realfrille

This memory popped into my head and inspired me to write this entry:

I had just moved. A woman was starting a little collective and me and a girl moved in at the same time. It took a couple of days before we met, having gone and went at different times during our movings... I came home to sleep the first night there, found this girl in the hallway. We awkwardly introduced ourselfs, I went into my room and he went into the kitchen. I read for a while, and then laid down to sleep.
When I had just turned the light off, I heard the fire alarm, and seconds after the girl was screaming for help. I put on a t-shirt and wandered out there, calmly asked "okay, where's the fire?", she, terrified, explained that there was no fire, but she had burned some bread in the oven. I told her, calmly and clearly, to open a window and turn the oven off, while I looked for the alarm to turn that off.
After the alarm was silenced and the kitchen was clear of smoke, she was shaking. So I sat down with her for an hour or so, to calm her with my company, and getting to know her a little.
We lived together for over six months, and everytime a new person came to visit, she would retell the story of my heroism. She never ceased to be amazed by my cool, when I sauntered out there and solved the situation.

I need to be remembering things like that. I need to focus on my good stories, instead of the bad ones. I mean, I'm sure there are good stories, too, in that mind of mine....

I have lost myself, I need to find me back. Right now, I remember that I can be cool under pressure.

Your ex is your ex for a reason, whatever that may be.
And if you doubt that your current is right for you,
make it an ex for that reason may be reasonable.

I wrote that another place and thought I worded it good.
About exes, I've been talking a lot about my last one. I got lost somewhere and people around me saw me hurt, without me understanding how bad it really was. The few who told me what they saw couldn't make a difference, the change had to come from me.

Warning signals:

• If your partner tells you one thing one day and the opposite the next day - not Right.
• If your partner seems to be bothered by your presence - not Right
• If your partner mocks you when you're weak - not Right

On the other hand

• If you smile at the sheer thought of your partner - may be Right
• If you feel that you can say anything to them - may be Right
• If you're comfortable being a little weak in front of them - may be Right

Don't you wish it was all this easy? I'm not an expert on relationships, but gods I wish I was.
It's all just trial and error, isn't it? My exes weren't right for me, for so many different reasons, and now I'm with a man so totally different from most of them.

People spend a lot of time wasting energy on wanting to get back with their exes. I apply baseball rules - three strikes and you're out, meaning that if we break up thrice there is no fourth time.

My last ex broke up with me twice in anger. The first time we we're on a couch watching TV and I wanted to tell him that I had plans for which he could not come along. He exploded, screamed and cursed. I almost fell to the floor when he hurriedly got off flew off the couch.
When he finally calmed down, he told me that he felt like I had spit him in the face. Where I thought I was calmly telling him that the ceremony I was going to was "members-only" and him not being "member" I couldn't bring him, he heard me saying that he was a moron and I didn't want anything to do with him. The second time I remember less vividly, but it was basically the same. Me saying something, him misunderstanding my meaning, and him exploding, leaving me confused at what happened.
Why did I still take him back? I'm not sure.

Why take your ex back? In general, if people take their exes back, it's usually for wrong reasons.
If your partner has broken up in anger, why take them back when they're calm again?
If you broke up due to personality mismatch, what makes you think the next time around it will be better?

People fascinate me. The human mind is enigmatic. Why do people do the things they do?

Today, May 17th, is the International Day Against HOmophobia.

One of the least noticed, but still important, days. Yes, least noticed, for us living outside the LGBT-community. I used to be in it, in that world of "don't assume anyones gender", "boo-hoo, we are so oppressed", "we have the right to express our personalities in any way we wish". That was my world.

I'm not claiming that I live in the hetero-norm now, but over the years some things has become less important to me. I no longer care about passing as a man at the expense of my own comfort, I no longer panic when a stranger talks to me because I don't know in what range my voice needs to be to fit the gender I assume that they assume that I am. Yeah, stuff got complicated, now they're easier, 'cos I care less.

This day is still important, for all those that still worry, still feel oppressed, still feel they cannot be themselves.
But how do we change the world? Do we do it by arranging activities within the community? Do we do it by having 100 people in town listening to a couple of politicians holding speeches about how bad homophobia is? Do we do it by freaky parades, by dressing freakishly or barely...?

Where are the straight peoples parade? When is the one week per year that they shame themselves in public, by wearing feather boas and leather chaps? When do they express their hidden inner selves, their fetishes? They don't.

It amazes me. Even when I lived in that world, it amazed me. This attitude that "we are just like you, and we should have the same rights as you. We are prouder of being us than you are of being you. We are just as good as you and we show that by expressing ourselves just one week a year, as you express yourselves everyday. Don't this pink boa go great with this wig? And if I stand on these stilts I can wear a longer dress."

I've been in one Pride-parade, in 2007. Mass-psychosis. People challenging other people to be even weirder, dress even stranger, dance even crazier. And people do this, sober, what no straight person would ever do drunk.

When was the last time you saw a hetero-normative person wear a little black dress and boxing gloves? Huge bright blonde wig and beard? They don't.

As I said, this is an important day. This could be the day when "we" show ourselves as normal, when we show that we are humans, just as the straight people. This could be the day to balance the Pride celebrations. This could be the day when we focus on politics and equal rights. This could be the day when we do a serious attempt to crush homophobia. But, we don't.

Ever since I came back from Atlanta, right before Christmas, I was wanting to be alone. I wanted to see no one, be seen by no one, have no responsabilities, no times to keep. I did some attempts to do things, but rarely made it to agreed-upon place in agreed-upon time. I was constantly procrastinating. Wikipedia says:
"Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision." And, yes, that is exactly what I was doing.
Now, I'm trying to deal with it, get past it and leave it behind. As I've always done.

I made plans to help a friend move. I told her I'd be there on both the Saturday and Sunday. I didn't leave my home at all on the Saturday, due to anxiety. I finally managed to get there, way late, on the Sunday, totally unaware that a new era in my life was about to get its prequel then and there.

A new person, now very dear to me, came into my life that day, and since then I'm realizing more and more that I don't know where I've been. Even when I know where my body's been.

Last year I spent one month in the States. Mostly in Atlanta, Georgia. I was there visiting my (now former) partner. He had stressed how important it was that I'd be there for Thanksgiving with his family, but I think he forgot just how long one month can be, when all your plans takes place during the first week.
It was the loneliest month in my life. And I thought I'd been lonely before.
Atlanta seemed gods-forsaken. I seemed stupid.
The thought "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto", came into mind more than once. And also:
"He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea." - Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy

I am slowly adapting to a new life.
My life was such a chaos when my former partner came into it, I didn't even see how much more chaos he brought. I was Atlas and he was just another burden. Waking up in the mornings to him cursing because he got angry about something, listening to his complaints, trying to mediate between him and others... Not a problem, I was doing all of that with the others in the apartment anyway. He was here for two months, and about a month later I flew to his country.
When I went over there, I went against my own will.

I had recently moved then. We had got two months notice on eviction and had to find another place. One week before set date I found a place for me, and got stressed half to death with getting all my stuff there and helping the others pack theirs... I just wanted a few more weeks to calm down and settle in. My partner, who was back in Atlanta, kept complaining about it, he said "you have everything the way you had it before (we met), and I'm back in this bullshit". If that makes sense to you, please explain to me!

I didn't like it, but I took it.
Chaos was normal to me. People exploding in rage was normal to me. Being ignored was new, though.

This new life is the total opposite. I can tell my boyfriend about someone from earlier in my life, and add "and he was strange!". I just get a smile back, 'cos almost all the stories I tell are strange to him.

I am afraid. I'm more afraid of "nice guys" than of "bad boys".
From "bad boys" I expect trouble, so they're easier to deal with.
If someone either don't touch you at all, or grab you hard, you know what to expect. If someone never has a nice word for you, you learn to not expect any. If you're not required to speak, well, no, you don't learn to listen, you learn to keep quiet. And when someone can explode over the smallest of things, you learn to tread very carefully and never make that same mistake again. With "nice guys", I just never know.

I went to Atlanta with a broken soul. Came back worse. Now I need to learn so many things anew.

I disappeared from my life for a couple of years there, and it took an opposite of it all to see it.
I have just recently learned that things can be personal. Intimate, even. I have experienced "intimacy" with somebody in a whole'nother way than I'm used to.

I have also recently been reminded of who I used to be. From different sources. I did do things, back then. Even when I was going downhill, before I reached the chasm, I did do things.
I've been said to be a Legend.

Every once in a while, most people need a katharsis. Hiding is not an option anymore.

Someone wrote on a social site that he wishes he can turn his life back 15 years, but keep the knowledge of things that he has now. People want to do that often, they want to get second chances to re-live their lifes.
But honestly, being 25 with the life experience of a 40-yearold aint so great either.

Many years ago, someone told me that I'd been through more in my life than most people experience in a lifetime. I was a 20-yearold with over 40 years of life. And things, both good and bad, has continued to happen to me since. I've always been too old for my age.

People who think like the person I mentioned at the top, are making a common mistake. They've often sat around and waited for life to begin. I once told that person "your life is what's been going on while you've been complaining about not having one".

Twice in my life I've gotten to know men, around 40 years old, that had been single for around 10 years. What had they been doing, apart from playing MMORPG online? Just waiting. Going to work, coming home, playing, sleeping, going to work... Basically. Obviously they did other things too, sometimes, but all their stories were from the '80s. From back when they felt they were really living.

Here I'm not saying that everybody needs to be in a relationship, don't get me wrong on that. But I just cannot understand the "sitting around, year after year, and wait for their lives to begin".

Sometimes I wish that my life would pause, and just let me catch up, let me process things for a while. But of course I can't do that, time does not halt for anyone. Things will keep happening, sometimes so fast that I think I'm gonna go mad if I don't get a break.
I'm used to my life changing fast, I'm used to having to deal with new situations, and that's made me versatile. Other people can freak out when facing a new, stressful, situation, I rarely do. This is how my life is.

Why are people making this mistake? Wasting years, waiting for something to start happening? If all you do is sit at home, if all you're talking to are people from the game you're playing, how do you expect things to start happening? And old Swedish childrens' song tells us (my translation):

"You shan't believe it's gonna be summer, unless someone gets things started".