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A Day to Remember

May 3rd, 2010 by Monica

Dear Linsey aka my bitch,

I’ve wanted to properly thank you, or maybe more to the point “express” how I feel about what you’ve done for me, since you wrote me that blog post. I haven’t had a chance to because we were too busy celebrating and everything was happening at the same time, but here we are – it is another monday, my birthday is now a year away, and I am sitting outside yet again, writing. Strangely enough, the world looks just the same. I think that’s a good thing.

I don’t actually know if I have the tools to tell you how much what you did for me means, how grateful I am, how deeply I appreciate it, and you. You blew me away and left me speechless and I’m not certain I can put into words everything I feel. I think that mainly I just need you to know a thing or two ;)

The cake - it smells like paradise

I had not had something like that done for me on my birthday in many, many years – we’re talking ten, probably. The disturbing and yet magical days of my teenage years, when it was all so much easier and friendship so much more intense, so much more real than it has been ever since. Until now. I most certainly had not had a friend go to the extent you did probably ever. And yet that’s not what matters, but the simple fact that I had not been touched by such thoughtfulness in so long that I can’t even remember.

Thoughtfulness. That one word holds the key to my birthday and you. There was not one thing you did, one thing you thought of or said, not one present you sent me that was not overflown with thoughtfulness. My point is, you were so, so, so, SO spot on, in every little (and big) thing. The cake, the words, the post, the presents, is was all so unbelievably perfect and me. It was me. And THAT, my friend, says so very much about you. You and the fact that you most definitely have a window to my soul. And THAT is HUGE. Every card, every little creature (my monster!!), the flavour of my cake, the t-shirt that I would have picked myself because it is so ME, my GOD the necklace…….. so very much ME. And the beauty of it is, there you were, too, in everything. You have a gift, at least when it comes to me, because it could not have been any more perfect.

Sweet sweet Gussy

And everything you did, the words on the blog, the lack of sleep, the party with Gus (I cannot tell you how sweet that was), the cupcake you got, the celebration… it was all so beautiful that I find it difficult to tell you how beautiful, how spectacular it was. How so very very special. How close to my heart I hold it.

The words on the blog, well, I’m still reading it and still absorbing that much beauty. The fact that I make a difference in your life means so much to me, because you are such a stunning soul, such a gorgeous person, such a pure heart, and so filled with magic yourself…. that any difference that I make, anything I might make better, or easier, or sweeter…. is a gift to ME.

My birthday, as you know, is so full of memories, happiness, expectation, anxiety, magic, longing, PINING for my family…. So amazing and so difficult in so many ways. So FULL. Having you “here” to celebrate this day with Donna and I was, really, having you here literally. I had the love of my life holding me, the best friend ever coming up with all sorts of sweet surprises and oh-so-much beauty helping to fill my day with joy and love, my family on the phone. I am very lucky and I’ve had a lot of love in my life – I have the partner of my dreams and I have the best parents and the best sister one could wish for – even though we can sure be fucked up. I wouldn’t change anything. And yet, there was something missing, and it was you. What my birthday this year was, in fact, was a complete family, and it could not, would not, have been the same without you. I could not have wished for anything more, except to have us all sitting in the same room, preferably piled up on top of each other, including – but of course – your very very gorgeous, very hot wife, who helped make this day what it was (even though she almost ruined everything by going to Texas) (and who I may steal for Donna and myself. Sorry). It was, however, pretty close, and considering we’re all “Pacifics and Atlantics” apart, it was perfect.

Thank you for making it possible, magical and absolutely unforgettable, like every moment we share. I love you to bits.

Monica.

Posted in It's a Wonderful Life, The Sweet, With Every Beat of My Heart | 4 Comments »

And so I push myself to write, I force myself out there (here)

Apr 8th, 2010 by Monica

Today I’m sitting here and the very last thing I want to do is write. I want to sleep all day or do something completely mindless – except for the fact that I can’t because my mind and my body are so sick of being neglected that I feel physically ill, like I could just throw it all up. My body has had it with my bullshit and my mind is playing tricks on me – as it does. I know that I am strong enough to face it, challenge it, fight it or embrace it, but lately my desire to ignore it is so overpowering. I’ve never felt such strong a need to leave it all alone, or better yet, tell it all to go to hell. My thoughts are exhausting me in such an overwhelming way that I want to throw it away so that I can just breathe – which is ultimately a desire to not have to put up with myself for a day.

The longer it goes on for, this loss, this sense of profound loneliness, this feeling that there should be more, the harder it gets. I try not to let it take over and I keep pushing on because it is necessary to not completely fall apart. In fact, I find it so essential to hold on, just hold on, that I wonder if it wouldn’t be more productive to just let it completely overtake me, let it be, let it have its moment of corruption and despair – so that I can, for a little while, stop holding on so goddamn tight. For years now I’ve lived with this agonizing feeling of being completely and utterly alone – in the deepest way I’ve ever felt it. It’s bigger than needing someone to talk to, bigger than needing to be held, bigger than needing to be understood; It has become physical. I’ve had someone say to me a few years ago “do you need me to be your girlfriend or your carer”? As it happens with everything I do, the minute someone I love complains about the way I do or do not do something, I take it as my responsibility to never do it again. I feel under so much pressure to deliver (or not deliver) that I internalize my needs to the point where they become nausea, so that instead of dealing with it I just want to vomit.

I know when it started, too. I was 14 and I realized that really opening up and giving myself to someone, which I always thought was a tremendous gift to give, was instead considered a burden. I remember the feeling so very well that today, sixteen years later, it still haunts me. It’s not something I usually think about – it’s worse. It’s a feeling so deeply ingrained that it feels like a part of who I am.

I used to give my parents kisses on the cheek as “payment” for whatever I asked of them, as a kid. They would ask for 50 each, maybe 100. I was raised to think for myself, be free, and know I could do anything I ever wanted to. I had such profound, unconditional love from my parents that I ended up, ironically, utterly dependent on it. I now realize that at thirty years of age I just don’t know how to be without it and I have no idea what to do with that realization. Everything that matters to me is tied up to it and it is all love. I wanted to change the world, now I want to be sheltered. I don’t know whether to be happy or desperate by the fact that I protect my partner from these feelings so completely – these needs I barely understand or recognize myself. My mother would see it even before I did, my sister would understand it; that hammering goes on 24/7 on the back of my mind. I am torn between a life of experience and childhood dreams, and it’s driving me insane.

One of the things that scare me the most about the changes in me since I moved to “the other side of the world”  is that I appear to fit in so much more than I ever have before – and I don’t want that. It came creeping up slowly – first the thought of my emotions as a burden, then the unwilling isolation from the rest of the world (so unlike the willing one from the past) and ultimately the infinite self-protecting – that I barely express emotion these days and that is so foreign to me. Suddenly I look like everyone else, going on about their own lives blissfully unsuspecting of the rest of the world. However, that is appearance only. I don’t feel that way, I don’t care for fitting in and I’m certainly not willing to pay the price – not in any way.  And yet, I do. Suddenly I don’t know how else to be and I barely recognize myself – self-awareness now being such a distant memory. This adapting/adjusting became bigger than me and I don’t know how to get out of it.

So I fear. I hide. I protect myself even more. I distrust people and avoid risks because I fear the disappointment too much. I crave a capacity to let go that I no longer seem to possess. I long for love so unconditional, so motherly, that it will force me to release it all even when I think I can’t.

While that goes on unstopped by me, I realize that a fundamental part of who I am is deeply asleep and I am fumbling in the dark for the tools that I need to wake it up. Wake me up.

Posted in Essential thoughts, How Can I Remember, Writing | 5 Comments »

Shifting lights – I have summer in me

Apr 4th, 2010 by Monica

I’m sitting outside at a cafe that has been an oasis to me for years. On either side of this tiny alley the world goes on raging – only a hundred feet away – but right here, surrounded by a few trees, where the wind blows my hair across my face and the sun shines through the swaying leaves, creating patterns that shift on every surface – including my body – the world is peaceful, it is gentle and it is mine.

My emotions shift with the light and the weight lifts off my shoulders, allowing me to feel beauty in an extraordinary way. My body almost tingles with possibility and faith. 

These sensations that were always such an integral part of who I was and how I related to the world – feelings I both treasured and relied on – they often get buried under hardship, pain, sadness, disillusionment. Or worse, I become someone who simply endures. While endurance is tremendously necessary and often desirable, it is also a coping mechanism, a way of allowing me to become accustomed. To life. When I become accustomed to pain, to situations that hurt and harm, I also become accustomed to the beauty of the shifting lights – to joy, excitement, passion, vibrancy, all things that make life so unbelievably precious, the treasure that it is. Magic. 

The reason these moments are so fundamental to me is that they’re a reminder, an insight into my self at peace and whole, an opportunity to contemplate the things that really matter and to free myself of so many that don’t. In this space, in this moment, I let the walls tumble down – I grab endurance by the lapels, look at it right in the eye and accept it, while making it clear that I’m the one in control and that I will not let it shadow my way. I am peaceful, I am whole, and I am also an incredibly passionate, intense being – I frighten it, the endurance, “the accommodating”, because it knows that I may go through stages of submission when I let it take over, but it is also aware that passion comes back with a vengeance. 

These moments are my doing. They’re all about my ability to see, hear, feel, live fully – this capacity for life that I worship and fight for. I tell the bitter in me, loud and clear, that it has its place and time, but that it is I who win the battle, that I will always invite the shifting lights in. I will experience excruciating pain – I will fight for it – and I will experience all the glitter of joy. I also let my life be filled by moments of necessary endurance because I know so many unknown corners await – and I seek them, rejoice in its surprises. I’ll get in my car and be suddenly caught off-guard, permitting the music on the radio to fill me with dance and sensuality so plentiful it will scare the demons away. I’ll open my windows and be washed over by beauty. I’ll connect with nature so deeply I’ll be weightless and free. I’ll sit out here and let my mind, body and soul come together and give me this moment when all the difficulties and struggles of the every day take a backseat to my magic – when I write with little thought and abundant freedom. 

Today, when the days get yet another hour shorter of light and the winter fast approaches, I have summer in me, and I believe that the deep darkness of the cold nights to come will bring more brightly starred skies because of it. 

Posted in A Beautiful Mind, Essential thoughts | 4 Comments »

This is who I am

Mar 31st, 2010 by Monica

This is the first time in what feels like an eternity (and is probably 5 or 6 years) that I start typing without having any idea what I’m going to write about, which means this is probably going to be an all-over-the-place mess. Fine, I’ll take it.

It’s been pointed out to me by a very trustworthy source (wow) that every second entry of mine is about writing. Which sucks, but I haven’t written about it in a while so hey, let’s keep up with the tradition. I should write this in bullet points. I won’t.

I find myself wanting to write, even needing to write, and giving up before I even start. I’m over it, my god I’m over it. I am frustrated with having to face the fact that I’ve become this person who is just not taking a chance enough. I think to myself that I just can’t be bothered and maybe that’s true, but I think that I’m just so afraid of disappointment – of any kind – that I just find it easier to leave it alone, whatever IT is.

I can talk about writing. I like to believe I can write my way out of this, even if it means writing my way out of not being able to write – before I get to write my way out of this self-protection, jaded bullshit. I am terribly aware of how painfully boring that is, but then again, so what? It goes like this (I’ll even use the bullet points now, believe it or not):

  • I think something
  • I feel something
  • I think: I’m going to write
  • I feel the need to write
  • I think: blog? What am I doing?
  • I think: write on paper.
  • But why can’t I just blog it? I used to be able to write it all out, blog it all out
  • I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought
  • Why the hell do I??
  • I’m just going to write, screw it.
  • No, I won’t, I can’t be bothered. I should just go read.
  • I read
  • I read some more
  • And then some more
  • And more
  • Then I feel like writing
  • But I’m lost
  • I can’t do it anymore
  • Oh my god OH MY GOD, WHY?
  • I’m boring
  • I’ll just write about writing again
  • Why can’t I vomit my feelings all over the page?
  • When did I change so much?
  • How?
  • Oh shit
  • Why why why?
  • Oh god, but why do I have to whine so much? Jesus! That is SO annoying!
  • If I write I’m just going to whine
  • No one likes whining
  • But why the hell should it matter? WAKE UP!
  • Monica, don’t be an asshole (no, spell-checker, I do NOT mean armhole), just do whatever you want to and write however you want to AS YOU ALWAYS HAVE
  • I can’t
  • Why not?
  • OHMYGODSHUTUPALREADY!!

Do you see where this is going? I just keep talking myself into circles, more appropriately referred to, in this case, as traps. And I am sick of it. So you know what? I’m going to whinge and whine and rant and rave and I’m going to allow myself to do it, for a change. I am tired of denying myself everything all the time. I also say that a lot: I’m tired I’m tired I’m tired. Of this, that and the other and something else. Well, I am tired of so many things. How about I just suck it up for a change and allow myself to be tired? No, instead I just get tired of feeling tired. You know what, I’m done. Done.

It isn’t only with my writing/blogging that it goes that way. It’s with everything. I analyse and analyse some more and drive myself to the brink of insanity about every little thing. Self-awareness is good. It’s necessary. It’s great even. However, it becomes a problem when I stop writing-doing-living because I’m too busy over-analysing. Guess what? Yep, I’m TIRED OF IT. I’ve had it with the traps I keep creating for myself. Self-awareness can, at times, mean freedom. Right now it means entrapment. How can I possibly do the growing everyday, the changing, the becoming, when I can’t even let myself just be? Because I know that’s the key: letting myself be IS the growing I’m longing for right now. It IS the becoming.

So you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to make this post the “about me” page I’ve been wanting to write. This is me right now and I’m allowing it to be. I’m going to say I’m tired too much, too often. I’m going to whine a lot, I’m going to sway between feeling so terribly jaded and feeling so incredibly alive (oh, the magic!), I’m going to contradict myself. I’m also going to complain – about having changed without noticing, about having shut down without my own consent, about the world. I am also going to love it. I am going to get frustrated with myself and I’m going to over-analyse. I’m going to talk about the past – how I used to be, how I used to write, how I miss so many things – it will even look like I’m stuck there. I may be. So be it.

I am going to write myself out of this. I will force myself and push myself and get unbelievably sick of it. I am going to feel what I feel regardless of how unpleasant that may be – to myself or you. I am going to put myself out there. Out here.

This is who I am.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Rules and Regulations

Mar 23rd, 2010 by Monica

Okay, alright. This is one of those posts that I avoid writing these days because it’s just pointless, but hey, a girl has got to vent, and oh my god, this is my blog, can you imagine? How DARE I write whatever I feel like? How dare I allow myself to complain? How can I possibly be so bold as to be less than pleasant and polite at all times, use whatever words I want to, say it how I see it, EVEN WRITE IN CAPITALS AT TIMES? OH MY GOD. I’M SO BAD!

Oh, but that’s sarcastic. Passive-aggressive bullshit. Well, you know what? Maybe it is. I don’t care. I’m not scared of saying what I want to say, even though I might at times shy away from it because I just can’t be bothered dealing with something so silly and insignificant. Most people will agree that trolls should not be fed and will go away if ignored. And you’re all completely right when you say it’s not worth my time and energy – or yours.  When you say it doesn’t matter. Send me a troll any day and I’ll have a good laugh – it’s happened before and will happen again. I don’t give a shit. However, when I hear other people are getting upset or hurt by it, yes, I get absolutely furious. My body even vibrates with the tension, that’s how much it pisses me off.

And no, I don’t have any trolls, not at the moment. If I keep writing I know I will get them; clearly it’s only natural. Excuse me while I uselessly get shitty about it. I don’t want to be told it’s pointless. I don’t want to be told to just ignore. Why, is it now so common, are people mean to each other so often, that I should just get used to it? To people I know being hurt by this? It’s not going to happen. I will not conform to something just because it’s the norm or because I can’t change it. My frustration is proof that I’m not that jaded afterall, that I still get passionate about things I love and things that bother me – and I’ll seize it. And you know what? I wish we were all like that. If we were, then maybe, just maybe, things would be different. Better. Are you one of those people who doesn’t care about voting on elections because “it’s just one vote, what difference will it make”? If you are, I’ll tell you something: it’s because of people like you that we are so often screwed over.

Again, I digress. I’m not talking about changing the world (although I could very well be). I’m expressing my frustration and anger towards bullying, because that’s exactly what it is. People attacking people because they think their twitter updates are dumb, because they think they express too much grief or pain on their blogs, because they play too much farmville on facebook or some other triviality of the sort. I see it happen day after day, read about it on blog after blog, hear about people getting harassed or deleting their blogs because it just got too painful or too hard to put up with the trolls. And then I explode, because can people really be so mean? So dumb? Yeah, I do know that the answer is yes.

I posted a fairly angry tweet an hour ago.

I did worse on Facebook:

Now here I am, venting. Donna would say she can tell how I feel by the purpose with which I’m typing – it’s full of punches and even angrier periods. But my god it bothers me so much. I know very good, very special people who gave up on blogging because they were harassed. I also know people who have to put up with incredibly insulting and rude comments and emails because they express pain – physical or otherwise, and it gets to me. It gets to me because I’ve always wished – and hopefully will keep on wishing – that people who can’t be kind have the decency to shut up, or at the very least that we could all give each other respect. Can we not see that our inability to simply respect, even if lacking the ideal open-mindedness, is so completely destructive? Can we not see we’re hurting each other? No one will convince me otherwise. No one can ever convince me there is a point to this animosity. No one will make me shut up. Because I care.

Let me tell you something: I play farmville. I also play petville and any other “ville” I can find. When life gets too hard, when my energy is depleted, when I’m homesick, sad or in pain, even when I’m having a panic attack that is not so bad as to make me unable to come out of a fetal position, I often seek escape and comfort in any way I can find it, including the “ville’s” on facebook. I don’t expect everyone to understand the sweetness that can be found there, but believe me when I tell you that even on the worst days it can make me smile and that it often allows me to feel like a kid again, to forget about my worries, sadness  or broken heart for a moment and be free. If along the way I find a broken toy – they always look sad – that wants to be adopted, I allow facebook to publish it to my stream so that my friends can care for it. They do. Don’t tell me what’s behind it, that it’s all a way to make money, to push people into using the application or whatever else it may be. I know. But in that moment, I don’t care, and that, my friends, is called magic. You can also call it imagination if you prefer. It is entirely beside the point whether someone does or does not agree with me – it is nobody’s business but mine.

For those reasons and more, it infuriates me when people keep on whingeing about it or any other number of things – especially if it is towards someone I care about, way more so than if it’s directed at me personally. I will play whatever I like, write whatever I like, tweet anything I feel like. I’m not attacking anyone, therefore I feel free – as we all should – to do it. It is not surprising that coming across mean comments on any sort of medium gets to me, is it? Because here’s the thing: while it may be difficult or even impossible for us to be left to just BE, it is not such a tall order.

I’ve written much about high-school, as I have about blogging. I am constantly horrified about all these rules and regulations that I feel being imposed on me. Bloggers have the right to say what they want and they are not disrespecting me when they write posts about how to blog (or blogging 101 books) or when they make statements about what is interesting or readable or how to reach a larger audience – even though a part of me does feel quietly enraged by such forceful declarations, simply because yet again I wish we could all just be. But that is my own issue to deal with and a whole different story. My point is that all these things contribute to make me feel like I am back in high school – and I hated high school. I have no use for bullies and I don’t like having my right to express myself invaded. And no, bullies or trolls are not simply exercising their right to express themselves. They are infringing on mine in their insatiable greed to feel better about themselves.

I’m just wishing we could come to our places of solace and comfort, our places of expression and discussion or our places of 140 character-long remarks and be allowed to be ourselves without getting attacked, hurt or insulted for it. I’ve always admitted to being a dreamer.

Posted in Shake It, Baby, We Blog... And We Talk About It | 3 Comments »

Black or blue – a gasp for air

Mar 14th, 2010 by Monica

I’m having one of those moments when everything inside me seems to just shut down. Stop the bus because I want to get off. Get. Off. Unlike a few years ago (when it was all I could do) I don’t try to analyze it, dissect it or even understand it because it takes an effort I can’t be bothered with. Instead, I try to escape to a book or some other sort of reading, a movie, and in failing that, sleep. I feel like things are falling apart around me and I just don’t want to participate. It can go on without me, as long as I don’t have to move. I want to be left alone.

I realize all it means is that, basically, I don’t want to deal with the bullshit. And you know what, I really don’t – I wish I didn’t have to; I’ll call my mother and say, you know what, deal with this shit for me right now while I disappear momentarily. Let me know when it’s all fixed. However, not only my mother is part of what has to be dealt with/fixed (so hey, I need to find someone else) but it’s such a fundamental part of my nature to face it all, dig in, get my hands dirty – along with every other millimeter of my body and soul. Going there is who I am. Sooner or later I just do it because for better or worse I lack the capacity to completely run from it. I have a very good book right next to me and a thousand other distractions within an arm’s length and yet here I am, muddling through it. The problem is that I don’t know what to do with what I see – that is, in fact, what I really don’t want to deal with.

A part of me feels as if I’ve done nothing in my life but make choices and decisions and have had no time for anything else. Sure, life is full of it and I’m well aware we make choices every minute of every day. I’m just wishing for a day, a moment even, when all I need to decide is if I want to wear black or blue. I’ve been inundated with life changing decisions since what feels like a lifetime ago and I’m just so tired. So worn out. I just want a week – hell, I’ll even take a day if that’s all I can get – when I don’t feel I’m dealing with the fate of the world. It’s just too heavy and my body is begging, screaming for relief, except that the relief doesn’t come. Nothing can – and I’m not capable – of giving myself that moment when I can just breathe. It just all feels like some horrible joke, a dream I can’t wake up from, a test that is never ending. I’m not allowed to collapse because there will be nothing to break the fall or lift me back up, and I have nothing to hold on to but myself.

Hopelessly I just keep willing it to stop because I’m desperate for a gasp of air. And my god, I need some water.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

The chick from 7-eleven

Mar 7th, 2010 by Monica

Warning: a LOT of swearing. And then some. Half of this entry is a stream of thoughts and that’s how my head works. Yes, fucked. There is also no attempt to be politically correct – I refuse to let myself feel trapped by words. Forgive me.

Years ago I was dating a girl called Tach. One night in March we’d just been to a place that has a girls night once a month – a club, really – and we’d just left to walk down the street to a 7-eleven because, guess what, I needed to buy smokes. So we’re at the counter and this chick walks in. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I saw her, I shit you not. I just looked at my girlfriend and said “Tach, look at this girl, oh my god!! She’s so hot!”, to which she agreed – how could she not? The chick was on her way to the ATM and almost bumped into a guy who was headed for the machine as well. He said to her, “ladies first” (shit! Bad idea, buddy), to which she replied, “oh no, you go ahead” and they were going back and forth for a while. She did not, of course, give in. I was totally discreet until she walked past me again to get out, at which point I looked at her and laughed. She laughed back at me and said, “what are you laughing at?” – in a friendly but full of attitude and totally sexy kind of way. And walked out. Holy shit, god help me. Be still, my heart. I just turned to Tach and said “SHIT she was hot!”. And that was that.

Except that it wasn’t. Ooooh no it wasn’t. I was f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-e-d, hypnotized-like. My relationship with Tach was both fun and casual and open (not in that way, I’m unbelievably monogamous) AND falling apart. A total rebound from another relationship. We had a lot of fun together, but she was so wrong for me as a person and in so many ways that today, looking back, I wonder where the hell my head was when I thought we could be together. Whatever, so a week later we’re at a “Queer and Alternative” night out (another club) dancing away and I decide I need to pee. As we make our way to the toilet I almost bump into HER. THE CHICK. Naturally, I turned to my girlfriend: “Oh my god, Tach, it’s the chick from 7 eleven!!” (Fuck me). “Really? Oh yea, so it is…”. And to the toilet we went. We stopped at a table by the dance floor (round, tall, small) and I leaned against it to have a smoke. We were chatting away and as I turned to find the ashtray behind me, the chick was RIGHT THERE on the other side of the (I repeat, small) table. Hell, her elbow was pretty much against my back. Now we get to the point where I seriously need to get my shit together because MY GIRLFRIEND IS NOT GOING TO LIKE WATCHING ME MELT FOR SOMEONE ELSE. Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to and certainly shouldn’t be feeling this THING. To my surprise, suddenly the chick is by the bar, in front of me but not too close, and she looks at me briefly. There’s a moment our eyes connect and the connection is infinite.

I think, okay, so this is odd. What the fuck? I’ve never, ever seen someone I thought was gorgeous and just TURNED INTO A MORON. Ever. So what the HELL is going on here? This is CRAZY. And what’s more, I could swear to all that’s holy that she winked at me. Hey, I wink at my friends (okay, not strangers, but still) and they wink at me. It doesn’t MAKE ME WANT TO DIE RIGHT THERE.

We left shortly after – I knew I would never forget the way she tipped her head back when she laughed, how she walked – so damn confident and sexy, how she smoked a cigarette. Ever. But… Tach and I went home and got on with our lives, tried to deal with the mess we’d made out of us.

But. Oh yes, but. There’s an Australian website where every friggin’ lesbian in the country seems to be, and for whatever reason Tach and I decided to join. I think we just felt we wanted to be part of a community – or something, god knows. A lot of people use it as a dating site, but it isn’t really. Well, it can be, but there’s a lot of girls just talking and having fun and making friends and whatever. I’m quite sure it works differently from an actual dating site, but I’ve never used one so I don’t know – and my god that’s just so beside the point. How do you like tangents? *babble babble babble* So there we are, with individual profiles, listed as “in a relationship”, couples looking for friendship or whatever the hell it was. I can tell you we had a LOT of fun, and I got two beautiful friends out of the whole thing, one of them whom I’m really close to. (She writes Memoirs of the Mundane, which she hasn’t updated in an eternity, so go on right ahead and yell at her. Tell her I said it’s okay). But I, again, di-goddamn-gress. So there I was and I couldn’t forget this chick. I knew, I just knew I HAD TO speak to her. That I had to have her in my life. I was very certain of it. I felt a pull that I could not explain in any way and it didn’t resemble anything I had ever felt before, but I wasn’t about to deny my soul something it was begging me for so terribly much. Don’t get me wrong here, had she turned up on my doorstep I would never had gone there because if there’s one thing I am, it’s faithful. But I had to know her and that was that. And my GOD I obsessed. I looked for her on the damn website in every way I could think of. I tried to come up with names for her but I couldn’t for the life of me find one that “fit”. I tried every name I could think of in my head (completely and utterly crazy, I’m aware). Tach knew, of course, as she knew I would never hide something from her, anything – which, my friends, couldn’t be said for her. I remember her saying “you’re quite fascinated by her, aren’t you?”. Ugh, shoot me now, will ya? The relationship lasted about another month – she started talking to other people, made other friends and so did I. The connection we had had split completely. And I kept looking. I used advanced searches – I swear I’m not a stalker, really – and ticked the boxes for the only things I knew about her. Smoker. Heavily tattooed left arm. Lip ring. Dreadlocks. Stunning. Okay, so there wasn’t a box for that, but had there been one in that god-forsaken website, I wouldn’t have found her anyway. Shit, I didn’t even know if she was gay, for christs sake. But I’m telling you, destiny was fucking with me and I was NOT finding it funny.

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Posted in How Can I Remember, The Sweet | 7 Comments »

Dear Bank

Mar 2nd, 2010 by Monica

Dear Bank,

I just got yet another call from one of your assholes about my overdue and over the limit credit card.  As an understanding customer who has been on the other side of the awful job that customer service is, I appreciate that the asshole was only doing what is in his job description to do; I realize that he didn’t have a personal vendetta against me or was out to get me. But, Dear Bank, he did. Therefore, I would like to lodge a formal complaint.

This is what happened: On the 17th of February one of your assholes (asshole 2) called me about said credit card. He was actually only a mild asshole, which I appreciate quite a lot, thank you. He told me that I had a broken promise because I had not made my fortnightly payment. I proceeded to apologize for the crime committed by me and explained my circumstances, which asshole 2 seemed to understand. I also told him that when the card was canceled a year and a half ago, the amount on it was x, and that even though I’ve made all my fortnightly payments, here we are now, with a balance of the same x, as your assholes know. Now, I understand I pay interest, Dear Bank. I understand it was in my contract. However, the card is canceled – it no longer exists. It seems to me it would be only reasonable for the interest to stop accumulating, since all I’m doing is paying off the whole amount. I explained to asshole 2 the problem with this situation, which is, well, I’ll never finish paying it in this lifetime. I proceeded to explain how absurd that seems to me, since the agreement is for a credit card in use, and if that were the case I could easily control the interest that accrues, whereas I have no control over a fixed amount that incessantly grows even though that credit card technically doesn’t exist anymore. Asshole 2 explained to me that nothing could be done about that, it’s just the way it is.

We proceeded to make another arrangement, since my crime of a broken promise canceled our original one, and agreed on fortnightly payments again. Asshole 2 told me I would get a letter stating the terms of said arrangement and we said our goodbyes. The following day I made my first payment.

Dear Bank, let me explain something to you. My financial life has been chaotic at best. I lost track of what comes out of my account and when, I pay for an average of three thousand, five hundred and forty two things every month, and my partner and I are unbelievably masterful in living beyond our means. I realize it’s very bad strategy, but that’s how we’ve been doing it for years. Clearly it’s something that can’t go on, which was why, after getting off the phone with asshole 2, I grabbed the stack of about two thousand and seventy letters, bills and notices of crimes committed by broken promises and decided I would put our lives in order, calculate everything, add everything, subtract and divide, write everything down – on diaries, calendars, white boards, budget everything and do my very best to make sure I never commit a crime by broken promises ever again. I wouldn’t expect you to know, Dear Bank, but I’ve turned my fucking life around in the weeks since then. I also don’t expect you to know how much I despise being told I’ve broken a promise. That is because I’m one of those people who NEVER breaks promises. Ask Donna and she’ll tell you that the quickest and surest way of getting what you want from me or finding out what I’m thinking or feeling is asking me to/if “I promise” – she knows there’s no backing out of a promise for me. When you tell me I’ve broken our arrangement I understand and apologize. When you tell me I’ve broken a promise, I want to stick a fork in your eye.

Today I got a call from a certain asshole, who I’ll refer to simply as asshole, even though I should call him asshole 1.

Asshole: May I speak to Miss Monica?

Me: Yes, this is she.

A: Miss Monica, we’re calling today in regards to a personal banking matter, may I start by advising you that this called will be monitored for quality and training purposes and ask you to confirm some personal details for me?

Me: I’m sorry, what personal banking matter?

A: Your Dear Bank credit card, Miss Monica.

Me: *wary* Okay…?

(…)

A: Miss Monica, I see here that you have an outstanding amount of x on your credit card, and there’s a minimum payment of y that is behind.

Me: I’ve already spoken to asshole 2 about this and an arrangement was made for fortnightly payments of 98 dollars.

A: When did you speak to asshole 2, Miss Monica?

Me: *firmly* It was on the 17th of February.

A: Let me just have a look here. It seems as if you have a broken promise of 120…

Me: *interrupting* I do NOT have a broken promise. I made the arrangement on the 17th, made my first payment on the 18th and then got a letter saying my first payment was due on the 26th. So I actually made the payment early.

A: Miss Monica, the arrangement here says you should make fortnightly payments of 120 dollars and the last one was…

Me: *interrupting again* That was an arrangement from last year. I’ve already spoken to asshole 2, I organized everything, and I don’t appreciate getting calls from you hassling me about something that I’ve already gone through.

A: Let me have a look at the notes here, Miss Monica. *pause* Yes, when would be a good day for you to start making those payments? It should be alright for me to reorganize that for you right now.

Me: What do you mean, reorganize? It’s already been organized, and I’m trying to be really, really good, and I haven’t broken any promises and I have a letter here! *furiously smacking the letter and hoping he can hear it*

A: Miss Monica, because you broke the arrangement we need to set up another one for you so you can keep paying the 95 dollars fortnightly.

Me: 98. And I didn’t break any arrangements, I have everything written down here in detail and I’m telling you I made my first payment 8 days before it was due, even!!!! *in a mixture of fury and despair*

A: Miss Monica, you’re not letting me help you.

Me: No, you’re not listening to what I’m saying.

A: I’m just trying to get this reorganized for you so you can make your fortnightly payments of 95 dollars.

Me: 98.

A: …98 dollars. I see here you made a payment of 100 dollars on the 18th and the amount went towards lowering your balance on the credit card – but not towards the arrangement, which is probably why you’re getting this call.

Me: *thinking, “listen, dickhead, do you NOT KNOW why you’re CALLING ME?” – but instead saying: Are you telling me that I broke a promise because I made the payment BEFORE the due date?

A: Yes, Miss Monica, it went towards lowering your balance, which is a bonus (*shit, thanks, that’s kind of you!*), but it’s still a broken promise, I’ll just reorganize this for you and you should stop getting calls from us.

Me: *ready to burst into tears because I’ve been doing so well and I’m proud of myself and this cocksucker is making me so angry I want to scream and fuck this shit!* I shouldn’t have gotten this call in the first place. I’m doing everything right and you’re talking to me about broken promises and it’s really pissing me off. Fine, I’ll start it ALL OVER AGAIN on the 4th.

A: Miss Monica, I advise you to make sure you make the payments by the due date so you don’t get any more phone calls and you won’t have any broken promises.

Me: YA!

Dear Bank, I got off the phone and I was so angry that I felt a couple of tears coming out – it was rage. Shit, I was kind enough to not yell at the moron for not speaking English properly – which is completely fine, except when you’re discussing personal banking matters and crimes committed by broken promises over the phone. I actually grabbed my cup of coffee and slammed it on the table – which anyone who knows me (even a little bit) will tell you is something that I never do. Actually, I can’t STAND IT. Then I just said to myself – in an unusually loud volume – WHAT’S THE FUCKING POINT IN TRYING TO DO THINGS RIGHT!

My point, Dear Bank, is the following: fuck you. I want you and all your assholes to go to HELL.

Posted in As Good As It Gets, Ramble on | 5 Comments »

Cultural differences and self-protecting bullshit (an alien in my own home)

Feb 26th, 2010 by Monica

When I met Lisa, the woman I moved to Australia to be with, we talked a lot about cultural differences and the shock of what I was going to go through. The differences are obviously endless and enormous. When I told her that whenever I had friends sleeping over they shared my bed, she was mortified. When we were on the phone and I had to go somewhere – and of course we didn’t want to hang up until the last possible second – I would start getting changed, and she was horrified to discover I was getting changed wherever, in front of whoever was around – not only my mother and sister but their friends and my friends. When we were talking on messenger and she learned that I was wearing only a t-shirt and undies (which is what I sleep in) while my sister and a friend were hanging out right next to me, she was shocked.  Sure, you might say I spent years in acting school – having to get changed so quickly, having ten people wrap my boobs in five seconds flat when I had to change into a male character in about ten – and ended up just getting used to it. You might say that’s just me, not part of my Brazilian culture. That would be true, but only in part. I did become overly unselfconscious of my body, but friends always shared beds, always hung out in tee’s and often got changed in front of each other. You might say Lisa was the extreme in her culture, and me in my own, but again that’s only accurate to a point.

Somewhere along one of these conversations, we got to the part that really, really freaked me out. I found out that people here didn’t usually kiss their friends hello and goodbye on the cheek, unless they were very close friends. I found out that people didn’t hug as often as I did. More importantly, I found out that the physical contact was minimal, if at all present. Now that, boys and girls, freaked the shit out of me. In Brazil I could walk around holding hands with a friend and it would be the most normal thing I ever did (pardon the use of the term “normal”, I hate it too.) If we were hanging out – at uni, on somebody’s lawn, on somebody’s carpet while watching a movie, you can bet we’d be lying on each others’ lap, playing with each others’ hair, touching each others’ faces. And – I’m gonna do it again – it was just so normal. I wondered if I was going to get here and keep reminding myself not to kiss everyone, and I did. It felt forced and unnatural and just altogether wrong. Whenever I met someone I connected with and did the whole sit-down-for-five-minutes-and-end-up-staying-for-three-hours-and-having-eight-coffees-and-twenty-cigarettes thing, only to at the time of leaving wave a quick bye-bye and say “see ya!”, I felt strangely lonely, as if that act alone took away some of that connection – that had already been established. It was hard, and it sucked. Obviously, six years later, it doesn’t bother me. Besides, I do hug and kiss my friends hello and goodbye. But listen, people, in Brazil I’ll kiss my dentist hello and goodbye. If you come around and say Monica, this is Mary, I’ll instantly proceed to kiss Mary hello and give her a welcome hug. To this day I have people ask me for a Brazilian hug, and it’s no wonder. I’d never known such stiff hugs – it can be very much like holding a lamp-post. I honestly think a lot of people didn’t know a proper, full-body hug until I came along.

However, this isn’t about physical intimacy, or my belief that it adds so very much to our experience of others. It’s about being an alien in my own home. When I started going to university here I had one of the hardest times of my life. I’d just moved to the other side of the world, I was living with this person whose heart and soul I knew and loved but who I had never met in the flesh, I was trying to adjust to hearing only this language that is not my mother tongue – and it freaked me out. I was missing everything and everyone I knew and I was so, so lonely. I held, as discreetly as possible – my map of the campus and tried to navigate to whatever building I had to get to, all the while wondering what the fuck I was doing there. And then I’d burst into tears. On the lawn, on my breaks, behind my computer in photography class, and not once, not ever someone came to me and asked if I was okay, or if I needed anything, or even noticed me in any way. With time I made a couple of good friends who truly cared about me, but even that was very limited. They cared until the phone rang or they had to go somewhere or hanging out with me was just too much. Don’t get me wrong, I have many acquaintances who I’ll sit and have a coffee with or even party with and they’ll all think I’m so charming and blunt and funny, but nothing is exchanged and I’ll come home a little bit more emptied. Just a little bit. But bit by bit it empties me until I feel there’s nothing left, and the only possible way of recharging is going to Brazil.

I have this vision – I’ve had it from the beginning – of everyone walking around inside an invisible bubble, while I’m bubble-less. I’ve seen friends leave other friends dangling because their alcoholism/panic/loneliness/depression/drug addiction/MS and altogether “negative energy” (not my words) just became too much to deal with. It saddens me how limited an experience of life some people have, and don’t even know it. I realize that that’s something very much universal, of course I do. But here… here I have to be strong at all times, because if I fall apart no one is going to try to pull me out of the hole, or help me pick up the pieces.  My partner is absolutely gorgeous and I love her to death, but it is too great a burden to unload on her and her alone.

I don’t have friends like that in Brazil anymore, but I did, once. Someone who would come over and listen to me babble for hours, or who would drag me out of the house, who would leave something that was important for them to do something that was important to me. I know that part of my feeling that I have no network of support is simply because I’m away from my family. (I did tell my mom a few weeks ago that I need to go to Brazil so I can fall apart.) I also feel that it’s a lot easier to make that kind of amazing connection with friends when you are younger. But I also know, without any doubt, that I’m living in a world that is much, much more self-absorbed than the one I come from. Australians, don’t get me wrong, I love you and I’m one of you now. But we live in a world where connections are often so tenuous and ephemeral, the instinct to constantly self-protect so all consuming.

I have many one sided relationships with people. Someone in need, especially someone who needs to talk, will feel attracted to me like a magnet and I’m proud of that aspect of myself. I’ll give without reservation. But if you told me a few years ago that one day not that far into the future I would protect myself from people, I’d have laughed at you. I didn’t believe in protecting oneself from life in any way – call me intense, idealistic, and you’re right. But I didn’t think I’d be able to do it even if I wanted to, which I at times wished for, although would have said no to if it was offered to me – that possibility of protecting myself.

I do now, however. Moving here – along with my first relationship back then – managed to teach me how to raise those walls around me – it beat it out of me, even though I’d been through so much more pain, in the past, without shutting down. It left me so empty that I stopped writing. Now I have these one sided relationships where I just stopped opening up and talking about myself, so that I can still give without feeling that no one gives a shit – because I don’t give them the chance to. So that I don’t walk away completely empty.

I’ve learned how to protect myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. It doesn’t mean I’m good at it, either.

Posted in Essential thoughts, The Greener Grasses | 7 Comments »

Tags

Feb 26th, 2010 by Monica

Coming from MT and Typepad I haven’t used tags for my posts before. Are they useful for my readers or is it just some crap for search engines?

Posted in Technicalities | No Comments »

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