Direction

Friday 24 Feb.

left by the wayside, literally
lasting effect, reflected in every part of my life
can't keep up
fallen behind society's treadmill
late out of bed => guilt, fear
late at night, relaxed, no-one will call or ring the doorbell => safe
dependant on social security
constantly guilty feelings
right to exist?


Saturday 25 Feb.

Love lying in bed when it rains.
In weekends 'allowed' due to no guilt.


Sunday 26 Feb.

Lost the two things I loved most: drawing/creating, and martial arts. This was what got me out of bed in the morning, excited to get started again.
It's hard, it's painful to think about, so I usually don't. But it hurts.
I miss it.


Monday 27 February

Lacking direction.
Have I still not learned to ride out the waves?
No need to meddle with the steering wheel. I don't have a driver's license, so I shouldn't try to drive.
I don't feel hope, faith or conviction, but I will write this anyway just to see the words: this vehicle knows where it's going and doesn't need my interfering, on the contrary, it needs me to sit quietly and still and do a crossword puzzle or look out the window, listen to the birds or count gusts of wind or whatever keeps my mind off steering.

It's exhausting and annóying to be afraid all the time.

Trust the car. Trust where it's going. Maybe it's a little boat, maybe you'll like that better. Let the river guide you, let the river carry the boat. Sit now.
By all means, trail your hand in the water, wave at the sheep, but sit.
Maybe you can't enjoy the trip. That's okay.
You don't trust where you're being taken. That's okay.
You're still going and there's nothing you can do about it.
That's tough, isn't it? Know that you have chosen this path long ago. That is all the comfort I can offer you.
It takes a while to purge yourself of bitterness, pettiness, self-hatred and feelings of abandonment, guilt, unworthiness.
Don't get lost trying to battle all of these one by one. You have done this already and now it's all surfacing; 'dealing' with it will only make it last longer. Let it go. Let these feelings go. You áre done with them, even though it might not feel that way now.
It doesn't..
I know. And it's okay. Cry, if you feel like it. Cry, write, eat, punch the bag, do whatever you want, it's all good, baby. It's alright.
Leave it to me. Don't worry about the boat. It doesn't need pushing, try to watch the scenery for a while without judging. Breathe.

Snow & snot, dreams & memories

Saturday 11 February

Big fat snowflakes whirling through the air. Beautiful landscape: white dunes, brown/grey sky, belly full of snow, bare black tree stems, brown ponies, the forlorn lighthouse beam appearing and disappearing.
A couple on a slope, the girl tries to slide down on an orange plastic bag, "On y va!" They're laughing and I have to laugh too, the world is so different like this.
On the beach a thick layer of seashells crunches under my shoes, shells covered in snow until slow waves wash it away.

On the way back, a car with two people in it races into the parking lot next to the fort, brakes and skids a perfect half circle and drives away the same way they had come. Again I laugh out loud: they only came to play.
Everything is dark, white, grey, mysterious. People with red cheeks and hands are photographing the Zen-ish trees, the moon-like landscape.
A tiny yellow dog barks and dances around, scaring the ponies*, a toddler dressed in black and bright yellow neon flops down on the ground and starts making snow angels wherever he can.
A postcard come to life, a wonderful walk in white.
Happiness.

(*) Every time I write the word ponies I want to add: "You can ride them, you can date them, you can grab them by the pony". Thanks, guys!
everysecondcounts.eu
=> Europe => Netherlands


Sunday 12 February

A woman is skeptical about my talks with someone about previous lives. She has a photo of me talking to that person and says there's someone in the photo I might recognize. 
I'm thinking of one face. I see the photo, bow my head to the table and weep; there's +- 8 figures in white, from small to tall: my angel choir, my company. They're floating in the top right half of the photo, a bit higher than the two other figures.
(Jack the Ripper victims? Like me? All those belly issues, sex hurts as if getting stabbed with a knife, I could have become a prostitute, my fascination with serial killers.)
=> This 'explanation' was written while still half asleep.


Monday 13 or Tuesday 14 February

Sitting at a picknick table in front of a school building. My arms crossed, head bowed. Jed McKenna sits across from me. He is telling me things, I am listening, without looking him in the eye. On our other side, buses are coming and going.
When I look up, the sun is shining behind his head so bright I can't see his face clearly and orbs of light from the rays obscure it even further. 

[22 February note: This is curious, because I always see faces in my dreams. When it's the face of a person I don't know, my mind just fills in the blank with something appropriate.
In the next bit of dream, my Greek ex appears, with a different face to point out he has changed. Even people I do know don't always have the faces they wear in real life. So why was Jed's face obscured?
It felt like he was really there, visiting, and this dream reeled me in several times. It helped during the time at my sister's, even though I have no recollection of what he said to me.]


Monday 20 February

High horse vertigo.
Opinions, oh so clever, buzzing through my skull again like flies. Maybe because the protective wall of SNOT is thinning. Sister had same symptoms as me, so I decided it's man-flu.
While I was there it got worse, waking up dizzy with drenched shirt and sleeping bag, coughing, wheezing, sneezing. Brother-in-law made dinner and served us tea and coffee, which was nice.

When I returned home I got worked up about my sister's smoking in the house, my 13 year old niece having started to smoke 'in secret', stealing their tobacco (which they care about more than her health), et cetera. For all the criticism my sister has on our mother, she's sure turning into her in quite a few areas.
'cough' high horse 'cough'
It's such a karmic bird's nest of issues and ego. I need to withdraw my energy and nose-poking from their family business. Nothing I can do or say.
And since I'm clueless when it comes to kids, I also don't know how to tell my niece she's not alone. I saw her staring out the window.
I recognized that look. Everything revolves around her mother and there's no room for her feelings.
I must withdraw. As from politics guzzling, it's all so addictive and no-one benefits. They have their... things to deal with, I have mine. My butting in doesn't change anything for the better.
It's a nice illusion, to clench my fists and pretend I have control over what happens in the world. I don't.
I allowed my anger, then cried, and probably will again.

Anyway. I ceremoniously handed my brother-in-law the "40"-tie and nobody let snot get in the way of eating the HUGE chocolate cake I had made.
While I was washing my armpits I accidentally coughed on the family's four brand new toothbrushes, which I thought was hilarious. (Of course I poured some boiling water on them later, no harm no foul.)

When I got back, I immediately got a lot better. My weakness is other people.


Tuesday 21 February

Yielding for a long time felt like losing, admitting defeat.
Only natural after a lifetime of being pushed over and picked on and fighting for the right to exist. When yielding seems appropriate, old instincts fire up, ready for battle.
But yielding comes from strength. It's mostly small dogs who feel a need to bark and attack.

- been consciously embracing my anger and my inner aßßhole.

- told sis lots of stuff about our past she doesn't remember, and also about my urges at the time, how 'nature' beat 'nurture', thank God. About how very wrong things could have gone, had I given in to those urges.
First time I told her. All this while I was massaging her arms, legs, butt, back, shoulders, for hours on end (she's still bedridden).
Naturally there is no 'wrong', and things couldn't have turned out any other way, but you know, for conversation's sake.

- she told me something I didn't remember, which was a white van full of nuns picking us up when we were hitchhiking to Paris or some other city with a train station.
We were tiny, we were on a holiday in the south of France with our mother and her boyfriend, we fled after he put us through some horrific shit and the only thing my sister remembers which I don't, is being given a ride by a van full of nuns, and the nun driving wearing 80's Madonna-style sunglasses.
She remembers wondering whether nuns were allowed to wear something like that. It made a big impression.
Frustrating that I didn't remember something like that! (Especially with all the Louis de Funès films we watched on tv at the time.)
It rang true though.

- still able to give her massive amounts of Reiki, despite the wall of SNOT.


Wednesday 22 February

Discussing by text what could be true about our differing memories. Sis asked our mother what happened and she had a detail to add that also rings true: she took his wallet when we fled, which explains the overnight stay in a hotel with croissants and jam in the morning.
That croissant is as clear in my mind as the nun's sunglasses in my sister's, such a luxury.
What came back to me was that I was continuously humming "Sur le pont d'Avignon" without knowing what it meant.
On some points we remember different things: my mother says we 'went to the bathroom' in a restaurant and slipped out the back door, which is much scarier, and in my memory we fled the cabin when he was elsewhere.
The detail in itself is not that important, but reading the other version made me nauseous.
I've been trying to recreate that puzzle by recounting what I know for sure, as sure as one can be about memories. But doing so also creates a rut, a trail in which the wheels are kept on track, the same track over and over.
Other memories get lost by the wayside like that. Veering off the track made me nauseous. I try not to repeat these memories too often for fear of that rut deepening and losing lots of colorful stuff.
Hopefully by the time I start writing I will have full and unencumbered access to everything.
---
This was my aßßholistic approach to February 2017.

A hole in the ground

Opinions coming out of my ears. Constantly choosing one thing over another, liking this, condemning that, and so on.

Coming to grips with around 40% of the world population being aßßholes. That's their role, the part they play on the world's stage.
Why fight against the existence of aßßholes? They make the world go round. It's their job.
Without them no duality, no struggle, no carnival of good and evil.

It's so hard to be sincere in writing, the moment my fingers touch the keyboard, or the tip of the pen touches the page, my sincerity is out the window.
The hardened mask of the old days is gone, but there's a veneer in place that only breaks when I'm completely overwhelmed by being around people and I burst into tears. Then I'm real, for an instant. But that's not the way I want it to be (again: preferences and dislikes).
I'd like to be capable of sincerity without all the drama and falseness leading up to it. Even if it's only for myself, writing with my pen in a paper notebook no-one will ever see.
It is hard to be honest with yourself, but that's where it all starts. Why is it so hard? I know it is from experience, but why?
To me it used to feel as a matter of life and death, not being accountable for anything; any kind of criticism felt as an attack on my very being. So why criticize myself?
Obviously it's different now, because without stern looks into my motives and thought-processes, where would I be?
Completely stagnant, as I have been for the whole of January, at least that's what it felt like. Until I saw the documentary.
It made me feel sick and I knew that was a good thing, because it shook me up, rattled me.
Let's not start wishing for the grand version, for authenticity around others, that will come when ready. First be honest to yourself.
First first first. Everything else, every other form of authenticity will follow from there. That's your point of origin. Start there.
Face all, because you're able to, you can, you are strong enough now. No one can condemn you if you don't.

And now a little gratitude to the aßßholes is in order.
Thank you, aßßholes, because without you, I would be stagnant.

Precedented

Watched a Louis Theroux documentary about Jimmy Savile in which he tries to find out how it was possible that he missed the man's secret in his first documentary about him, how so many people were fooled by that man, even though the signs were there for all to see, even in Louis' own documentary.
The inappropriate behavior, no respect for other people's (women's) boundaries, ongoing comments about beautiful girls, trying to touch them even on camera, not caring, knowing his fame and influence shielded him, protected him from serious investigations.
Sound familiar?
Louis seems truly affected by it, although he is extremely hard to read, by the knowledge that he too was fooled by that man, manipulated by him for years.
At some point he tries to unfairly shift the burden of guilt he seems to feel onto a woman who worked for a newspaper and knew about Savile's predatory behavior thirty years ago - he had groped a girl in a hospital who was paralyzed from the waist down, grabbed her you know what.
He asks her why she didn't write about it, tell the police about it, and she responds by saying how famous he was, how connected he was - who would believe her? - and that libel laws were severe.
I like Louis Theroux a lot and can understand his frustration, but if he really thought it would have made a difference and might have prevented all the later victims, by now he probably knows better.
What happens when you come out with a story like that about someone rich and famous and connected is that he becomes president and calls you a liar.
People turn a blind eye to anything they don't want to see.
Or they make it small and unimportant.
As one woman says in the documentary: she was used to sexual abuse and wasn't surprised or shocked at all when Savile started abusing her when she was a little girl (in  church!), that's just what men did in her experience. And in mine.
I tried to watch Netflix tonight, but I couldn't stop thinking about the documentary. It has really gotten to me and I had to write something about it.
Sexual abuse is so ingrained in our lives that it's almost normal. And there comes Louis with his pleasant, calm voice and speaks to this woman who has suffered so much abuse and only then do I feel that it is not normal.
I have lived with so many memories that were bothering me but were downplayed as jokes or not worthy of 'making a big fuss about', or 'stop whining', that I haven't really felt them, experienced them, let them in so I could release them.
Louis' documentary caused a nauseous feeling in my gut, the same kind as I felt when I saw and heard the Access Hollywood-tape for the first time, but less intense. Thát was a real punch to the gut, I felt sick after that, for hours. The same sick feeling as when molested.
I'm grateful for men like Louis Theroux, who want to see and who make me feel like it's NOT normal, even though so many women and men voted it into the White House.
But I guess it's similar to all the sexual abuse stories about priests - the lengths people go to to protect the perpetrators, not the victims.
Promotions instead of arrests, more power instead of accountability.
At least I am reminded that this is not normal. Thank you, Louis.
By the way: taking responsibility for your own actions is very attractive in a man.

I probably got some details wrong, but I just needed to write something about this documentary.

Between hell and purgatory

is the name of an alley close to the medieval tower in my hometown. #true
-
Apparently terrified of being 'in the moment'.
Although I am extremely sensitive, or maybe because of it, I am a thinker and use layers and layers of thought to protect me from the world, the moment, from being.
It's all so loud and sharp and overwhelming and painful.
I was sitting in the sun with Cat on my lap, making a conscious effort to drag my thought-process back to the moment and I realized I am terrified of being here, now.

So much condemnation and admiration going on, preferences, dislikes, judgments, mental preparations or attempts thereof.
Lots of CNN watching again (the biggest soap-opera in the world right now). I want to be all clever and write about my theories but that's not going to help me want to live. This is the dark period after a decision talking, no doubt, but it still is what it is.
It has been dread in my gut, crowded in my head, including a head-ache that won't quit, and fatigue. Mostly dread and nervousness, like a dog that knows a visit to the vet is imminent.
It hasn't let up since the decision to let go of all bitterness, so I'm probably just going through all that's rising to the surface.

Dreams have gone back to normal, no more past life names and images. One dream in particular has stuck with me, because its meaning was so obvious, so in my face and true.

Walking along a boulevard at night, the sky over the sea is a neon purple, like in Los Angeles, and my love's hand joins mine while we watch the white moon glide in front of the white sun. 

He turns and heads for a lit window, he enters the building, voices and noise reach me from inside.
I walk to a manhole cover in the middle of the street and lower my legs into the cavernous space below. I support myself with my arms and feebly call for help.

I am dangling my body over this dark, shadowy space! I do this!
*The planets align for us to finally meet, but while he chooses company and life and light, I choose the sewer (Jed's vivid imagery is still very appropriate). Even though it's relatively clean and empty (tinge of pride there?), it's still a sewer.

I keep battling shadows in the sewer.
It doesn't seem possible for me to accept the world as it is, with all its violence and stupidity. Life is horrible and I can't wait for it to end. That's just how it is. And that's why I'm going for the one suicide that will stick. I do not ever want to come back.

Right, having said that, I am looking forward to the biggest cleanse of my life, some time after returning from a visit to my sister's (my brother in law is turning forty).
Two weeks of barely eating plus two weeks of juice and water and nothing else. No thinking about grocery shopping, cooking, eating, snacking, weight et cetera. It's wonderful having that off my mind. Creates space.
At the moment my mind is too crowded to get clarity.

Disclaimer:
Just so there's no mistaking what I said before: I will not ever commit physical suicide.
- I very much dislike pain; having it or causing it, to myself or anyone else.
- I don't want there to be any possibility of having to come back.
Even if I didn't have all these personal experiences that tell me reincarnation is a fact of life, I wouldn't want to risk it.
Whether it's ego suicide, or soul suicide, or whatever name is most appropriate, I don't care, it's all I have.

(*) Weird: apparently there is some kind of rare planetary alignment going on which ends the day after tomorrow. Didn't know that until just now.