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.Â
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 donât enjoy my job anymore. I have very little opinion on it at the moment, but it scares me. I donât 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. Iâd 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, itâs 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 didnât 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 donât 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 - doesnât 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 âKadishâŚâ 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 didnât 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 ânot working outâ. 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 âyesâ out loud. I didnât 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.Â
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 donât 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 donât 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 donât 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 donât 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 didnât think of fucking her, but I still sat there totally aroused by the sight of her naked body articulating music, which I didnât really enjoy. So it wasnât 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. Isnât 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 itâs 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 itâs 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 otherâs 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.
Letâs 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.
Iâm afraid youâd have to add 10 more years to your age.
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 canât 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 donât 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. Itâs been awhile since we talked. The last time ended in her tears after the news of me not coming to visit. I donât want to visit. I donât 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 didnât 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.
There is something with me and Alice from Wonderland, and giving, and reality, and confusion.Â