We Couldn't Bring the Columns Down

I have become so disillusioned with people that it has surprised me. I can't explain it. I've just taken to noticing a lack of humanity in the way we interact, the way we speak to each other. There are no lines that are not allowed to be crossed anymore; everything seems permissible. There are no distinctions between private and public life. People forget who they are because they are so focused on others. Perhaps we are too immature to simply leave each other alone once in awhile or, more frighteningly, perhaps we've just forgotten how to be compassionate.

On a better note, I now have a saint. It's beautiful, I'm speechless. I've only had it for a few hours and it makes me feel better already. Thank you.

Everything is just so...relevent at the moment. Except perhaps mock exams, which are quite irrelevent and annoying. But everything else. The music I find myself listening to, the things I find myself writing, the rose bush, the book I've just started reading, the conversations I've had recently. It all just coincidentally fits together. It all makes sense.

Fabula.

I'm writing again. Not blog-writing, not email-writing, not essay-writing. Valerie-writing. I'd forgotten how important it is to me to just be able to sit down and write for no one. And not necessarily write about my own life. It's not like diary-writing. It's writing for the sake of writing, writing because the world is intricate, writing because my fingers on the keyboard or my pen on the paper sound nice, writing because I can.

I'm not sure what I'll do with all of my written things. Stories are almost more important than diary entries. Stories tell a lot more about me and about my life than records of what I'm doing or thinking, because stories are uncontrollable. You set out to write complete fiction and only halfway through do you realize that you're not sure anymore whether the story is more fiction than reality or more reality than fiction. But at that point, it's too late and you have to finish the story, no matter how uncomfortable or personal it becomes.

Writing, in some way, also reaffirms my existence. Writing is the manifestation of my thoughts, my passions. Being able to write means that I have something to say, and having something to say is important in the general scheme of things.

Quote of the day, taken randomly from the wall next to my pillow:
"We do not have ideologies, we do not have theologies. We dance."-Libertad El Derecho A Atreverse

Possible.

For once in my life, I am frustrated by possibilities. Usually, possibilities comfort people. They like wondering if they have something to look forward to, like thinking that something might happen, like keeping the hope alive. I, on the other hand, have no patience for possibilities. I want things to happen or not to happen, simple as that. Now, I'm not promoting a black&white way of living, because by this point we should all know that I would rather life within the shades of gray in between. But shades of gray are not about possibilities. Shades of gray are about nuances, small things, moments. But possibilities? They're just about waiting, wasting time, wondering about things generally because someone doesn't have the self-assurance to just give you a straight answer or say something to you themselves. I am completely and entirely fed up with "possible".

And now I'm convinced that this entire post was possibly all misunderstood. Ha. Possibly.

Al Fin Del Mundo

You know, I wrote that Kate Chopin quote on my birthday. And I found out the day after my birthday, the day after I decided to use the quote, that Kate Chopin and I share the same birthday. If that's not fate-filled, I don't know what is.

It was at the end of the world. Misty and foggy and surrounded by water on three sides. It was full of my best friends and good champagne, pretty wooden floors and strong coffee. It's a place that's in the middle of nowhere in Norway, a country that is already in the middle of nowhere itself. And so far out there, dancing salsa and reggaeton and merengue until way too early in the morning, then waking up way too early to sit around in our sweatpants and drink coffee and listen to Jack Johnson....all the way out there, with all those strange things in such a strange place, all of that juxtaposition....and I was more happy than I've been in a long time. And no, not just because of the champagne. Because I was dancing with people I adore, because I was toasting my birthday with my best friends, because my Spanish has finally reached a conversational level, because it was debauchery at its finest.

Beautiful presents (I finally have a Spanish-language copy of "Love in the Times of Cholera"), beautiful food, beautiful wine, beautiful clothes, beautiful scenery, beautiful friends. I am content.

Another year.

"I never dreamed of her making such a mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But, when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late." -Kate Chopin

Stars.

I am again annoyed by the lack of respect for other's histories. This time generally because it seems as though everyone thinks that their "problems" are so much greater than everyone else's. They are not. And if you think that they are, then you don't know other people well enough. And this advice applies to me as well, and therefore I will not pain you with a list of all the things that were frustrating today. Because they are small, they are only events, they are not moments of living.

It's days like today that make me realize how incredibly lucky I am to be at this exact moment in my life with these exact people. Today was horrible and stressful and ominously prophetic of what I can expect for the next month. And another me, a younger me, would have gone and crawled in bed and cried. But this me, the now me, ended up okay. Ended up strangely happy, even. That is due mostly to the people I have, the people I care about. The people who make the endless meetings enjoyable, the people who make me smile with an offhand comment at lunch, the people that bake me cakes when I finish my political movement in Extended Essay form (those last people would be my roommates and they deserve specific naming because of the cake and because they are them).

I am too stressed to have a birthday. My mom told me to suck it up and deal with it, because apparently "adults" are always too stressed to have birthdays. Or they just stop caring about them. But I feel like birthdays demand special thought, special attention to meaning and detail. They require nostalgia and evaluations of years past. Birthdays involve philosophy. And I am just far too stressed to do justice to all of that.

Closure. I've realized what it is this time. It's walking away mid-sentence, closing the door, and not actually opening it again to finish the sentence. It's leaving in the middle but forcing it to be the end. It's not pretty, it's not romantic, it's not novel-worthy. But it is still closure.

On that note, I'll end with song lyrics. They're story-like and good enough to justify reproducing a large piece of them. They feel very central, very important. Enjoy them. Great love in realistic form is always an important thing.

"Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start. You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin. Now you just say oh, Romeo, yeah I used to have a scene with him. Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry. I said I love you like the stars above, I love you til I die. And there's a place for us, you know the movie song. When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet? I can't do the talk like the talk on the T.V. And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be. I can't do everything, but I'd do anything for you. I can't do anything except be in love with you. And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be. And all I do is keep the beat and the bad company. And all I do is kiss you through the bars of Orion. Juliet, I'd do the stars with you any time."

Los Amantes del Circulo Polar

Three things.

First. Loose ends. I'm done with them. They do nothing but entangle me, so I'm done with holding on to them just because I've always been too scared of the possibility of actually losing them. Losing things is okay. I don't feel like I always have to win anymore. It doesn't always have to all make sense. I don't always have to like it. But I can always be myself, always act according to the things I believe in most, always be graceful and dignified. In that way, I don't really lose anything at all.

Second. An apology. A deep, sincere, apology. Now, don't you all go thinking that I don't actually have the maturity and go and apologize in person. I already have. I'm just thinking of this apology a lot. What it means, to go and put yourself out there, vulnerable and emotionally naked, and admit that you are sorry. Well, I am. And I have done that. And it's terrible, because I've been the person on the receiving end of this. I've been left empty. I know what it is to fall apart, I know what it is to watch everything you want slip away no matter what you do. I know it. I feel it. No one deserves it, it is unfair, and it breaks my heart that that is the way things are. I want it to be different. But. It's not.

Third. I spoke to someone tonight. Just a random, probably meaningless conversation. But it made me realize how incredibly lucky I am. Because I know I have something that is full of meaning. Something that I don't have to be sad about, something I don't have to dramatize, something I don't have to question. I have my rock. Every walk, every cigarette, every brush of hands, every stolen kiss, every drink shared, every dinner made, every dance enjoyed, every smile, every phone call, every thought....the depth of the reality of these things hit me tonight. The simple fact that they are real is powerful. And because of that, I am so lucky. Thank you.

"Se que estas lejos de aqui, sonriendo sin reir, escribiendo algo para mi."