The things we don't say

Recently I thought a lot about words that are never spoken, secrets that are never spilled and truths that are hidden behind lies. We are not talking about harmful things or bulling, but those tender moments that happen so often that we might miss them; those words between the lines that need to be looked for in order to be found.

First of all, I think nice things should always be said. When I was younger sometimes when I couldn't sleep I imagined having a terminal illness. I don't know why, it's the stupidest any healthy teenager can come up with but I kind of had this scenario in my head. I always wondered what I would do and I imagined writing letters to my loved ones. Soon I realized though, that when thinking about that I barely thought of my family. I love them and they know that. I wouldn't need so many words to explain them because it is plain visible. The people I thought more of where the ones I couldn't just express it as easily: the girl in my class who was funny, good looking and creative. My crush who I knew had many issues in his life, my dearest friends that I would never be able to thank enough for all the memories, this guy who literally is my best friend and so on.

Of course I never wrote those letters, I kept those thoughts to myself and stored them, only releasing tiny bits once in a while. When I grew older though I realized just how much it meant to me hearing similar words that I thought but this time about me. Being truly appreciated for little things, being acknowledged, even cherished... It feels amazing. I started taking screenshots of cute messages, word documents full of texts, pictures of gifts and so on. For a change I wanted to store good things said about me, to take them out again when I didn't feel good, during those though times that will find you every once in a while.

On the other hand I've decided to tell the people around me that they are brilliant. Sometimes I will not use the words "you are cool" or "I like you" simply because that might not always be the way to communicate. I have friends who I'm mostly using sarcasm with, so sometimes "You are a twat/idiot/stupid" means "I really appreciate your existence". I also assume that for some people around me it's exactly the same. A while ago I had a short talk with a friend of mine and she told me about her fear of missing out and having lost friends due to missing out in the past. I told her to look around and realize that even though she was away for a while, she still gets teased and made fun of from our friends, which clearly is their way of saying "it's like you never left", maybe even with a pinch of "we've missed you".

Someone once told me that behind every word of irony, there is a hidden agenda; something bad that we are afraid to show. At first I shrugged it off, knowing that I have used sarcasm multiple times for nothing more than a joke. On the other hand I do remember times and times when my words where true, but hidden behind irony. Maybe it's true that we are afraid to declare our admiration for someone because it might sound cheesy, but it could also just be that after a while the words "I like you" have lost so much value that we don't feel comfortable using them anymore. It could also be that we say some things that way, in order to conceal what we feel. It's not always appropriate to express your opinions; it can actually make people uncomfortable. I used to have this habit with my best guy friend in school to write each other the cheesiest birthday messages whilst not saying things like that during the year. I have found one of these messages recently and it made me so happy.

Yes I have tried to hide things behind a wall of sarcasm "of course I have a crush on him" would probably be the most used in high school (my classmates would not stop bugging me about this guy and I didn't want to talk about it so by adding a pinch of irony I made them think it wasn't true). Maybe it also was "I'm fine" (which is plain stupid. I started being honest about how I'm actually doing upon hearing this question, feels way better).

My life is an open book and that's the way I want it to be. There are very few things that I wouldn't share with my friends and even fewer that I keep all to myself (at least as long as we speak about my things. I don't spill other people's secrets). Still, sometimes it's not what you say; it's how you say it. It might be better to let action speak, or it might just be about the packaging, how you express your thoughts. Whatever you do, try to speak out the good words, keep the nice ones you receive and forget about the rest.

Maybe this was just my way of saying "sarcasm is good", or between the lines I just wanted to express "I freaking love the people around me so much, they make my life so lovable" without sounding too stupidly obvious. It's also possible that I just thought too much about those words left unspoken, that I really wish I could say, but probably never will ;)


Cheerio.

On living in the friendzone

During the last time the topic of handsome male individuals has been discussed quite a lot with different fellow females of mine. The whole thing itself might never get old but sometimes it’s way more relevant than other times, you know? Well there is something that nowadays goes hand in hand with the other gender and it has scared thousands of young people to no end …. The friendzone (*insert dramatic music*). As a resident of the internet I've been familiar with this term for a while now, but as it has found its way to the real world I decided that it was time to express my viewpoint on the whole issue, so here we go.

First of all, my opinions have been formed by three men, two of which kind of frienzoned me and one I got my payback, even though you’ll see how well that one turned out later. I learned a lesson from each one of them and I wouldn't trade those lessons for anything, because it changed my opinion for the better or worse. I have to admit though that neither of the two guys who put me in the friendzone knew at the time what they were doing because I would've never been bold enough to express my feelings towards them. Mostly it was just reality slapping me in the face. Besides I seem to be quite good at giving love advice when all I do is relate to my own experience and say how not to do it, so spilling my secrets here might be useful or something.

So let’s begin with my best guy friend from school. I had feelings for him since day one when I met him. Of course it started out as only a crush, but my feelings stayed the same for one and a half year. After that time it happened that we became friends. Now I believe that friendship between males and females is quite possible, but it’s just as possible for one of them to starts wanting to be more than friends. As added before, I did like him for longer than we were actually friends. I was hoping that friendship would develop into a mutual love, but this never happened. There would be way more to that story than that but enough about it.

Nowadays I’m more than relieved that he never liked me. I’m not only speaking about the fact that during our last year at school he came out as gay, but also I see just how bad he treated all of his past relationships, his girlfriends, as well as the one boyfriend I knew. I also understand that I had a special status in his life as his best female friend and that I’m still grateful for that time. In addition to that,  I told him about my past feelings one day whilst being a little too tipsy and seeing as our friendship ended soon after I also learned that sometimes keeping your mouth shut is good. On the other hand I also know that telling him was the right decision and I’m freaking proud for expressing that, even though it was months after.

The next guy was the one I friendzoned and again, so much to learn from him. Firstly, I’ll be gladly ignored by guys for the rest of my life if that means avoiding breaking someone’s heart ever again. I felt awful, as if I did something wrong, when all that happened was that I met a cool guy at a camp, we had a lot of fun talking to each other and I saw him as something like a brother (brother-in-Christ-zoned right there) and he thought we could be more. I can still see myself sitting on that bench when he asked me if I had a boyfriend (followed by the question « do you want one ». Classic). I was shocked. To this day he is the only guy to openly address feelings for me, so I always count him as a plus one for my ego. Apart from that I just have to say that being on the other side hurt way more. I didn't want to cause him any trouble and yet I did. It took me two whole years to be able to interact with him normally again, not because he held onto me or anything but because I kept pushing myself down. Stupid me. We don’t see each other regularly (we never did actually) but when we do it’s not awkward anymore (it really helps that there has been loads and loads of time between everything).

The third guy is my most recent “loss”. Luckily again it’s something from the past. I have this friend that I used to have a crush on for a while. Then all of a sudden we kept talking more, deeper and more honest with each other. I started interpreting a lot because I only saw what I wanted to see and felt like he was giving me hints, treating me special and all that. In the end he was just a good guy. Now there is this danger with nice guys (and we don’t talk about those who are secretly shit, abusing the fact that girls can be lulled into something, but the genuinely nice guys). Now when reality did hit me and I understood that there has never been anything between me and him, I caught myself thinking “it’s ok, it wasn't his intention to hurt me, I’m fine”. Well I was not fine, I had my hopes up very much and I needed a lot of "therapy sessions" with some good friends, some pride & prejudice watching, black nail polish and loads and loads of sweets to feel alright again. I had to tell myself that even though it was not what he wanted, he did hurt me and that feeling hurt was ok. Again, pain sometimes demands to be felt.

The second difficulty lies in the fact that you might put that person above you. Seeing that he didn't do anything wrong I had to take good care of myself not to start thinking stuff like “I’m not good looking enough, not smart enough, I only talk about irrelevant things, I’m a total bore. It's obvious that a guy like him could never have feelings for a girl like me”, all that kind of nonsense. I had to try my hardest not to feel inferior to him. To be honest I still think he is a cool dude, but I’m pretty rad myself. Just because we didn't seem to be a good fit didn't mean much after all. Plus let’s see it like that: there is this guy who’s existence I really appreciate and he thinks I’m alright too, seeing as we are friends. I mean for me that’s something, some sort of mutual respect for each other. Yes I was hoping for more than that but being friendzoned is better than just being a stranger in someone’s life that you actually really much would like to be a part of, isn't it?

I’m just happy that I could deal with that without him knowing, as I’m not totally sure how he (and possibly some people around him) would've taken it. A friend of mine once said that he didn't need to know that someone had a crush on him until he had feelings for her too. I kind of get that point oh so well, love can ruin a healthy friendship, sometimes for no good reason at all. I have managed not to lose a friend that I very much wanted to keep, especially once my romantic feelings started to faint. Besides, I’m now expecting someone even better to come along, so here’s to that.

Yes, this has been a long post, but I’m not the person to keep a conversation about boys shorter than necessary. It’s just so much to say about them isn't there? I'm very happy that I could spare myself from one experience though, which is having to tell someone of the same gender that I'm not interested. A friend of mine had to do that once, and let me tell you, it was even more awkward. Genuinely the friendzone is a good place to be in, especially once things have settled a bit. Sometimes knowing the truth and dealing with it is better than wasting time and time chasing a guy that is not worth the try (due to various reason). Hope you agree?

Cheerio.

A working human being

For a very long time I have been obsessed with his idea that I would only find purpose in my own life as long as I was seen as useful by society. That's part of the reason why I felt so bad during my gap year, sitting home alone wasn't giving me that feeling of satisfaction I was looking for. On the other hand I'm not that typical hard working person. I know enough people who invest their everything in one or more parts of their life up to the point that I sincerely have to worry about them and stuff like their sleeping schedules. I've always been a bit on the lazy things when it comes to getting things done and I'm rocking whatever task, as long as I do it last minute.

I'm a responsible human and sometimes when things do not work out as planned I take the blame even though I shouldn't. When I'm upset over something I'll consider what the other people involved feel and I force myself not to be upset because on some level I can always relate to their pain. I simply force myself to be understanding, loving and caring, to a point where I can't handle it anymore, because I forget the most important person in my life, the one I’m supposed to look after the most.

I forget that most of my emotions are real, valuable, and that pain demands to be felt. I tend to oversee the fact that I value other people’s feelings, so why not mine? There is no need for getting past a problem before it is fully solved. Why fight the symptoms when I'm supposed to get to the cause first, to prevent further problems to arise. I hardly ever take medication, and it's even rarer that I take a tablet just because I'm having some sort of pain. I either now the source of it or I'll suffer through it without chemical help. 

There is this quote that I have told myself over and over again which says life is not about existing, or functioning, but about living. So just to be a working human being, a useful part of society isn't what my life should be about, still I always find myself forgetting that in moments of leisure and I decide to call myself lazy instead of taking that time off for myself. We are not robots, nor puppets, programmed to act a certain way, each individual is unique and reacts different.

I'm a full bag of emotions and when I decided to ignore that several years back, because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, they found a way to make me aware of it in new ways. All of a sudden, no previous warnings, I would get those awful waves of dizziness and terrible nauseas. I would not even comprehend the situation, why exactly, but after a while it was gone again. It took several month of this before it turned worse and I threw up on a regular basis, which caused me to eat less because I couldn't keep it down anymore, which caused more nausea as my body was aching for food that I wasn't able to eat due to raging nausea. Beautiful vicious circle. That started four years ago and it took me two years to get past it.

It's actually quite horrifying to have a body that feels like it can just stop working on you at any given time. I used to hate myself for what I looked like, then I worked on that because when you are as easily attacked as I am you don't need yourself pushing you down all the time. I even found a strange kind of optimism again that I was capable of fighting through it, which is probably gone by now, starved to death.

Now it's back since three months and I absolutely cannot fathom going through this once more, especially if I see how long it took me to get better. The worst part is I can't do anything anymore, at least that's how I feel. Last time I took some month off where I would still go to school, but apart from that I was merely looking for inner peace. Due to that I didn't go to a camp and I missed out on other fun activities out of sheer fear to be stressed out. Missing things you would’ve actually very much liked to do with people you very much love to spend time with is absolutely stupid. I felt so bad after such a day of being in, missing potentially making some beautiful memories with my friends, that it just added to my misery.

Today we have such a crap day once more. The guys from my youth group are organizing a LAN party (Pc-gaming) and I have literally been looking forward to it for weeks, if not months. I have practiced playing one of the games but this week my body decided to put me at my lowest again. It's currently almost 8:00 am; I've been awake since 5:30 with the highest possible amount of having slept two hours, probably less. My stomach is killing me so much that I can't imagine eating a lot today, which won't help myself tomorrow either. I wouldn't come far if I left the house and honestly, I feel too gross and low to be with them. I'm so frustrated and disappointed in myself that at six in the morning I started sending out prayer requests to some of my closest friends. Of course it's not about the party alone, it's about how I hate living my life so low profile that I don't get worked up, that's not a life worth living for. Besides, being excited for something causes a certain amount of stress and oh well, I don't like the idea of not looking forward to things anymore just so that I don't have to worry to be able to attend, that's stupid.

What am I supposed to do? Quit my responsibilities at youth group, stop working at the library, stay away from church, or quit university? (Jup more than half of my life is church, ok?) I don't have many things that I can cut down with and I don't consider doing it anyway, I refuse to give in. The pain of missing out would be worse than that.

On the other hand I need to get myself together once more. In a week's time I'll be in Mallorca again, and I assume that it will be exciting and exhausting, just like last year. With only a quarter of my energy level there is a high chance of me not being able to enjoy anything, and that sucks so bad I could cry. I feel like I'm in this hole in the ground and there is no other way out so I have to jump up to get to its edges and then use my strength to pull myself out. That sounds impossible to me. I have to think about that first, contemplating whether or not I'm able to face my demons once again and fight through. In the end I won't have any other possibilities, as just dropping dead doesn't seem to be an option. Besides, the first thing I'm doing now is trying to feel happy, because a good attitude fights those demons off like nothing else. Optimism, come back to me, I need you!

Yes I'm rambling, about a teeny tiny thing in comparison to other things happening in the world right now. Complaining is good though, it frees the spirit. I needed to be an egoist today and I might need to keep that up for a little longer, because I'm so bad at suffering in silence. Now at almost 10:00 I feel already a little better. I’ve talked with my brother about coping strategies because we suffer from the same problem occasionally, and as I decided against heading in to work today because it would've made everything worse, I might be able to change this day from horrible to ok, which would be amazing.

Thanks for reading through this if you did. I can hate on female stereotypes as much as I want, nothing helps myself like letting my worries out!

Hope you have a lovely day

Cheerio.

What do you want to do when you grow up

This question we all got asked hundreds and hundreds of times growing up. Last Wednesday I was at my old school's graduation as I still knew some people who just graduated and I just wanted to go back. The thing is, that there were quite some people that I used to talk to quite a lot and after leaving school I never heard of them again, so I just asked the small talk question probably everybody would, starting with "how are you doing?" and ending with "what do you want to do next?". 

Finishing school is the end of this very lengthy chapter of your life so far. I still remember how it felt, having spent two thirds of my life, most part of my conscious existence, in education and suddenly you are out in the open. What do you do? There are some real classics, taking a gap year, going to Australia or another country far away, learning a language, working, starting university... barely anyone I've talked to didn't have at least a hint of an idea what the next few month were going to hold for them. I mean, I was the same, the plan was very clear: finding a job, working, travelling, starting university the year after. That did not work out and I wasn't even surprised. I kind of knew that, as a chaotic person, life and I tend to have different ideas for the next step, but that is ok as long as there is a plan at all.

I get so terribly aimless when I don't want to achieve anything. There are people who are amazing just surfing on those waves that the ocean of life provides them with. I'm not. Even though I am lazy I always try to involve myself in, to have a say in it too, but that's not always what I'm supposed to do. If we stay with that surfing picture, there is the lying on your belly and chasing the wave just as much as the riding it. You need to practice until your body knows what to do without even thinking about it, until it's more of an instinct than a thought through act. That's when you'll do it the right way. (Disclaimer: I've never really surfed in my life except for the internet, but you know...)

Now when I look back to getting asked the title question as a child I can remember various jobs I wanted to do: doctor, lawyer, computer engineer, forensic assistant, high school math teacher and so on. All of these require years of studying and hard work, besides, most of them are natural sciences, which is not my cup of tea as I know now. As a kid we don't see it that way. I know that probably every second child in an American kindergarden wants to become the president of the United States. Probably no one is going to have the guts to tell those little ones that the chances are very very limited for them. 

When we are young we just dream, we don't see what it takes to get there, we just see the goal. Now that I'm older I should be different, I should be aware that the way I work as a human being, I can never have my dream job, because that's the truth. I've never believed in those seemingly obvious things though. A few month back I was at a camp were we talked about callings. A friend of mine who was leading that camp asked me to tell the story about how I discovered what I was called for. She is familiar with my story and I have told it over and over before, so it was no big deal. Whilst talking to that small crowd of about 20-30 people I realized an additional thing though. I did not just talk about how in a dream I saw that I was helping a prostitute get out of that business, and I thus realized that this was what I wanted to do, but also what speaking about my dreams has done to me.

I'm talkative and sharing. Usually when something bugs me people will know. My intentions are mostly clear; I'm an open book to read. By telling so many people about my job dreams I have given them the opportunity to see me fail. I dream big, I want to fly high, so the fall could be pretty awful. I know that at the age of twenty I could've done more, I could be further. I still have no idea how I will end up where I want to, if it's even possible for me or not. I don't know where it will take me. I've struggled so much recently with another part of my life that it starts to affect how I feel about everything else. I begin to lose trust in myself, my goals, my friends...

And that's where it needs to stop. This is not how I want to live my life. The word impossible doesn't exist in the same universe as God does. No one would tell a kid that it can't be doctor because the educational path is tough, because you never know if it'll make it. How I was four years ago doesn't define whether I can or cannot be better tomorrow. I know what I want to do when I grow up. I have not grown up yet, because that process will only end when I exhale my last breath. Until then I don't want to know about the odds of something happening, I just want to try my best to master this mess and during that, maybe I'll get lucky and achieve some of my well chased goals. If not, there will be some other good things in this for me.

Cheerio.

Ps. I'm kind of over apologizing for not writing. I needed a break and I took it, now I'm slowly getting into the mood again. Things hopefully return to normal now, but no promises.

Why I am sometimes weirded out

So here is the second part of the things that have happened this weekend. It’s the more personal perspective, it contains of the whole Sunday because i found it quite hard to figure out what to keep and what to toss because the whole day was just a whole story. I have to admit though that two days after writing the whole thing I’m not sure what kind of light I’m going to shine on myself now, but I promised to post it so here you go. 

I just saw it again on Sunday how God takes my personal feelings into his hand and how he knows the way to make me feel blessed and happy. In the morning at the end of the service the US team initiated something called a fire tunnel. Essentially it means that some people experienced in praying stand in two rows, facing each other, that's the tunnel. One by one the receiving people walk through that tunnel and they get prayed for, whilst they do that, some people prayers might lay their hands on shoulders, bellies or heads, one reason for that might be that physical connection helps them. Now we don't talk about calm prayers here, as that's where the fire part comes in. Touched by the Holy Spirit both, the prayers and the recipient can feel different level of that presence. The scale varies from nothing, to heat, to heavy shaking up to just passing out or screaming. All of these things are normal.

Now I have two problems with this. As I said, I try to be reasonable and controlled and I know that's not the goal when going through a fire tunnel. It is very strange to see how different people react. To be honest I still get chills when I see someone being shaken like a maniac. Also I'm not so fund of the touching as it tends to be rather overwhelming for me. Last year I was kind of forced to walk through by a friend. Don't get me wrong, she didn't mean any harm, but I found it hard to deny her when she noticed that I had hadn't been through yet. This year I knew that nothing would bring me to do it, if not myself. It was like cliff jumping all over again, I saw other people doing it, enjoying it and slowly, oh so slowly the desire in me grew. At first it was a silent promise: “Next year.... next year I'm not only going to walk through it, I will stand at the end caring for whoever needs it, I promise that, but this year I might just not do it at all”. So when I realized that the line became shorter and shorter I took the leap of faith. It was ok, not as confusing at last year, but also not as touching. I just walked out in the end.

In the afternoon we got to spend some time with the team though and I then realized what I talked about before. They are people with a serving heart, nothing more, nothing less. By just spending the afternoon with them I got blessed the way I get blessed the most, by just being with them, naturally, chatting and enjoying the sun. It might not seem like much, but for me it was brilliant. There were me and two of my close friends who actually had almost nothing to do with that whole mission trip, still we were in that incredibly small group of seven people of our church who were on that mountain with them. We even got involved when handing out the parting gifts for the Americans (Swiss army knives ;) ) as we were asked to help distribute them and saying something to each person we handed them to. With God you basically never give without receiving back straight away. I don’t know why, but this meant so very much to me.

In the evening I was in quite a bit of a hurry as I wanted to go back to college late at night. At the end of the service there was once again a fire tunnel. This time I had not doubts, I just walked through it. Again it was nothing too spectacular. When I reached the end though I saw that a guy, who is fifteen years old, had joined the praying rows. Without thinking too much I did the same, leaving between doubting to even walk through to being part of it myself, less than twelve hours. Now we are not talking about me suddenly being good at this, but I know two things: Firstly I did not cause any harm. Whether it was allowed for me to do this or not, God was ok with it. I know that. Secondly, for me it was very important. Being on the other side of this tunnel helped me calm down. I remember two people crawling through it. Usually that would’ve scared the living heck out of me but I have never felt so calm, actually I just laughed.

I’m slowly but surely learning to stop over-respecting everything at church, thinking about the right protocol for everything. I just act the way that I feel God is telling me to and that feels oh so healthy. It means less control, but still not absolutely losing me. I was aware of what was happening, I checked my watch every five minutes to not miss my train, but I was there, open, trying to serve at a place where I would’ve never seen me standing at all. Besides, standing in the tunnel was probably a better preparation if God really wants me to fulfil my promise next year and doing the “after care” as I call it ironically. If I misunderstood him or his goals for me are different by then, ok, he probably has his reasons then.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with that weekend, where to sort it exactly. I have experienced more that has to do with this kind of supernatural stuff in the past month than I have the rest of my life before. It’s kind of overwhelming and as it’s something completely out of my control also a bit scary. I’m right now taking time to sort this because even now I don’t comprehend why I acted as I did. Looking back it was so not “me” to stand in that row, I’m way to shy or rather insecure for stepping out like this, at least it was stepping out for me. I’m also proud though for not doing my usual running away trick, sneaking out as soon as possible and then pretending like nothing happened. I might becoming more and more who I want to be.

Sorry if this was too much of a diary entry, I just felt like it was what I wanted to write about.

Cheerio.