Reality and stuff

Saw the hamster babies today for the first time. Brought me pure joy.

Headache is a true enemy to an anxious person. Now I think that I might have rabies. My husband cannot wrap his head around my mental abilities to make up problems out of nothing. I know I favour stray kitties, I pet them, I feed them, they head bump me, and sometimes, playfully, they attack. Playful attacking was quite common over these past months with the kitty I have been feeding every evening by the house we live in. She scratched me several times, not severely, but still. Today I woke up with a headache. And there was no better interpretation but to assume I might have rabies. What a brain. 

11 days. The thought of having 11 days to live has been dragging me down the whole day. What if I die falling into the real insanity and so abruptly? And just after I had that dream of me catching rabies and looking for the antidote all over the alien planet I was on. 

Had a panic attack watching Hitch. Make of it what you’d like. 

The headache cornered me into taking the strongest painkiller I know. My wrist stopped hurting. And that’s scary, because my headache, although a bit lifted, doesn’t seem much better. I am scared of the pill to wear off. Maybe it’s severe dehydration the doctors kept telling me about? I had eaten a shitload of sugar right before falling asleep the night before, and had fallen asleep quite thirsty. I kinda knew that severe dehydration cannot just sit silently there for years, it should have come out sooner or later. Let it be just that, at least there is a way to combat the condition. And a simple, affordable one. Fingers crossed for me to feel better tomorrow. 

Got my new tap shoes today. Out of 2.5 million offers on the local online market there was one pair of tap shoes of my precise size. What a catch. 10 euro. Slightly used. Laminate is a purchase to follow. 

I particularly enjoy that idea, that my life feels like a test I didn’t study for. And I hated to not be ready. I always studied for tests, and if I could not memorise something, I would always make a cheat note. Yes, I did cheat, but that was mainly due to poor memory rather than lack of studying. The only problem I encountered at the university is having not enough time to study everything I wanted. Being ready for what was given as a required amount - that was just the basics, it went without saying that I would study for it. For me to be feeling ready, I needed at least one point from extracurricular readings. Getting a test for which I haven’t studied for could be compared to the death of the idea of me as a student. 

Indeed, I feel like I am not ready for life. I don’t have the tools to live it. I don’t know the knowledge of how it works. So what do I expect. For me to feel chill? For me to be confident? For me to be okay with it? Of course I am in a state of a constant low-key panic, anxiety, they call it. Just like crossing the road right from around the corner and hearing the approaching car, but not seeing it, or being able to tell the speed it’s coming with towards you, and yet under the pressure to cross the road - that is my everyday struggle. 

My hamster mama is being a mama, hiding the kids from the dangers of the world. I hope she’s got some of that mother instinct, and not the hamster one. Still haven’t seen the babies. I hope to see at least some of those who survive the mother’s rage. The father is being jealous, he produces so much territorial stink my husband can’t stand being in one room with him. Might be a male pheromonal thing, because I don’t smell it that much. 

Discover Weekly has been extremely satisfying this week on Spotify. Cannot deny the joy and inspiration a good compilation of music brings me. Thank you, bot Spotify. Touch me

I am being extremely jealous of everything my husband gets, especially attention related. I feel how much attention he gets from others, and I am particularly hurt by the attention he puts elsewhere from me. I never stopped being an only child, although I got two siblings by the time I turned 13.

Can’t stop spending money on things I don’t particularly need. I must have not been getting enough of things when growing up. It’s never enough. Everything should come with a spare. I need a stash to feel safe: stash of hygienic products, stash of medicine, stash of money, stash of things I need to do in case there is too much freedom in a time frame of one day. My husband wonders how much money I should have to feel safe and comfortable, and I reply back that there is no such number. I am not a gold digger, I survive on very little, when necessary, not a big deal, but to feel safe and comfortable, I imagine, comes with a price I cannot put in a number of digits. It feels like something unbuyable. Unreachable. 

Was checking for lice yesterday, Understand, that we are quarantined here, leaving our apartment to shop for food, never really meeting people. I was checking for life above the sink standing on a chair, because my hair got quite long, and realised how far my anxiety pushed me only when my husband - the rational one - made it clear that there is absolutely no way I could have gotten the lice. I don’t know. I might just have an itch all over, because I wanna see baby hamsters. Or because I recently got a cold sore on my lip, which is the first sign of immune deficiency. Or my damned sore throat. Again. I know my ASLO level is higher than normal, but I just don’t want my tonsils to be removed. What if my superpowers reside in my tonsils, but I just have not disclosed yet. On the other hand, what if my superpowers are being blocked by those regularly aching tonsils?.. Hm…

It’s snowing here for the first time. I don’t like it. I don’t appreciate the snow. I don’t like the cold. I don’t need this. It annoys me. 

My kitty must be cold out there. I made her a house to shelter her through the night. A post box with some polyester material pieces from my clothing experiments. I hope she uses it. It’s made with love under time pressure and demand. She is a lovely kitty, not my type, but I love her nevertheless. 

It’s so easy to fall out of tracking time when you do nothing at all. I feel my days with little things, I keep myself busy by consuming - food, clothes, information. 

One of my hamsters has given birth today. I haven’t seen the pups yet, she is residing in a big wooden house I put in the cage a week earlier. Good thing we separated the hamsters yesterday. She was so ready to pop.

A part of me is really curious about how she is doing; another part of me is happy she can hide away and figure that shit out on her own, just like nature intended it. 

I did some compulsive shopping, and now I am wondering if it’s worth it to customize a jacket in an atelier, when I paid for it less than two euro… dilemma. 

I feel bad about myself not writing. But why am I such a nuisance to actually get to it? I annoy myself with that procrastination. 

24 hours are not enough for me to feel fulfilled. Yet. I am not doing anything. I have a gift to fill time and space with myself. I am always busy doing nothing. I call it productive procrastination. I am always busy doing things that postpone me from self-growth, because that one is just too damn difficult. I make things, things that don’t matter. But they fill my days with content - content that doesn’t matter. 

Life is beautiful, because you can literally do anything with it. To be able to do anything and to choose to do nothing is selfishly beautiful. 

Another day, another strike of anxiety. Usually when I have a session with the therapist planned, the whole day is gravitating towards it. It takes a lot of energy and emotional stamina to survive the session, so I have to be ready for it, and I have to give myself some time to recover after. Sometimes it even takes a couple of days to come back to the senses, if we perform some proper exercise on the past trauma. So yeah, today is all about the session. 

Of course I express my anxiety about being jobless, getting older and basically wasting time. I say that I miss my job. I mention that I lack attention, that I want to express myself, but don’t know how. I remember that I looked up the jobs related to my degrees, but they nauseate me. From all that monologue my therapist takes that I am conflicted: I don’t want to work because I don’t know what I want to do in life, and I am wasting time, so I gotta get my shit together. With the latter - we work by performing an exercise I would like to call “walking the ladder”. 

Imagine that voice that tells you to get your shit together. How does it look?

Like a projector of light from a moving helicopter looking for a criminal.

Imagine a ladder towards that projector? Take a step up. What do you feel? What is the positive message of that projector?

For me not to waste my potential. To not be lost.

Take a step further? What is there?

For me to realise myself?

Then?

I feel less depression.

Then?

I feel lighter.

Then?

I feel like being creative. A lot of small creativity.

Then?

I am surrounded by love. I am love.

Then?

I do everything with love.

Then?

I accept death. Death is love. I am not afraid of death.

Then?

I feel free.

Then?

I create my own religion.

Then? 

I go down in history and in people.

Then?

I have completed my mission.

Then?

I am free. I am weightless. 

Then?

I can do anything. I do nothing. 

Then?

The world is me. I am the world.

And now take all the resources from that last step of the ladder. Gather them, and let’s head back. You are one step lower, where you can do anything, but you do nothing. How do you feel?

Good.

Descending - you are free and weightless. How do you feel?

Good.

One step lower and you have completed your mission. You have done everything you wanted and could do in life. How do you feel?

Good.

Another step descending - you are remembered. How do you feel?

Good.

One step lower - you have your own religion. How do you feel?

That was unnecessary.

Well, it seemed necessary at that point, so we need to go through that step. And then lower - you, once again, are free. How do you feel?

Good.

Continuing the descent - you are not at the step where you have accepted death, you are no longer afraid of it. How do you feel?

Very good.

One step down - you do everything with love. How do you feel?

Good.

Another step down - you are surrounded by love, you are love. How do you feel?

Good. It feels like home.

Very good. And now one more step down - you are full of creativity, you do a lot of small creative things. How do you feel?

Good, but quite hectic, maybe a bit unnecessarily active.

Well, it seemed appropriate at the time, so no skipping that step either. Lower - you feel lighter. How do you feel there?

Good.

Descending where you feel less depressed. How do you feel on that step of the leather now that you are the world and the world is you?

Good.

One step down - you are self realised. How do you feel?

Good [giggles].

And finally - you are not lost and your potential is fulfilled. How do you feel?

[giggles, shy] Good.

So now, how do you picture that projector? How does it look.

Well, it seems to me like a huge eye.

Like a third eye?

Well, yeah, like the third eye [draws an eye above the eye line between the eyebrows].

The-all-seeing eye.

Yeah, it’s quite big, enormous I would say.

So how do you feel now?

Like a lot of commotion was not necessary at all. I feel better now, like I grasped a feeling of what it feels like to be out there, that I am the world and the world is me, and I might not be able to comprehend it fully or express myself with words, but it made an impact. It makes me feel better, grounded. 

That is a feeling to hold on to, when the voice in the head is calling me worthless or a waste of space. I am the world and the world is me. 

Song playing - “Weightless” by LAYLA in Diamond Saints Remix 

The anxiety of being jobless keeps growing on me. I have officially been out of work since October 2020. But actually I performed my duties for the last time at the very beginning of last August. Having been on antidepressants, attending night shifts have become almost unbearable. Attacks happened. I cried in the toilet. I had anger outbursts. None of those went along with being a stripper, whose primal responsibilities are being friendly, sociable and fairly agreeable. 

Today I looked up the jobs available in Varna with the English language. I guess I could teach the English language. But could I really? I barely remember anything, but most importantly - I just don’t want to. My anxiety is related to money, of course. I don’t want to be unable to afford things that make me feel more comfortable with more or less humble existence. But now and then, just like I mentioned yesterday, I shop compulsively. I don’t go for extravagant purchases, but I do spend money on things I don’t need, but things that make me feel better at that moment. I consider it to be one of my most powerful resources - so I simply cannot imagine abandoning it. 

Today I figured. 

I haven’t had a panic attack in months… But there it was to strike me at midnight, as it never left. I did feel off before falling asleep, but I could not anticipate the strength and severity of that one. I knew it usually starts with elevated heart rate and hyperventilating. All I could think of was relaxation. But as your conscious control decreases during sleep, I was not strong enough mentally to simply relax. I turned over. Big mistake. I reached out to the wall on my left. Another big mistake. Reaching out for help from the outside is just playing along the attack - you looked at it and it looked right back at you. Gotcha. I released one moan of fear, another one of suffering, and in a second I was sitting up, slowly crawling on the floor. Moaning in despair, crying out dry tears, I was crawling to the other side of the room thinking I was going to die. Nausea. Panic. 

“I am in Bulgaria. They will not understand. I don’t want to go to the local hospital. How will I explain myself? How can they help me? I am dying. I am going to throw up.”

Thoughts were flooding. Where was all that practical therapy knowledge about how to keep a panic attack at bay. Where were the breathing techniques? Where was the through alternation? I could not remember a single self-help piece of advice I used to remember by heart less than a year ago. That is what night panic attacks do to you - they catch you of your conscious guard. 

I was exhausted. Down on my knees I was begging God to stop the torture, when the doer was actually within. 

“Vomit! Vomit! Vomit!” - I was shouting to my husband disturbed out of his sleep. Was I vomiting? Hardly. One after another attempt to throw up was barely successful in regard to physical relief. Deep inside, convulsing my guts, I knew I did not have any poisoning or indigestion. Deep inside, that enlightened voice was screaming to my “dyeing” body that it was just an attack. 

Water. Water. Water. Drinking water paces breathing, when the mind can’t. 

Never underestimate the panic disorder. Daily doses of 150 mg of venlafaxine and 25 mg of quetiapine - do not keep the panic away. But you can. As Dwight Shrute said:

Learn your rules. 

You’ve got to learn your rules!

If you don’t

You’ll be eaten in your sleep!

But on a more serious note, I have developed my own list of routine techniques of self-handling of a panic attack (in that particular order, adding each point according to the severity of the attack):

Breathing: inhale through nose/exhale through mouth; ⅓ (at least 8 sets);

Grounding ex. 1 (pat the body with your hands, including head, face and feet);

Grounding ex. 2 (rhythmic patting on the shoulders with hands pronouncing the personal mantra “I am safe”);

Bringing yourself back to now using the sense organs (name 5 objects you see around yourself, 5 smells you notice; five sounds you hear; possibly starting with “Here and now I see…, I hear...., I smell…”);

If possible, find a person to simply talk to, if attack strikes in a public place; 

Right down what is happening in your diary/phone/piece of paper (follow the descriptive principle of 

situation (what is happening? What was happening when the attack struck? Where? When? Whom I was with?);

symptom (what is happening to my body? What am I feeling in my body?);

thoughts (what am I thinking? what was I thinking that caused me to feel this way?);

behaviour (what am I doing? What were my actions as soon as the attack developed)

7. Acceptance;  8. Letting go of control;

And if all of the previous fail, just know, there is always - 

9. Xanax (people diagnosed with panic disorder usually get a prescription, so it is a good idea to carry a chill pill with yourself “just in case”.

I have never taken xanax, for me it has always been the last resource. But honestly, I have been past point 8 and had a pill at the ready on multiple occasions. Nothing wrong with taking a pill. I am just scared of them. And I also enjoy self-torture a little bit. 

Ford had an accident. Ford is one of the two Russian snow dwarf hamsters I got for my 29th birthday about a month ago. He fell off the table while running around the cage, cheeks full with food, carrying a huge piece of dried carrot in his mouth. He probably sled. I heard him squeak. I got under the table and saw him barely crawling. He looked at me with eyes full of fear. I could smell it. The smell, I guess, predators could recognise from a mile away. He moved weirdly. He was getting rid of all the stash in his cheeks, instinctively. Then he crawled some more, and then I froze in absolute horror. His back legs were compromised. He crawled on his front paws, getting further away from unloaded food. All I could do is scream to my husband:

Ford broke his spine!

He ran from the bathroom to see. It was a shock at first, but then moments later, we both spotted a slight movement in the hamster’s legs. Eventually, it looked more like a limp. I burst into tears, of course. My husband begged me to stop. Yes, hamsters fall, accidents happen. But where did that guilt I felt come from? 

Luckily, later today, I had a session with my therapist. WE worked through the sad accident. And on a deeper level, that accident was another occurrence of re-traumatisation.  

Turns out I have a painful relationship with legs in general. Having been dancing since I was 4 years old, I guess, legs have always been a gateway to the biggest of my joys in life. And where there is a great joy, there is a great fear for it. 

Somewhere along the way I developed an unhealthy belief that a great joy is awarded with great grief afterwards. Hence laid my cherophobia - the fear of being happy. I have always believed that the more joyful I feel, the greater pain I will encounter later on. I was so happy dancing my legs off during my initiation into studentship during the first year of college, it felt like I was flying on the wings of joy right before I fell off the stage and tore my ankle joint. That was the trauma I had to face again in today’s session. 

It is scary, but also fascinating, what tricks the mind plays on us for the sake of its sanity. When it is too much to handle, it buries it, it pushes it away to a symptom, unconsciously. And then I wonder how come my shoulder cannot recover for a third year in a row, without a suspicion that it’s my psyche’s attempt to ground my sanity in the body. 

The body talks. The body can say more about the psyche than the mind itself could ever be able to comprehend. That is one of the biggest virtues of the mind - to be able to comprehend itself. But there is a limit. Just like it is impossible to take out the eyeballs out of their pockets and look at oneself from aside, the mind cannot perceive itself objectively, and fully. Apart from common blind spots, the mind is also a freaking trickster. 

The mind is gonna trick the weakest of minds into belief that it knows itself; and the mind above all minds will know nothing of itself. 

It seems like a perfect day to get back here…

I don’t remember the last time you were so wet, 

my husband said to me.

Yeah... Little did he know that I was fantasising… about Him. 

Yesterday, I came across my blog once again while searching for my theory on different kinds of infatuation (day 59, by the way). And in that search I briefly read the last two posts, which were poor attempts to circle back to that glorious “moving on” process. Oh yeah, five years later, it is, still, a process. 

What a strange thing to be inspired by yourself? Not many people can say that. Not to imply that I am so grand and the things I put down here five years ago are so well put and beautiful, that can inspire anyone. I simply felt like I was someone. Five years ago. And it wasn’t so bad to be that someone. With all the struggle, and pain, and confusion, that someone was pursuing self reflection. And that alone I find beautiful. 

As I’m typing these words, my husband is narrating aviation related news into my back. I am literally turned away from him, typing into my computer, and he still goes on. Hm. How did I get to be here…

Let’s see. I got married on 31st of August 2018. I met my then-to-be husband on the 1st of September 2017. Today is the 8th of January 2021. What a journey. Since I got married, I have developed a panic disorder. That is in addition to my low-key ever-going depression, of course. Now officially mentally not-so-stable, I am in therapy, both medicinal and therapeutic. No regrets here so far. 150 mg of venlafaxine, 25 mg of quetiapine before sleep, and a standard dose of oral contraceptive is a daily constant. 

I hit the low in February 2020. Attacks were periodical. They lasted for hours, I was falling down the rabbit hole of panic attack and anxiety attack, which together would keep me literally shaken for up to 12 hours straight. I couldn’t travel. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t eat. My reflection in the mirror would question my reality. Believe, it is not a fun trip, sliding down the mirror, where your reflection just talked back to you, saying:

It’s not your body. 

I sought medicinal help mainly because symptomatic nausea became my existential partner. If people say they can live with nausea, they probably feel it differently. For me, it felt like I needed to vomit any minute of the day, and deep inside I believed that I would vomit my identity. My then thepaist explained it all in terms of panic and anxiety disorders. I got a bouquet of derealisation, depersonalisation and shapeshifting symptoms. The triggering fear was the fear of losing my sanity. 

I sought help from another therapist as soon as I tamed my attacks. Not without medical assistance from a psychiatrist, of course, I got to the point where I wanted more from my therapy. I figured that all attacks are symptomatic, and learning to handle them is just step one in a long journey of self-care. Step two was addressing the possible roots of those attacks. That is where the therapeutic practitioner comes into the light. I found a woman in my hometown, who agreed to work with me online. And it has been almost a year of our work together. 

I am doing better. Attacks are always there for me, but I am just as much there for them with breathing techniques, with thought alterations, with body relaxation and general “letting myself lose my sanity”. They are never joking, when they say that to fight an attack, you should encourage it. For me it is not an encouragement that worked, but the total, and unfortunately painful acceptance. How do I fight the fear of losing my sanity? I let my sanity go. I simply let myself lose my mind. It never ends just at that. I am met by the fear of losing control straight after figuring out that my sanity did not go anywhere, although I set her free. The fear of losing control comes hand in hand with the fear of embarrassment. And here thought alteration, as effective as it might be, loses to the body management techniques. I usually get myself into my body, by literally touching my body all over and grounding myself back into it. Rhythmic tapping on the shoulders goes a long way, when the head is gone and the feet left the ground. Here, tears are my worst enemy, but ultimately they are a gateway to the total relaxation. It can take a while, but letting go does its job. It is exhausting, panic. Anxiety is just as physically and psychologically demanding. Now and then I find myself fed up. So fed up with that ever-present panic and anxiety, that I am scared to give up. Yet, still here, now, hopefully (fingers crossed), back to writing.

Writing is beautiful, actually. It is grounding. If I can manage to ground my physical self with voice exercises and regular stomping on the floor, writing is a great runway to land your mind onto. 

Meditation is prohibited. You won’t probably hear that often, but meditation can be harmful to the mind which is already somewhere else than the head, the body, the present. I depart so fast and so easily, I hardly want to or am able to come back. That increases the problem with the body. Afterall, I exist through my body. My mind manifests itself at the cost of my fingers writing down the text, of my tongue pronouncing words, of my legs dancing to the rhythms speaking to me. Oh, mind expression through bodily means is so beautiful. But one thing you can master your mind, another thing you can master your body, but neither are going to get to the right place without that precious two-way relationship between each other. 

All for today. More to follow 🤞 

P.S. My husband was kind enough with the days count since the last post. He is a treasure. From a very foreign land. Where a very different language is spoken. And inhabitants look like people, but think a bit off. He is interesting. 

I didn’t get it. I didn’t win the scholarship for my master studies in Vilnius. That means that my current part-time job as a strip-tease dancer is the only living-provider. Worst-case scenario: I make 60 euro a week, and try to make sense out of this income. If they let me stay in the dormitory, that would mean 70 euro per month spending on the housing. There are 4 weeks in a month, bringing me 240 euro, leaving 170 euro for food and the living. I might just make it that is if I eat boiled vegetables, don’t get denied a place at the dorms, don’t get in any trouble at work and don’t get sick, ever. That is not a silver-lining perspective… The saddest thing about it is that nothing ever gets much better, I am back to the start, where I have no space for living - the same-old surviving mode. Two degrees, GPA of 9.71/10, 4 honorary awards post-graduation, 6 recommendation letters, 2 publications and a great dozen of successfully completed conferences, I am still not worth a financial support from the local ministry of education. That is the saddest thing. In my mind, I spent 4 year working on my reputation, collecting symbolic capital for it to turn one day into hard cash. In the end - nothing. I have nothing on my hands from those four years of struggle and unwanted engagement, nothing but papers, that didn’t make sense to the selection committee, so they might as well have no value to me. At least I don’t have to pay for the first semester of my master studies, that is good, but that is quite little, taking into account no means of living-providence. And there I was wanting my own place, wanting some life, some breathing… Fuck you, me, keep killing yourself for never-paying-off matter, keep hating yourself, keep surviving. I broke into tears as soon as I read the e-mail. I wasn’t alone in the room: the mother of my roommate was there. But I didn't care for her reaction, I was petrified by the news, although deep inside I knew that was going to happen. Of course, I hoped for a better living, of course, I hoped for things to get better, for me to finally start living. But nah, life obviously has its own plan for me. Maybe there is a lesson for me to learn from it. There must be a lesson, there will be, as I am already hurting from it. The thoughts were rushing through my mind cutting the edges of my consciousness: I might have to move back, what if I don’t maintain my GPA as high as 9.61/10, what if I have to move out and pay more than 70 euro per month for housing, what if I ever fall ill and have to supply myself with medication… What if… What if… My mother cannot know, my father shouldn’t be aware, nobody from my family should know… And I grabbed my phone and texted three people: my Norwegian friend, my Lithuanian middle-aged friend, and a friend I made last night in a club, with whom things got instantly serious. Their reaction were all different. The first offered help, the second suggested reapplying (in response to what I wrote I reply to the lady who sent me the news earlier asking for further recommendation in my hard case), and the third was quite encouraging to suggest a different future plan for me. I also texted a friend who was kind enough to write me a recommendation letter for the above mentioned scholarship. He reacted to the news in total disbelief. I appreciated everyone’s concern, although I know that very few really care. I know exactly what kind of concern that is - I am exactly that type of concerned when I hear bad news from a close friend: I am there for them, but just wordly. I am there for the to console, I am there with some options, I am even there with some actual help; but any help of another person is just a temporary escape from the real horror of the situation that has befallen on you exclusively. I need a long-term solution and that I am the only one to provide myself with. In that moment I think of Shameless and how all of them manage, how Lip gets into college, how he fucks things up, and how things get fixed in the most unexpected ways. “Just because we were born here, doesn’t mean we end up here”, says Mandy to Ian. She works as an escort service provider, and she still fucks up, and still tries, and somehow manages. I wonder where this strength comes from… I wonder what is the point of the constant struggle, when the payoff is so rare, and in many ways never-to-be-foreseen.

On the eve of the above mentioned unfortunate events, I was stupid enough to let it go and go out on my own for the first time here in Vilnius. It was a Wednesday night, my roommate was back to the dorm with her mother, and I was already doing an overlook of Vilnius night clubs, trying to figure out how to spend the on-going night. I simply could not bear the idea of sitting there for the whole night, while two other people would be sleeping, and I would be unable to give it up to sleep at least until 7 a.m. With pretty unrestful research on the nightclub scene, I dressed up to party and left the house for the last trolleybus to the city center. I simply took a walk around in search for an open door with a roaring music inside. I followed the route of my previous knowledge to check on the places from the Internet, but Wednesday night has proven it to be simply quiet and unavailable for party, with one pretty anticipated exception. There is a nightclub for exchange students which is open every night, and although it was summer time, with no exchange students in town, I went in to find it open and quite full with people, local included. There was even a bachelorette party with a bride wandering around the place in a white t-shirt and a black permanent marker, asking for a signature from every stranger. I didn’t have any expectation for the night, so I simply stood there waiting for the tune to hit me. But while I was waiting, not-surprisingly, a guy came along and hit me with:

Are you working here?

Of course, my answer was negative, but his blunt approach started a conversation at the beginning of which I naturally disclosed the specificity of my own occupation. Show me a guy, who would have no reaction to the bare fact of a girl working as a strip tease dancer. For a moment, I got him really interested, but that wasn’t even a point, as almost naturally both of us made it to the dance floor. It took me no time to discover the beauty of everything that just had happened. He moved the same way I moved: smoothly, on-beat, ridiculously, shamelessly. In no time I was all over his company as a dancer. I would imitate his moves, and he would sync with mine. At some point we would take a break for some trust exercise, where I would fall into his arms for him to catch me, and also play some staring game, and talk just long enough for another guy to approach us and say:

You are the best couple on the dance floor! And I am from Spain, so I know what I am talking about. That is some crazy shit!

That was nice, and kind, and totally inspiring for us to continue. That went on and on for hours, up until the moment we got really close for me to put my thigh on his hip swaying to the rhythm of the club music - I discovered a perfect synchronicity. Never ever have a swayed so smoothly, so fearlessly with another human being in a dance. All that beauty was shattered by the fact of him having to leave in the morning for Italy. Of course, he was leaving, beautiful things never last, especially when I am around to spot them. We left the club to catch up on some food and water at the railway station, where we made another friend and hit it up with a conversation. He stayed in the hotel nearby, so before we parted he gave me two options:

It’s either you give me a kiss and we part, or you can spend the left five hours with me in the hotel.

I wondered if it was a sex thing, because it always is. He said it might be, but he was really tired, if he was really honest. I wanted to spend more time with him, even if it was a sex thing, so naturally, we ended up doing a standard program of a common shower, cuddling, attempting sex and pillow-talk. I hardly slept, as did he, when it was time for him to pack for the departure. I felt okay, although he was obviously sentimentally devastated. To tell the truth, lying in his arms, I felt like those were the arms of my future husband. But we said our goodbyes, and several hours later, we would be all over whatsup.

I feel like I should be writing. I am thinking about the duty every day, but I am too lazy to get to it, because a lot of things happen, because i am slow at processing them, because it takes courage and responsibility to make your mind about what has just happened. I went to the summer university for the whole week. I spent 8 days in the community of unique people, whose minds are wide open and whose company is refreshingly present. I loved all of it. The fact that I came back there for the second time, although I had to travel to Finland with 7 transport changes and spend 17 hours at the airport on my way back, taken the fact that I hate travelling, the whole experience closed the deal in favour of my satisfaction.

I presented my photo project there. 

Everyone was extremely supportive, as they always are, I assume now. I shared my thoughts very openly and with an unexpected amount of confidence and lack of care. I loved that in me. I wonder where it came from. Maybe it is the fact of my graduation finally coming real to me. Maybe it is the rest I have to admit I have been having lately. Although I am prone to believing in my inability to rest, I guess, the way I treat things at the moment (having a break from writing, reading, people in general) is working out for me. I have been working more, which resulted in a change of my attitude. Sometimes I feel like I am losing the feel of it like I don’t enjoy my job anymore. I have very little opinion on it at the moment, but it scares me. I don’t want to lose the joy of my life. And I feel sceptical about my decision to study at the master level. I doubt the joy of writing, I doubt the joy of studying, I have no clear understanding of whether it makes me feel good or bad. The only thing that remains constant in my life as far as pleasure and joy are concerned is chocolate. That should be embarrassing, but when it comes to reality, there is nothing embarrassing to have the grounds of pleasure. I’d rather have something to compare the experiences to, rather than live in constant questioning and doubt, knowing my natural prone to it. I will always enjoy chocolate, it’s been years, I have trust in it. Everything else is just an existential variable. I also enjoy music, maybe even more than chocolate, but not any music, where chocolate is enjoyable in any form. In any way, I am having a moment with my job. Having hurt myself before going to the university in Finland, I brought the relationship between me and my current occupation to the place where I would find clues. I didn’t expect it to happen, but I have learned a lot about pain, and hurt, and dancing, and body, and the female duty of it as a performing entity. I had a panic attack after one of the performances. I ran to the shower, and I cried, and I cried, and I cried. I pitied myself for being a woman, I pitied myself for feeling, I pitied myself for doing the job that I doing, I pitied myself for enjoying it. Eventually, I got back to my feet and joined the evening activities  outside the campus, but, damn, I learned. I am not okay. I am never ultimately fine. I don’t think anyone is, but I have neither strength nor desire to compare or even think about anyone else - that is how selfish I am with the way I feel. Maybe it is a smart decision to make in the modern world. Maybe it is a natural outcome of it - to be selfish. Or maybe I just am selfish, because for the first 12 years I was raised as an only child in a nuclear family with the absent fatherly figure - doesn’t matter. I am a selfish asshole. I sometimes recognise myself in the character of Fiona Gallagher from Shameless TV series that I have been watching for the past month - another way to rest. But that is not the point. There is no point, actually, that I am trying to make. I think I just reached this point of update-necessity. Where does it come from? Oh, well. Probably from the cocktail of self-push, timing, recent insomnia and nightmares and the fact that I finally finished reading “Kadish…” by Imre Kertesz. I cried. And as I cried, I wondered whether it is the book or the hormones of the possible pregnancy, which I am so terrified by, even though I have been on pills for the past two months and didn’t really have sexual intercourse. In any way, the book got me. It is not that I could relate to it, but I did relate to the nature of the writer himself. I saw it as an excuse for myself in future to just refer people to the book with the intention to explain myself better, especially if it ever comes to the point of the relationship “not working out”. I enjoy self-pity too much. I triumph on pain and suffering. I married the dark the other night. I mean what I just said very literally. I found a very interesting ring under my bed a couple of weeks ago. For an instant, I wondered where it came from, but then I put it on on my right ring finger and said “yes” out loud. I didn’t realise why and what I was doing, but it felt natural to say it, as soon as I felt a perfect fit on my right-hand finger, where I never wear rings, as they never feel like they belong there. 

A few days later I travelled to Norway. I visited a guy who happened to be helping me with my graduation celebration in jacuzzi and hotel the morning after. It just so happened that he paid for my ticket and I naturally agreed on coming. Those were quite educational 4 days. I am totally unfunctional in a relationship, I don’t like orgasms, I am in there for sex only, I like Oslo as the city, my favourite ice-cream flavour changed from pistachio to creme brulee with walnuts, I get attached to the other too quickly and I still don’t know what I am doing with my life. It was quite difficult for me to sleep alone after coming back. I slept so well by the side of the other. Maybe it was the preceding sexual intercourse. Yeah, that was probably it. Masturbation is nothing compared to it, even if I never climax while sex. Not that I cannot, I tried that as well, but I don’t enjoy that. I like to keep things between the two of us, and having an orgasm for me is still something extremely private, selfish and egoistic in relation to the intercourse. I don’t even like to be pleased - just use my body for your own pleasure and make me happy by just that. I still think of it as self-abuse. I love that. I think I enjoy abusing my female body by my physically absent male potency residing in my mind by the means of a participating male. That sounded extremely technical and theoretic, but that is exactly what it is. Maybe I do need sex with feeling for a change. But that implies falling in love, trusting, hurting, damn… I will not comment on it right now.

I have been seriously thinking about my sexual orientation again. I have been feeling quite repulsed by men again. There was a moment my friend touched himself and asked if I wanted to watch. I could not even look at his member, my eyes would get glued to the fact of the man with, probably, horror. In opposition to that, having returned to my job, having watched my crush performing naked, all of a sudden I felt aroused, aroused to the extent where I would gasp audibly while watching her swaying to the music at the other side of the club. And I would catch myself fantasising of touching her with my finger tips, with my lips, with my tongues… The edges, the contours, the smell of hers. I didn’t think of fucking her, but I still sat there totally aroused by the sight of her naked body articulating music, which I didn’t really enjoy. So it wasn’t even for the music, or the lights, or the smoke and darkness, it was her and my, probably, aesthetic attraction. I am still confused. But I am still giving myself time and space to learn.

In that summer university, I met the people from the last year, which was nice. And when I say that, of course, I have one person in mind. Isn’t it always like that, when you say that something was nice, you kind of think of something or someone in particular? I met the guy with the penetrative gaze again. It was the 20th day of my moving on when I wrote about him, and now it’s past 400 days that I come back to him in my writing. It has literally been a year, but it feels good to come back. It feels worth it. And this time, I managed to get closer to the guy, with words, with experiences. I got his contact. He gave me his actual address to write paper letters to, the idea of which I am now bearing and growing inside every single day, summoning all the courage, but still having no words to put down. But it’s happening, the words will come, eventually, I know they will. But the most beautiful thing that happened is that we danced together, in an awkward, open, sincere way. We would be looking at each other’s eyes and simply go with the rhythm. That felt nice. Later that night he asked me to challenge him to a dance. Past midnight, on the night wet grass I taught him the basic lindy-hop move, which he would find soulless and demand something more spiritual, like a rhythm. And then he would say the most remarkable thing.

Let’s dance to our own music.

We danced. No music playing, but we would sync with one another in our moves. And we would dance, and dance, and dance, looking at each other, and smiling at each other. I loved just that. He said he enjoyed me as a dancing partner, he felt good dancing by my side, and that would be one of the nicest compliments I had ever received. We had something in common, it felt nice to be a part of something with someone, especially when this something was something I happen to be so passionate about, and that someone had already been seen as someone special to me for no particular reason. I asked him how old he was.

I’m afraid you’d have to add 10 more years to your age.

Oh… I missed it.

Missed what?

The moment. With you.

He understood. He was the one who told me once at breakfast that he has reality of his own, and I have reality of my own, and things are real to us according to those realities of ours. And i found it beautiful, because how fun it is to make your reality bigger by simply talking about the reality of the other? And what if you give this reality a chance to become real for you? God, that must be a never-ending exploration, discoveries, adventures even, involving just the two eager and open for it to happen. That is so beautiful. He said many beautiful things, not necessarily because they were beautiful in themselves, but because I saw them as such, and that was enough for them to become beautiful in my reality. This man. So alien, yet, so, mine? Not mine mine, but my kind of person, just as my first love/crush/squish was - shooting words at me which would organise my reality in a beautiful, comprehensible way.

I am learning about missing things and people. I still miss my dutch housemates, damn it, and I can’t even let them know because it is weird even for me to feel this way. Why do I feel like this? And the ugliest part of it all is that I don’t really miss them as people, I miss the chances I never took on them. And by the chances, I mean sex. Yes, that is where I am at right now - low and needy.

I want to have my own place. I want to be fit. I want to be healthy. I want to be successful and content with my life decisions. I want to have enough money for me to feel less socially insecure. I want to have enough money to support my family because I believe that would make calling my mother easier. It’s been awhile since we talked. The last time ended in her tears after the news of me not coming to visit. I don’t want to visit. I don’t miss them. I write to my sister sometimes. I sent her the parcel with a backpack, pencil case, a necklace, a wallet with two million Belarusian rubles (hopefully, there will be no problem with that at the border), a pink tonic for her blond hair which she demanded from me, and a dress I bought for myself, but didn’t really befriended it as an appropriate outfit, as it was covered in tiny prints of Alice-in-Wonderland-related pictures and a fur line around the neck. She will love all of it. I know she will. I felt good sending it, I feel good giving stuff for my sister. I think I generally like giving people things, giving myself away. It is a bitter-sweet experience, or maybe just another way to self-abuse. I love that.