was though. I felt I had to change all the time. She always held me back. I know I can be impulsive, and it is good for me to think before acting, something she thought me, but there is a time when you spend too much time thinking before acting. I spent quite a lot time feeling chained down.

I guess she felt I made her life loose control and get all chaotic though. I run from place to place, so to speak, from her point of view. Not realizing that from my point of view we were crawling  through mud.

So, we made each other unhappy. The two of us together, is not a good thing. I love her, I want her to be happy. I also love myself, and I want to be happy too. I can’t see us together AND happy, so we need to be in other relationships. If she is happy with her new girlfriend, I am happy for her, because I love her. As for me? Like I said, love is a tribble. That I love her, does not mean I cannot love anyone else. As a matter of fact, the more I love, the more love I have to give others.

I love my friends too. I don’t think they know how much. I love my cats. I love my mom and brother. I love a lot. That does not mean there are not room in my heart for loving more people. Or that the love I am capable of feeling for them would in any way be diminished by me also loving others.

Love feeds on love.

I love my ex. I hope she is happy. I love myself and now that I got that lock away, I feel content again. I have a lot going for me. For the first time in my life, I have this last year been trying to figure out what I want with my life. I focus on me. It has been hard, I am kinda lost, but this summer have been incredible. I have not felt this good for years. I have a lot of plans and projects, all of them that helps me feel complete.

I do not have a romantic relationship, but I have friends. And who knows? Maybe I’ll meet someone, someday. That is not the focus of my life though. I have never wanted a clingy and needy relationship – that was one good thing with my ex; she always gave me space. She was not clingy. In my point of view, a good relationship is when both are content with being alone, having their own life and do not need the other one, BUT they chose to be with the other one because they WANT TO (not need to) and the relationship gives both that extra in life that you can live without, but you’d rather not.

Love feeds on love.

And PS. With “love” I do NOT mean “want to have sex with”! Sex and love have surprisingly little to do with each other.

Realizations

As I am here in Oulu, I am slowly coming to the realization that I really, truly want to be an artist. I want to write, paint and do hand crafted arts. Who would pay me for that though?

Society is said to work the way that you just try to get a job to pay the bills and then on your free time you do all those things that you want to do. I am wondering though. Who really does that? Who has the strength to work all day and then actually try to better themselves at writing, painting and so on? Put into that a kid or two, and your day is like:

“get up, kids to kindergarten/school, get to work, work, get the kids, get home, maybe go buy groceries, try to get the kids to do their homework, actually spend some time with your kids, get kids to bed and then finally have some free time and spend it lying on the sofa watching TV until you crawl into bed”

I do not have any human kids, only furry kids, but still, that is the picture I have gotten that it is like. Weekends then are full with kid stuff and trying to gather some strength for the next week..

Even without kids, when I have had one full day of schooling, when I come home I am too tired to paint or write. I watch some dvd:s and knit… maybe read something. But I have no time to be really creative. Weekends go by as I try to gather strength. Time to actually be creative has been two times during the time I’ve been here. Actually got two paintings done. A little writing too.

Had this great idea I wanted to write, but when I got home from the course I was so tired and had other things to take care of first, and when I finally got the time to sit down in front of the computer, I had forgotten it.

Who would pay me to be an artist, and at the same time a stay at home mommy if me and My Love ever have kids..?

Gender identity crisis?

Some say that when you dream, it is your subconsciousness trying to tell you something. Well, tell me then what the dream I had last night meant!

It started like a normal dream. I was this gal, and there was this murder and for some reason I ended up in a mansion – where the murdered old man had lived with his family. There now was the widow, a son and a daughter and then the widow had a male servant. I didn’t actually do anything to actually solve the murder, I was more interested in the daughter of the family – and yes, she was NOT a young daughter, both the daughter and the son was my age.

The dream went on quite regularly. Flirting, but not actually doing anything. Having a good time. Pretty much forgetting the murder. Then I had to leave. I was dropped of at some place that I first did not recognize, but then I realized it was in my birth town, near the house of one of my friends grandmother. So I started to make my way home (where that was, I do not remember). I made my way to this strangers house, who tells me something about this old man that was murdered and about his family. Do not remember what, but it was strange. I left.

Quite normal dream stuff until now.

Then, for some unknown reason, I decide I’d really like to be a man! And I send a text message to My Love (that I at this point in the dream managed to remember for a short while…) that I will go and have a sex change surgery. As this was a dream, I ended up being a man just after that.

I now go back to the mansion, a man this time. Still the same though, and everyone recognizes me and no one comments on my sex change, it is all as it should be. And I am – of course – still in the mood for romance (read SEX). Only, as I am a man now, I avoid the daughter of the house and go look for the son! Apparently I changed my gender, but I am still homosexual. I find him in his room and we immediately start to flirt and end up in bed trying to figure out how to men have sex… And then we get it right and… His mother (the widow) walks in! Follows some embarrassing moments when we try to cover and the woman notices nothing and soon leave and we continue.

Then the sister walks in, with her mothers servant (who mostly observes, does nothing). The sister gets really angry, calling me a cheat, crying and screaming. Me and her brother get up from the bed and dressed and the servant takes her brother outside so I can talk to her alone. I explain that I am a man now, an thus I can not be with her – anyways, we didn’t actually do anything the last time, I was just being friendly and why did she read so much into it (ok, so I was an asshole too…)? She calms down, and leaves. Her brother returns and we get back to business. Finally we seem to be getting our chance to have our “romantic moment” and then – of course – I wake up.

And I woke up with a WTF??? feeling… So, what is my subconsciousness trying to tell me? That I’d really like to be a homosexual MAN? And, for your information, this is not the first time I have had this kind of dream.. It is the most reoccurring topic of my dreams these days, that I am a man – and about 4/5 times also gay.

And in this waking life, I like to wear dresses, shiny things are really pretty and I painted my living room walls pink… I’m not considered to be a very masculine person..

I wonder what I’ll dream tonight? Will My Love also have a ex change? That happened once… No less confusing though.

Money, money, money

Do not have any. Or,  I have some, but I will soon have to “invest” them… I’m selling my apartment, and I decided to try to do it myself, and not hire someone to do it for me – the fees to do that are so high! Anyways, I then need to put up an add so that people know that I am selling! I’ve compared different sites, and found the one that seems to be the best one. It costs money, of course. There are free sites too, but they do not seem to be very reliable, and people do not visit them as often as the paid sites.

Anyways, while most people were partying yesterday (Midsummer!), I spent it cleaning 😀 My Love has a terrible flu, so she was home too, but too tired to do much.

The point with selling this apartment is that then we can together rent a bigger one. We would like to buy, but can’t afford it right now – both having part-time jobs, so the bank will only not lend us enough money. So, because we really need a bigger apartment; will rent one.

My Love dreams about an apartment with its own little sauna. I don’t care much for that, I think it is too expensive and unnecessary, but the word is  compromise. I have dreams too, and mine are about a room just for me, to use as a work-space. I need a room with a door to shut, so that I can work on my writing in peace. I always get distracted in this small apartment. Also, I have a LOT of hand craft stuff and art stuff, it would be nice to have better space for them. And then My Love would not have to be irritated when I forget to put them away and leave them all over the place.

So we are looking for an apartment with its own sauna and an extra room. Won’t be exactly cheap, but it will probably be worth it. If only I get this apartment sold first.. Can’t have two apartments at the same time – that if anything will be too expensive!

Summer Is Here

And I’m busy. I have so much to do that I do not know how I’ll do them all.

I have to work.

I want to do handcrafts hand crafts and stuff.

I am planning to sell my apartment, that means a lot of cleaning to be done, papers I have to order, forms to fill out, preparations to be made, fixing small flaws in the apartment… AND finding a new place to live.

and of course, I want to WRITE.

and then there is friends to meet, pen pals to write to (I’m probably the worlds worst e-mail pen pal – I manage to get around to writing about 2-3 times a year…) and the most imoportant thing of all:

Me & My Love have our 2 years together anniversery coming up!

To think, she has been with me for two years soon, and we’ve been living togeteher for over a year. And she still claims to love me! ME??? She likes me, it is a wonder – I’m not the easiest person to get along with after all… Or I am, but only if one meets me now and then. To live with me full time, that is an whole other matter… … … … … …

And then there is this other thing. I still Love HER! I mean, I do have those commitment issues…. Or had. My Love seems to have been the cure to that one. I’ve never before been in this kind of long and stable relationship.

I still sometimes get this feeling this can’t be true, that I’m dreaming or something. But I guess I’m not.

I really love her. I really want to the whole growing old together thing with her.

APD

I am wondering if I have APD – Avoidant Personality Disorder.

I just keep avoiding going anywhere, meeting friends, family, anyone. Going out amongst people is ok, as long as no one talks to me. I hate it when people touch me.

I was to the last of this springs gymnastic class. It is a group for those with pains and ills, and who therefore has a tougher time doing gymnastics. Anyway, since it was the last time, we ended with massage. It was ok being the one doing the massage, but when I had to sit down, and this person I do not know, touched me – even if only back and shoulders – I felt horrified. I just wanted to get up and run out of there, but that would probably have hurt her feelings. So I sat there, wishing for it all to soon be over.

I tend to feel that I am not good enough. I used to try, but nowadays I’d rather just give up. People just irritate me anyways, so why even bother trying to be good enough for them?

If it were not for My Love, I’d probably never meet anyone, except at work. And at work I have this role, like in theater, that I am performing. I do not have ot be myself. I just smile and act polite.

I even avoid seeing my best friends. I avoid seeing the once I actually like, because it has become so hard.

Have been writing some though. At times I like my writings, but then I get overwhelmed. Then I start to feel like this loser who think she can write but if anyone knew… They’d just laugh at my writings.

And then there is the originality. I would like to write something that is in a way original. But what if I write now, and this story is a big one, and it takes time.. What if when I finally have my story written, someone else have had the same idea and has been quicker about it?

“Never think you are anything”.

Its like all those stories about someone doing something they think are original, and then they find out it is all old ideas. They just hadn’t bothered researching first. That is what I am so afraid of. What if I just haven’t stumbled on this idea before, but someone has already written it? There are a lot of books out there. Who am I to think no one has had these ideas that I know have?

Future, Plans and Doing Nothing

I have not written anything here for some time. It all started with a terrible flu and tiredness, which just developed into this kinda writers-block. Not completely but sort of. I have been writing some, especially ideas. I’ve had some ideas I really like. But actually forming my ideas into a story has been slow. I have mostly just written down my ideas.

Another reason for this is that the entrance exam to English is only a month away and I have not been feeling like studying and that has given me a bad conscience. I keep telling myself I should read for English, so I can get a job that has at least a little bit of a better paycheck.

But then I get all these thoughts like, do I really want to? Yes, I do want to learn English, but that is CREATIVE English. In the University, it is all about scientific English and interpreting English and so on. If i manage, I could maybe become a translator. Don’t really want to, but.. I keep telling myself I should.

What I want to do is keep this lousy-paid job I have, that allows me to keep writing. And then I could take some classes in English – creative English. But that would me betting all on my writing! Betting my future on actually be so good I could write a book and get someone to want to publish it and actually selling the book!  I do know I have a good story, but it really requires a LOT of work before it is a book. And will my English develop so that it is so good, that someone will actually try publishing my work. I do know the story is good, and I do feel like working with English as a language is something I keep getting better at. But do I really wanna bet everything on that?

But if I manage to get into the University and study, then almost all my time will go to studies. And I will be studying for years. And that means little to no time to actually focus on my writing and do all the research I need. If I start studying English, my book has no way of happening for many, many years to come, if ever.

If I continue like now, I have the time.

I am in a stage of writing right now, that I have some good ideas, and some writing can be done, but to really go further with my book, I need to do some research. If I start doing the research, that would mean I have no time studying for English.

So, with all these decisions to make, I feel paralyzed. As a result, I just let time go by and do nothing. I have trouble writing, because that makes me feel I do not focus on studying, but at the same time I do not study because I fear that if I do, I will be accepted and then my plans for writing a book will just go up in smoke.

So I just watch time flying by with a bad conscience, not doing much of anything.

Dang it!

I’m tired. Had difficulties falling asleep last night, and the alarm woke me up so early. Usually I avoid scheduling appointments before noon, but my Doctor is busy and I had to take the time she had to offer, and it was today, 10 a.m. now I’m struggling to keep awake.

We talked about my diagnosis with the doctor – do I have bipolar disorder, or am I more the Borderline-type? I’ve had the so called Borderland-disorder for since 2006, but one year ago they changed it to Bipolar. I do not feel like it though. I’m impulsive and when I get excited about something, I start new things and talk a lot. I also make decisions quite fast.

But still, my mood swings are usually short, the “fast phase” no not last even for the four days required to be hypomania. And more than manic, I’m impulsive.

I have a different doctor now than then, when I got my bipolar diagnosis. She said we don’t have to make decissions right now. I’ll talk about it with my psychologist, and we’ll see. We’ll see if I should have some more medication. More Happy Pills, yei.

Also, I have an appointment with my neurologist in Feburary. Last summer I was maybe-diagnosed with epilepsy. Like everything in my life, it’s not for sure though. The brainwave or whatever they did on me May 2011 indicated something though.

I went throug some testa last spring, because I had these spasms that I couldn’t controll. I didn’t have seizures, but really violent spasms. I had a hard time eating, reading a book or holding anything.

It was concluded that I’m allergic to lithium, which I was on due to the bipolar diagnosis. But before that they did those tests, and they showed something else too. So now I’ve got an neurologist too, not only a shrink. Hallelujah, am I lucky.

And my luck doesn’t stop there. I developed massive jointpain in November – before that, I had some pain, but in November I had to get some sick leave from work, the pain was so bad. It lasted to the beginning of January, because the doctor (a third one!) just took some blood and they didn’t show anything, so he decided I was fine. Even if I was hurting all the time and the smallest tasks made my pain worse. In January I got a new appointment, and this time he wrote me a medicine that increased my paintolerance.

It helped. At least for now. I have started to have pains again, and I am afraid the pain will come back, as it adjusts to this new medicine.

My psychiatrist do seem to believe me, and she said she do not believe that my pain is due to over-weight – as the worst pain is in my fingers, I too have a hard time understanding how my fingers would ache from my weight.

I do know that I should loose some weight, and I am trying. My weight went up again in December, when I had all these pains, cause I couldn’t exercise and I was feeling really depressed and then I have the bad habit of eating a lot.

My Psychiatrist also commented on my blood. The trombolytes are abnormally high, and my red blood cells are unusually small. It could be explained by anemia, but my hemoglobin is fine. I’ve had this on and off for several years. It’s not alarmingly off, but still, it’s strange. Not strange enough to start looking for answers though.

And, last (for now. The inside of my right thumb has for one and a half weeks felt numb. I do feel pressure at the inside of the thumb, but I have difficulties feel the different between hot and cold and between different materials. My Psychiatrist thinks it is neurological, and sain I should tell my neurologist, when I see her in February.

Anyways, even my Psychiatrist concluded that I have all kinds of these small “things”, nothing alarming, but still…

And oh, I forgot maybe the worst of them all! I, at times, suffer from restless legs. That is torture! Such pain that I feel like beating myself up to make the pain less. It’s just so bad. Luckily it doesn’t happen that often, but when it do happen – maybe about once a month – I feel like killing myself just to get away from the pain.

So, there are little this’n’that about my health, but for now, my meds stay as they are. At least until I meat with my neurologist.

Oh, and I talked to my Psychologist about my late creativity, and how I miss it. She said it is possible that my meds influence my creativity, but that that is maybe the price I have to pay to get some kind of stability in my emotions.

I just don’t know if I am ready to pay that price. Give up my dreams, just so I can live a life of boredom?

The Think-Tank

I spent yesterday evening at work, angsting over the psychology entrance-exam. Then I started go through the Universitys other options. I figure I love to write and read and often in english. My english isn’t perfect, but mostly I just need practice. So I started thinking… Could english philology be for me?

I know I couldn’t be at teacher – all those kids would just get on my nerves. Maybe I could teach some adult students, but not children. But what would be a great job for me is translator. Translator of different texts that is. English-swedish-english or maybe english-finnish-english.

I’ve never figured myself a language-person, considering I only know three languages – swedish (my mother toungue), english and finnish. But then again, three languages can be considered quite many. Even if almost everyone knows english these days. But official translations of texts are still needed. And of literature. Maybe I’d like to translate books the most.

Grammar is my big problem. I never remember what is subject and object and all those things… The second problem is mostly the problem that comes from not using a language. I do read english almost daily, and many times a week I listen to english (TV-programs), but I very seldom speak it, and my writing is rusty too. Need exercise…

The Big Question is: is my knowledge of the english enough to get me in to the University so that I there can learn more?

The Loss of Dreams

When I was young… Every big stone I saw was a troll who had been out in the sun, every tree was an ent. I used to caress the trees softly, talk to them. I thanked them when going down a steep slope, thanked them for being there to support me if my foot slipped. I’d ask their forgivness if I thought I’d accidentally hurt them.

I imagined seeing elfs and fairies in the corner of my eye. I remember chatting at length with others about what was real and what was not and if one really could count fairies as “not real” just because there was no sure proof of their existance – as I saw it, there was no sure proof they did not excist, so everything was possible.

I remember loving poetry. I’d read at home my favorite poems, sometimes searching for new ones. I’d read them aloud to my self and even using my body to theatrically express the poems. I did the same with songs. When no one was there to see me I would dance and my dance was a performance.

I’d tell myself the most fantastic stories and live them out in theater in my home – again with no one watching. I’d work for hours on dialogues, sometimes days even weeks or months. I had these stories that I repeted and worked on. I’d perfect the scenes and the different persons personality and what they said and what they did and why. I made the story bigger and more and more happened, but I also went back and changed parts that didn’t fit. Sometimes I’d go through the same scene from different angles and different dialogue. I loved my stories.

I remember my first girlfriend. We would sit on the sofa and I’d tell her the most fantastic stories. Stories about aliens and other creatures. I’d make her laugh.

I did not have a lot of friends back then, and the ones I had often lived in a different city than I did. But I did have Dreams. I didn’t do the “face my feelings”-thing though. I locked the feeling up inside me, and smile.

In 2006 everything changed.

I started facing my feelings, and they were bad. I didn’t take it well. I was 25 years at that time, and a lot of different feelings were locked up inside me. Now they came all out, overwhelming me.

I did not know what to do.

Now. January 2012.

I do not read poetry out loud anymore. Nore do I think the big stones are trolls, and I haven’t had a discussion of the reality of things for years. Even when I sleep, my dreams have become dull. I can’t concentrate enough to tell myself any stories. When I write, I have difficulties finding the words. The stories I have managed to write, are short ones. I do not feel inspired anymore.

My Love says that maybe I don’t tell myself stories anymore, cause I have no reason to want to run away to an imaginary world.

I have Her now, My Love. And I have friends. I talk about my feelings and do not just lock them up. I live more in the world now than then.

But. I miss my stories.

I wouldn’t change anything, if the prize was My Love. She is the only one worthy the sacrifice. Everything else I would change.

I miss my stories. I miss my imagination.

I want to write again, to imagine, to be filled with passion.

—

I do not know the reason. Why did my dreams die? Is it because I am more connected to the world, or is it the Happy-pills the doctors feed me, that makes me feel like a robot at times?

Tomorrow I have an appointment with my doctor. I’ll try to remember talking to her about feeling this way.