feelings

31, December, 2017.

I have been kind of overwhelmed all week just trying to understand how another year has already gone by. How the fuck did that happen.

Anyway, there’s this trend on social media where people list all the good things that 2017 brought them and I for once don’t hate a social media trend. I always tend to remember the negative side of everything, so I thought I’d jump in and list every good thing I can remember from this year. Let’s try to keep it chronological as well:

1. Self-worth.

Being alone and broke in London was one of the worst experiences of my whole life, but it taught me so much about myself and I now know I’m way stronger than I thought. I don’t need anyone to help me find a job, find a flat, get good grades while struggling with deep sadness and loneliness, get over stupid selfish boys... In fact, that whole thing made me realise my worth.

2. Teaching.

I taught English in a high school for the first time. It wasn’t something I would count as great or anything, to be honest. But since we’re talking about realisation, this made me realise that if I ever really need to leave my dreams aside and find a stable job, I could be a damn good teacher.

3. Friends.

I now know who my friends are. I’m an adult now, and I guess with that comes the fact that high school buddies are only that. You can’t keep them forever, try as you might. In fact, you shouldn’t. I want to grow, and in order to do that, finding new friends with new ambitions helps immensely. I finally met up with Chris and Edurne, and they showed me what real (adult) friends are for. I really hope 2018 brings them physically closer to me. Don’t get me wrong, I still have many other friends, but with those who are so fricking far away and those who just put their partners over any other friends all the time... it’s kind of hard.

4. Translation.

I finally figured out an escape to teaching. I could also be a translator, who’d have thought. My master’s degree has brought me a newfound passion. I love translating literature, which was pretty obvious since I love English and loved translating Latin and Greek in high school. But I also found that I love translating medical texts and subtitling. Let’s see if I could actually make a living out of it.

5. People, people and more people.

For the first time ever, I feel at home in my classroom. I was always so shy and never made many friends in class. We just didn’t share many common interests, I guess. Or perhaps I just didn’t know whether we did or not, because I didn’t talk much. But this year, I could go on and on about how awesome everyone in my class is. Let’s hope no one sees this but I want to mention the ones I hold closer to remember them in the future. Laura and I laugh about literally everything. I could see us becoming super close, we already sort of behave like besties. Irene’s hilarious and you can talk to her about everything and anything. Rocío & Gema are like a pack, but they’re awesome and I love sitting next to them in class. Epiglotis (Laura 2) literally cracks me up. Funniest girl ever. I’ll stop there because, even though they’re all great, you probably won’t remember the rest of them in a couple of years’ time.

6. Crush and... love? 

I want to say I’ve been in love before, but have I? I’ve only ever had two serious relationships (not counting the first one, since we were 15 and I guess it felt more like a kid’s game). The first one literally broke me inside. It sounds tragic and overdramatic but he knew how to push all the right buttons to make me feel unworthy. I guess at some point in our relationship I was in love. But if I now can’t remember it, does it still count? All I remember is pain. And rage. My second relationship was so much better, I remember plenty of good times. But I never got to know the real him. We met up twice and there we were, having sex at his place. The next thing I know is he said we were dating, and so we were. So I was never friends with him, it was only passion, only sex, only fun. Is that love? I ask because I geniunely don’t know. This time around, it’s the first time I’m getting to know someone who I’ve actually met for the first time in real life. I wasn’t looking for it. I became friends with a guy from my class, then I realised I had a huge crush on him and now we’re ‘dating’ (we haven’t stated what we are but I mean...). I can’t say I’m in love yet, I’ve known him for about two months, and we’ve only been seeing each other for 3 weeks, but if I had to I’d say this is going to be the time when I’m finally going to fall head over heels for someone. And yes, it’s super exciting, yet really, really scary.

And well, these might be taken for granted but I have to count my family, who are still the best thing I could wish for; my health, which is, I belive, better than ever (especial mention to my 1 year vegan anniversary); and all the money I’ve made all by myself, which allowed me to support myself an entire year. 

First of all a quick reminder to anyone who reads me (if anybody does); this is a diary and, even though I don’t mind putting it out there just in case anyone can relate or is interested in seeing how hard adulting can be, I still write this for myself, to keep these memories so that I’ll never forget about what I believe are pretty great times, especially compared to my previous life experiences.

I say this because I am probably going to sound very, very cheesy in some of these posts, but I guess it’s understandable when I have just realised that the ‘crush’ I have been talking about is, in fact, mutual. I know right? Whaaaa?? I’m as shooketh (yes, Bruno from the future, this is what you millenial gays used to say as a joke but that actually caught on) as you are.

OK, so turns out I told Laura about my crush, since she’s pretty close to him, and I thought maybe that would somehow help. She didn’t say much, but she managed to spark my interest even a little bit more, just by saying that he (I’m gonna simply call him Crush from now on) had asked whether I had a boyfriend. I was still oblivious to everything but, I mean, why would Crush ask if he wasn’t interested? I still didn’t want to believe it too much.

However, a couple of days later I invited him to the movies (I still don’t know how I didn’t panic). It went so great that we decided to meet again, at my place this time. I brought up that I had seen on his twitter how he had a crush on someone, and he then said that he had seen the same thing on my twitter page. Yes, we are 15 inside okay? Then, I don’t know how he did it but he had the balls to tell me that I was his crush. I then proceeded to die slowly. 

We were actually going for a walk while we talked about this, and we had ended up in a supermarket, buying food for lunch. Can you imagine two boys who like each other talking about their feelings for the first time to one another while buying an avocado? Well that’s so me, I guess. 

Long story short, I finally told him he was my crush, we went to my place, I kissed him, and we were shook for the rest of the week. Now I’m still incredibly surprised. I still think about how last week I was thinking that I was never going to make a move or have anything with him, and how quickly everything can change. 

Also, when I kissed him he said that he was glad I did because he wasn’t sure whether I wanted to take the step or still be just friends. I mean, being just a crush is super fun and I guess it spices up your life but... how could I not kiss him when I knew such a cute guy was into me? I hope I didn’t rush too much...

I guess I’m always trying to escape the real world. It all started when I went away to study. I realised the life I had been living was nothing compared to the endless oportunities that are out there. I had always been stuck inside this town filled with boredom, routine and the piercing constant thought of lack of purpose.

I was only worried about the future, never satisfied with whatever was actually going on. And then, boom. I discovered life, I discovered people, amazing people. I felt free, passionate, energetic, hopeful and... present. 

However, that went away the minute I stepped back into my old life, into ‘real life’. Back in my town, everything felt shallow. Nothing really touched me or fulfilled me, nothing made sense. So what did I do? I left again the moment I believed the universe had sent me a sign (a breakup, what’s a bigger sign than that?).

I literally relived the whole experience once again. The same feelings, the same rush, the same carefree mindset. But of course, that had to end again. That wasn’t real. That was just momentary. An escape.

And now, I’m terrified about the future. At this very moment I’m still in this happy little bubble of new experiences with new people, but how long is that going to last? 

I guess by writing this I have realised what the root of the problem is. I don’t want to grow up. Being a lonely adult with a boring daily routine? Not for me. I can’t stand thinking that once this year is over I’ll be forced to go back to real life, find a job, attempt to achieve a ‘stable’ life (how damn boring does that sound?), and forget about dreams. 

As I said before, I had always looked forward to the future, but, for once, I don’t want this moment to end.

This is literally the most cliché thing ever but... I don’t get life. Okay, let me rephrase that, I don’t get myself (most of the time I don’t really get life in general either but that’s besides the point of today’s rant). Why do I have to be so goddamn complicated? I feel as if I was still 15 and trying to deal with all these teenage emotions and annoying feelings and insecurities. I mean, in a way I’m kind of glad I still have them because they make me feel young and alive, but let’s be honest, feeling everything so intensely isn’t always a walk in the park.

My mom always said my aunt is one of these people who are super passionate about every single thing and they just feel everything with too much intensity. And let’s just say she didn’t think that was a great feature. Well I guess it runs in the family because I have for sure inherited that. 

Okay, I’ve been staring at this blank page for too long now trying to hide what I really want to write about so let’s just be real and put it out there. I’m starting to really like this guy. Is it the right thing? No. Should I be thinking about this when I know I always get too caught up in my emotions and fuck it all up? No. Do I even stand a chance of having something with him? Well probably not.

To be honest if I stop and think this through I don’t even know what I want. I really, I mean, really, like him. But I don’t even know if I should try to be something else when I feel so happy with him as I see how our friendship develops. God I’m such a bad and corny writer. But really, one day I’d be thinking that we should just be friends and see where that takes us, and the next I’d be like ‘oh god I really wanna kiss him right now’.

So yeah, I’m intense. But intense mixed with indecisve.

WORST.

COMBINATION.

I literally just met these people a month ago and yesterday I spent one of the best nights of the year with them. I guess if they saw this they would think I’m creepy as fuck because we’re not even that close yet, but as I said in my previous post being around people with good vibes just makes me so incredibly happy. And this year... this year’s been tough.

We went to go see the christmas lights downtown and even though I have to admit I don’t really care for this kind of events I had a really fucking good time. Purely because I feel like my ‘mental state’, or mood if you don’t want to be so intense, is changing for the better. And honestly, I don’t think I have any credit for that, it’s just that life has made things a little easier for me at last. 

If anyone who reads me knows me, they’d know how important veganism is for me. And yet, I would never try to convince my friends, let alone new people I’ve just met, to go to a place solely because there is vegan food. But yesterday, since I was with my new vegan friend, Ali, we decided it would be a good idea to make them all go to a place called Level Up, where there’s vegan burgers, vegan hot dogs, etc. Plus, it was a really weird bar with videogames in every corner, so I thought they were going to think I was a little bit of a geek and they would be too cool for that, but they actually loved it. I should have known, we’re all studying translation after all... (not many ‘cool, popular, etc.’ people study that tbh).

Anyway, I also said that the other Laura from my class was going to make an appearance in this diary soon... well here she is. She’s amazing, I feel like I’ve known her for my entire life. It’s weird because I usually take a long fricking time to click with people and be open about my thoughts with them but with a lot of people from my class it’s been SO EASY. It’s like we’re all on the same page, they’re all open minded, they talk about LGBTIQ+ stuff all the time even if many of them are straight, they are feminists, they never try to diminish the importance of veganism, they love tv series, they love videogames and board games, they are just... the kind of people I had always hoped I’d be surrounded with.

Leaving all that cheesiness aside... no updates on my little crush yet. He didn’t come with us yesterday because he had other plans, which kind of made me think he has a boyfriend or a hookup or something. I have to admit it did make me feel some tipe of way for like a minute when I thought of that yesterday night, but then I had such a good time I completely forgot. 

So I am a month into my new classes and I have already met incredible people. It’s weird because I feel like I am such an introvert, but at the same time I LOVE being around people. I just feel awkward when there’s too many, but I thrive on people. I get inspired by them, I feel hopeful about humanity when I’m around them, I want to know everything about them... but I’m just too shy sometimes.

That’s why I made my way through the four years of my Bachelor’s sat in the corner of the classroom with one or two friends, tops. However, I don’t know what the hell has happened to me this year, but I cannot help but try to become everybody’s friend. I mean, let’s be real, I know that’s not going to happen, but I need to try. My mom always told me I keep my own doors shut, if that makes sense. She used to think I was the one who didn’t want to make friends. That was never true, I just didn’t have it within me to go up to someone and be all ‘hi, wanna be friends???’

But yeah, I am forcing myself to befriend everybody and try (key word, ‘try’) to put aside my awkwardness. And that’s how I have met all these people I’ll probably talk about in this ‘journal’ a lot. But let’s start with someone I didn’t really pay attention to that much at the beginning; Laura. There are two Lauras in my class, one from my own city and another one from Barcelona. Laura from Barcelona is such a sweetheart and I’ll probably talk about her very soon, but today I wanted to talk about... let’s call her Laura M (from Málaga) because she said something that really got stuck in my mind. Turns out she studied the same thing I have, English Studies. There are only 3 of us who haven’t studied Translation, so it’s kind of cool that she and I are friends coming from the same background. Plus I really admire her super calm personality and ease to talk to everybody. She’s awesome. Anyway, she started to ask me whether I knew about this teacher, that subject, those books... All of which I guess I have seen during my years in university, but I couldn’t remember anything AT ALL. She then said, ‘woah, do you have alzheimer’s???’ She was joking, of course, but boy was she right. I have no idea what’s wrong with my mind but I literally forget everything. I guess I could say it was just that I didn’t give a damn about all the shit they made us study in my degree and I just vomited all out onto the exam paper and forgot about it. But sometimes it worries me. 

And that’s precisely why I have decided to start this diary. Because I never want to forget about all the good times I know I’m going to have with my new classmates in what is probably going to be my last year in University and my last year in my hometown.