A Saturday

a saturday

i am sitting in my box office. my dear coworker just gave me a little something to eat. i had a chill day. got some errands done: bought a cute sundress and sent some international mail for j.

i also met my ukranian friend that i haven't seen in half a year. so many things happened in our lives. she had kept it a secret to me that she had had a tumour in her brain. only now that it has successfully been removed she told everybody. how brave of her... she is doing her master's and studies in a different city. she got several scholarships and is a very strong and knowledgable young woman. she is just a year older than me but she is so far ahead. she took much responsiblity for her sister, with whom she flew to this country by herself. i had met her through facebook through a group for looking for friends. she is a quiet and calm girl. we are not the best friends but i appreciate her a lot.

she had joined me in my office for some time, because we couldn't make it to meet before my shift would start. but working here is just so chill. i updated her about everything: my time in the us in september, my very lonely winter back here, my fling with the actor, my time in the us this year, my new boyfriend js. who will visit me from tuesday on (!!!!), my new job, my new living situation, the thing with my lecturer... i always rather have many things going on i guess. other than her unfortunate tumour she did not have too many pieces news. but she has a new student assistant job! so cool! her job would be my dream! she for example is involved in organising a conference that one of the professors i adore is a key note speaker at! perhaps i will visit her in her city and join the conference as a passive listener. side note: when we were sitting together in my office my former fling a. walked by hastily. i know there was no reason for him to walk by me. he just wanted to show himself to me. it was the first time we had encountered after three months...

j. is watching eurovision with his wife tonight. he invited me to join mass tomorrow morning. i would love to, but spontanously got invited to join the rowing people, which i am also looking forward to. i will also pick up a bike i got second hand for js. it will be a surprise for him. it really just wouldn't make sense for him to live here without a bike. one really needs it to get around well. oh and my mother will visit me tomorrow to take most of the things i have in my dorm room back home to her flat. and well, it's also mother's day... i didn't get her anything. i guess seeing her, being nice to her and hopefully not having a fight is the best that could actually happen.

i didn't read much today, neither did i study at all. but in general i am rather happy. i was riding my bike through the sunny streets. wearing my quirky shirt that reads "that girl". my hair blowing in the wind. i know i looked nice.

js. will be here so soon... i missed him. in the last days both of us have just been so horny. i have a feeling my life will feel very much complete once he has arrived. i will take him to all the nice bars and cafés, we will spend so much time laying in the sun reading, riding our bikes together. i really hope we will keep liking each other as much as we do and only grow together even more. of course, we were living the honey moon phase back in america. now that i have this huge challenge of having to balance studying and spending time with him i hope it will only continue in a good way... we will see!

the first week of the summer semester

my wonderful side blog got flagged. i don’t even know why :(

hihi

my new life

after the guests had departed, j. collapsed in relief saying “dear god, i survived it!”. this poor old man had accommodated those two incredibly messy fifty something year olds,

one of which was his son who came to visit from barcelona, the other his son’s best friend visiting from london. they knew each other from university in london, from when they studied computer science. both of them extreme nerds. neither of them had their own children, neither of them a girlfriend or wife. j.’s son has a horrible lisp and just a very weird character, he seems pretty much of an idiot, but today i learned that apparently he’s extremely good in maths. well, with the chap from london i get along rather well. he had hosted me for a few days in his house in south wimbledon in winter of 2022. he’s all into all kinds of conspiracies and very much of a modern hermit. well, many of my own views on society are somewhat against the mainstream i’d say and i certainly feel somewhat of an urge to become a (real) hermit myself one day. unlike that bloke i do want to rely on science and stay rational in order to understand society, that’s why in the end i decided to study social sciences (and law). however though, he has a good sense for absurdism and sarcasm, which makes him fun to engage with to me. anyway. i managed to limit my interactions with our guests to the very least. and i cannot complain, i got invited for very good dinners three times the past week. 

the first time was just after rowing class. my technique had gotten much better already, unfortunately though the people i was rowing with were rather bad, which was kind of frustrating. a funny thing that happened that evening before dinner was how i had met my boss from the theatre on the way to rowing class, then just 1 minute later i had met another person i knew: a guy i used to live with in that big communal house, a very much of a hipster architect guy. and then when we were rowing on the canal one lady walking her dog laughed at us and shouted at our cox “yeah, you gotta know how to handle your people”... she was very drunk. and she was also somebody i know: a woman that had worked at the theatre but just recently been fired and completely banned from it. but mpre about dinner: we had it with j., two of his sons, his other son was coming to visit from munich but was staying with his mother (who just lives a few streets away from j.), that british guy, j.’s wife (and mother of his other son) and their friend who shares the same name with j. wife. the person i got along most with from this group is definitely j. son with his other wife. that boy is in his early thirties, is doing his phd and is just very funny and silly. there is always an interesting tension between us. weirdly enough allegedly he has never had a girlfriend so some people think he’s gay, just j. seems not to realise that. i think the best proof for him being gay really was when for christmas 2022 one of his male friends joined us. it basically was like introducing him to the family. b. and me were invited for that dinner and it was just so funny. anyway, i just find this tension between me and him so interesting, because it does not at all feel like he’d really be gay. i find him to be rather attractive and cute and could very much imagine being with him (and him liking that even (which is the point)). well, i was also the first real girlfriend of b. when he was 34 so who knows apparently i just do something to the guys, lol. dinner that evening was fun though, we were in a lebanese restaurant.

and then, friday j.’s other, older son and the british guy invited me to an indian restaurant, which was ever so entertaining. they acted like two nerdy boys, discussing wildly what they wanted to order for half an hour. i suspect that both of them certainly are very much neurodiverse in one way or another. i didn’t care about their weird behaviour though. i was getting invited and that was all that counted. afterwards we went to an old irish pub, a very fancy establishment really. the british guy wanted to get me drunk i realised that. i drank two guinness. and i enjoyed being drunk with them. especially with the british guy. i know, i am sick. throughout the evening we talked about modern times regarding artificial intelligence, social media, influencers, tracking and surveillance. they asked me how i perceived all of that, me being their representative of all of the “gen z”. 

and then there was yesterday’s dinner. i had first gone to work my first real little shift at the bar i am working at nowadays. it was for a cocktail course for a bachelorettes party. about 20 drunk women in their early thirties. very fun. normally i’d somehow be put off by their annoying noises and hysterical laughter. but that was past me. i realised how much i adored their dynamics. i saw girlhood. It was sweet and most of them seemed to really be enjoying themselves. But it was certainly testing my extraversion. People tend to think i am very extrovert, but this is not the case at all. I get bubbly when i am with one person i really like and i can put on a mask for limited social interactions in public. But when it comes to staying all out going in an environment like that… its just so incredibly draining and uncomfortable. I will really have to train myself to have a “work personality” there that i can use, because the only other way to endure this in the long run would be to drink alcohol myself. But that would make me an addict real quick. But i know that i will manage. That job will really make me a cool and relaxed young woman. I will be so happy to meet plenty of edgy hipster kinda people working there, have some flirts, get some tips and be physically exhausted in the end (with i really like to be and am not too often). Of course this is more than just a slight romantisation of the job, but i realised it really is about how you approach things like that. Working in the bakery or working at the horse’s stable was also not easy at all, but if you got the right attitude towards those things, you can always have a good time, which i always had. Plus i get paid!.. Ok, so i arrived j.’s place, which from now on i will just call home, because it is just that for me at the moment. J., his youngest son and the british guy were sitting in “my room”, the living room. It was 7.30, the other son was in the kitchen preparing the dinner on his own, he was a good chef. Sitting down with them in the living room was a pleasure. They were talking about “birding” (a new hobby of j.’s son describing bird watching and recognizing competitively) and the new smoking rules in england. I realised how both the young man and the middle aged man were just so into me, observing me a lot. I liked that. When i had mentioned my new job, the younger son asked for where exactly i was working. Turns out he had been at the opening party of that bar 8 years ago, conforming how nice of a bar it is… It’s a pity i don’t see j.’s younger son too much. I had only seen him that christmas before. I think we could be great friends. He seems rather cool, relaxed but yet fairly intellectual. Well, his wonderful parents, both having been professors, made it possible for him to go to one of the prestigious english schools. What i don’t like about him though is that he just acts so snobby and it’s obvious that he likes being a snob. Which is… rather ignorant. It’s also a pity he didn't join us for dinner, because unfortunately he is very vegetarian, just as his mother and the lamb we were eating was very much not vegetarian. I did not get to say bye to him today as well. But i know i left a lasting impression. I had changed since last christmas and also now am proving myself being a good help for his father. 

Dinner was ready shortly after eight. The other seventy something year old friend that had joined dinner on thursday had now joined again. We were sitting at the big dining table in j.’s hallway. The new lilies i had bought for j. I had placed on the table. This week, they were blossoming beautifully. The scent made you drunk. I sat next to j. and opposite to us the two men and the lady. i realised throughout the dinner that she was just so into the british fellow. Though she herself was married to a frenchman. Throughout the evening she struggled keeping up with our conversations. Her english is not too bad but the accents and slangs of all those three guys can be somewhat hard to understand if you are not a native or just not very used to hearing brits talk. Living with j. I feel more like living in england than in my own country. Which is ever so nice. The food yesterday was also very splendid. Lamb, some veggies and plenty of red wine and later bourbon. The visiting brit again tried subtletly to make me drunk. Perhaps it appeared i was drunk, since at some point i spilled my glass of wine onto my pants. But i wasn’t much, that was just me being really clumsy as always unfortunately. After dinner the people were sitting together for quite some time, discussing about family issues, basically bullshitting and perhaps having fun. I was eventually getting bored and decided to withdraw. At some point during dinner i had chatted with b. He said how blessed i was, how my peers would not get to have such nice interactions. And well, i have to agree dinner parties like that are rather exclusive and nice, but the people were not too interesting to interact with in general. Except j. Of course. He is the most interesting, intellectually stimulating and wise person i know. I wish i knew more people like that but that will eventually happen if i keep surrounding myself with good and rather intellectual (or let’s say bourgeois) circles like that.

I think my new hobby of rowing will open some doors for me in this regard eventually. Prospectively i would like to one day pick up on tennis again, which i used to play very well when i was very young. Those habits of playing certain sports or knowing your culture really open doors here! If i dress bougie, which i do naturally, i appear just to be one of them easily. And it can be just so helpful. Of course, all of this might come off as incredibly shallow, but i don’t really think it is. All of those things i do, i’d do also if i wouldn’t want to get to know more people like them. Rowing is just so nice, tennis i also very much enjoyed and i long to indulge myself into the arts anyways. I am not doing those things just for the sake of seeming interesting or as a networking possibility. But that might just be a pleasant side effect. 

What i know is that i cannot just live like my parents do nowadays. Both of them have never travelled as much in their lives as i have already. Of course i have to be grateful being able to do so, partly just because of them. Though what i critise is their rather “limited mind” or mindset. They are not interested in culture or anything that’s going on really. They stamp those things as being bougie and pretentious. But did it ever cross their minds that people express their ordinary and very human emotions and experiences through the arts. Why is that bougie?! Well, what i know is that j. Has been living such an incredibly cosmopolitan and intellectual life that made him as wise and humble as he know is. And that’s what i want for myself. It is refreshing to spend time with people like that, because they give me hope that i can also achieve that one day. Instead of living a life that is rather very limited and in my eyes extremely boring. i am really not trying to seem ungrateful. I just know that i am made for more than just that and i want to believe that i have influence in where i end up in life, at least to a certain degree. Learning languages, reading books, seeing movies, putting effort into studying, being informed, working hard, travelling, getting into therapy and somehow expressing myself and my thoughts are the things that i can really do, will do and in fact, am doing already. 

And with my new partner (i think it is appropriate to call him that already) it seems i made another great step into being on the right path of what i want in life. He is just such a pure and gentle man. Seemingly hungry for consuming the arts and striving for something bigger in his life. Though he is not sure what exactly that will be, I believe in him. He is charming, talented, intelligent and strong. I don’t think there is anything he couldn’t do. His brother proved that this family is capable of greatness. He is almost forty and a neuroscientist, who went to harvard, being part of the society of fellows. he and his wife seemingly have a good life, recently bought a house, keeping a few little ugly but funny dogs. his wife seems interesting to me, since she also grew up an equestrian like me. But she was even more serious about it, having been a national american athlete at some point. It’d be cool to get to know them at some point. And even more of a pleasure to build a similarly cool life with the brother of them that i got to have the pleasure of calling my partner. 

As most of all the times my conclusion is: i am on a good track. I just have to work hard now. Limit the meaningless distractions to the least. Thats why i deinstalled tumblr from my phone and that i want to live unbothered by other people and be disciplined and humble. When i do all of those things and manage to stay kind and cool, i will be able to be really satisfied with what i do. The past two weeks i improved in all of those aspects notably already. I am happy about that. From now on, university really gets serious. The next weeks will be very challenging my discipline. I have spent the afternoon of friday of establishing daily routines that i want to stick to. I just love that. And i also love my personal organisation and the fact that notion, the program i use to organise my studies and other big parts of my life, has recently been updated to have an own calendar. What a dream!. the pattern of my new life is the picture i attached on the left. of course it's very much idealised, and i will not stick to most of it (basically the very light parts) all the time. Still, it’s nice to have an overall orientation. 

On another note, js. Met his father in nyc yesterday. He hadn’t seen him in 4 years. He wanted to meet him before visiting me. I am very proud of him for taking courage. His father doesn’t work, a neurological disorder has been discovered in him, so he is receiving grants regarding that. In the past he had been abusing drugs a lot. He's always been an artist and about 15 years ago he even had somewhat of a successful career. Just before he moved to the city. Js. mother thinks that he lost his courage then… js. And him first went to a diner and then went to the movies. He was keeping me up to date all the time. 

it is less than a month that we will be reunited. today i officially signed my new work contract. i am in the library now, it's 2pm and my day has not been ideal yet. but i will read and write for uni and make the most of it.

! spring !

i am nobody

yes, i know i am whining and complaining. but this is what my thoughts look like.

today i woke up at 3:30am still very much jetlagged, been awake ever since. my thoughts spiraling in a loop - sometimes euphorically good, soon to be horribly pessimist and hopeless. i am not diagnosed as anything, but i have been feeling like this for about 5 years. my thoughts tell me i am not worth the opportunities that i have, the things that i own, the space that i occpuy. i cannot escape. it slows me down, it makes me sleep in every day, it makes me get nothing done. is this a depression? i wish to do therapy.

before i departed to the us i tried to make some effort to get a place. i went to free a womens' counselling center. after briefly explaining my personal history the woman who listened to me soon but very clearly said that i need trauma therapy. and she also made clear that this center would not be able to help me with that. i would need to get in touch with psychologists and hope to be put on waiting lists. being on those waiting lists can take a long time. so far i did not have the energy to really contact psychologists and go to "first contact meetings". i will have to do it now. i cannot keep living like this. it has been three years that i finished high school, that officially i have been "studying", though i have not collected many credits yet at all. i am in my fourth semester now, but technically still in my first year. it's a pity because studying was all i ever wanted to do. what i am studying is also what i am interested in. i just cannot stop thinking that i am too dumb, that everybody else is much better, that i should already stop now and "actually do some real work". i hate myself for thinking like this, because i know it's not true. i just have to silence those thoughts and just fucking work. just. work. i cannot give up, after not even having achieved anything. all i ever felt like doing was writing, reading, researching, being an academic. it feels like the ideal life to me.

i somehow "managed" to make my friends circle people who can be considered high achievers i guess. my very ex boyfriend is a fellow at yale and will change to harvard soon. a postdoc. another one just handed in his phd in cambridge. okay, those people are much older than me. but also, i feel so silly amongst them. who am i? what did i acomplish in those years? i travelled to many countries and worked many jobs. academically did little. but was always interested. attended talks and discussions, organised events myself. now i have been in three board positions, but did not contribute anything at all. some people would call it impostor syndrome. but who am i to feel like an impostor. who am i to publicly speak on issues? to write on issues? i know absolutely nothing and am ashamed of taking part in this stupid self promoting political youth organisation's game. i feel like i just want to lock myself away for the next years and just read. just shut up and read and learn. i do not want to speak out! i am too dumb and know too little to say anything about the state of the world. being part of those organizations i am forced to have opinions. but i do not want to have opinions. there is nothing i am sure of and i am not ready to pretend i had a clue. all people around me seem to have fixed opinions and ideas. i envy them. i am not saying they are right, but at least they know what ideology to follow, they know how to categorize things and deal with what they consume. for me, everything seems possible and plausible.

i am stuck in reconsidering and contemplating what matters. whether i should really put myself down for not having achieved anything, because in the end, does it matter if i have a bachelor's at 21 or at 23?! the performer people around me make me feel like it does. all the do and be is revolving around career. knowing somebody who has the most ideal academic career ever (being a researcher at yale and harvard for fucks sake!!) i know that even those people struggle with the most basic ass shit. b. does not get paid well at all after studying all his life. after never dating, after travelling little. sure he works at those institutions, but still he worries every single day. actually i will now help him to find housing in boston. what i am saying is not that i do not want to become an academic, but the fact that i should be aware that those worries seem to never ever stop. another of my friends works at a lobbyist at the european parliament. he's 25 and cannot stop complaining about his boring life. he's got a masters but hates what he does. he lives in the bougiest part of brussels but cannot wait to break out of this life.

there are so many thoughts in my head. i am thinking i should not worry. i am very flexible and need little to be happy. basically just a nice little coffee a day, my bike, good movies, books and the newspaper to read. i can adapt easily to new sorroundings and make friends everywhere. why should i worry about my existence at all? i keep making good conncections that give me jobs, keep meeting interesting people, keep travelling nice places. i am very proactive, why would a person like me worry about being homeless and hopeless? about not getting a job? isn't this extremly unreasonable?? shouldn't i just fucking concentrate in what i am doing right now. in actually gathering credits, finally progressing in my studies and trying to save some money? yes, that is what i should do. what i have been trying to do for three years. but my thoughts kill me. i do manage to do well the first month of each semester, but in the end i lose all self confidence, stop showing up, not even writing the exams.

if i just had more self confidence. i should just be more delusional. more hopeful. i have to romantisize every day life. i have to stay persistent. i have to stop parttaking in silly consumerism and materialism. and with that i also regard travelling around. one of my favourite quotes of seneca of a letter to lucilius i had to translate in high school is "tecum sunt quae fugis". those you escape from are with you. it's true. i have to stop wandering around, losing myself in the world. pretending to be somebody i am not. my only duty is to acquire knowledge, read the books i already have, work hard, be humble and kind. the coffees are something i can allow myself as a little treat and reminder to keep going. in the end, still a better addiction than cigarettes, alcohol or whatever else there be. talking of addictions, i also deinstalled instagram again today. i did not deactivate it, in order to occasionally check what my friends send me. but i have to stop scrolling. it made my brain melt. and i wasted my youth on my phone already. i hate myself. and i hate that my parents are so smartphone addicted themselves. when i was home for easter i got so sad seeing how my sister, two years younger than me, is a complete and literal ipad kid. how my mother got insulted by me saying that i do not want to eat at a table where people scroll on their smartphones. it should be the biggest warning for me.

living with j. now, the old english gentleman who embodies a lifestyle that is the exact opposite of my mother's, i hope to have more motivation to live more in the moment and work hard. there are no excuses for me anymore. i have done it all. i shall stop whining and start putting actual effort really. i should get my life under control, seek therapy. i feel like once i actually manage to live less of a consumerist lifestyle, but more of a humble hard working one, i will actually be able to be happy of who i am. i will make the best of my circumstances though things might fail.

and the most important attributes of who i want to be despite hard working are being humble, kind and forgiving. the country i am living in is notoriously infamous for being rude. and it's true. people here are impolite and harsh for no reason and i always struggled with it, though i was born here. i much more enjoyed how people are like in england or the us. people make small talk, people give compliments. i voiced this to js. once before saying how much i fear going back home getting my sould crushed by this every day rudeness. he said i should try to "be the change". i live by that now. no matter what happens to me, i shall stay kind and content. people here are just like that and i should not take it personally. it's hard though, but i cannot let my thoughts and energy get wasted by getting irritated by strangers, carrying resent. this is something y. had critisized about me before.

so yeah - i feel like i know all of what i need to know. at least regarding what i should do. i know what i did wrong, i know how i can change. i just have to fucking do it now. i have to stay persistent, have to stay passionate.