Author: Liljumper

I’ve been reading this memoir by Felicia Day, her memoir actually and a lot of it has been really resonating with me. One of the primary things a belief, earlier in her life, that the opposite of success was failure. And many other things like her academic determination, her weirdness, etc. I believe she’s my spirit animal, if people could do that. Either way I identify a lot with her.

And this earlier belief she had, is one I still have. I know it’s wrong and you can tell me hundreds of time there is no failure, only the failure to try, and I nod my head and it does make sense. But it doesn’t click in me. I believe it’s true and believe it works, but it doesn’t become a belief for me.

In my mind my life has worked like that, failure and success. But not for others, with other people I have a clarity, a sense of mind that is totally not present for me. I believe it when I tell others that there is only the failure to try, but it never rings true for me.

Why? I’m not sure, but I have felt like that. Like there’s only certain modes of success and all others are seen as failures. Certainly in school I felt that way, that the only success was an A and the rest was failure.

Where did this come from and how do I fix it? I wish I knew. I really like things to be right, to be perfect, and this is definitely connected. Where does this come from? Who knows, but it’s here now. How do I fix it?

No clue, maybe I just stare at myself in the mirror and say, you’re not a failure, there are other ways of success, other ways to succeed. Because most days I look at myself and think, what the heck am I doing with my life? Because what life I’m living now, I never thought I would. So to a degree, most days I’m left without a sense of accomplishment or success.

That’s sad, and I write that knowing it. But I’m not sure how to fix it. Maybe to take pride in what I do? What I accomplish? Just because people don’t believe this about me, doesn’t mean I believe it.

I don’t have answers, which inherently to me, feels like somewhat of a failure. That sucks. But how do I rephrase that to make me feel better?

I don’t have answers now.

Doesn’t feel much better, but looks better on paper.

I spend a lot of time alone in Munich and if I’m not physically alone, alone doing my own things in my own space alone. Although, to be fair, I do spend a fair deal of time alone physically as well.

In fact sometimes I end up spending more time of the day talking to myself than anyone else. I’ll chat to myself while I wash dishes, put my makeup on, get ready for school.

But I dislike doing things alone. I can go buy groceries or pick up food or look for something alone, but I generally don’t like to do things alone. I like company. I like to shop with people, I like to eat and talk with people, I do like doing things with people.

People are generally balanced between wanting to do things with others, and having their alone time. But I get a lot of alone time. It’s hard to find people who are passionate about the same things I am. I have school friends, but they all had their own lives before we met and their own jobs and commitments, I do see them, it’s just harder. We are all at different points in our lives with different goals. It’s not like college or high school where we are all in a similar boat.

Maybe doing things alone is like a badge of honor. I know some people say that you need to spend time with yourself alone, that otherwise how will you get to know yourself.

I can see the point that is being made. It is important to have a good sense of self. But I like also to be with people, to have dinner events, to hang out with friends.

Having people around me all the time, and then gone, is strange and disorienting. And it leaves me with a lot of alone time.

Maybe I don’t know how to make friends in the real world. With jobs and careers, but I don’t think, to be fair, my school makes it easy (more so on that later I guess).

But I guess I’m left with a deep sense of being alone. Like if I suddenly didn’t need to be in Munich, nothing really would be keeping me there. I would miss my school friends, but it’s no deep ties that keep me there.

With friends, it feels a bit like cliquey high school, and I’m the new kid trying to have people, who already have cliques, to be friends with me, to break into their group. It’s a hard task, and it requires a lot of work, which I have done, I’ve given out my number to tons of people, I’ve invited people to my home, I’ve written them, but it’s hard and I don’t have a ton to show. I have developed a closer group of friends, to be sure.

Do I feel like they feel the same about me? I don’t know. I somehow get the sense they all have their own close friends, and I don’t know where I land.

And that leaves me with a sense of sadness. I think, with friends, all I really want is a sense my feelings and friendship is reciprocated, like I know where I stand, but I don’t anymore. And the times are a changing.

Closure is something difficult to achieve and when you do, it’s most certainly never what it should have been. It should have felt better, usually.

I wouldn’t really know since I didn’t have any type of closure. I never got to tell anyone off or make someone ‘realize what they did’. So I’m not sure if it would have felt that satisfying, but I don’t think it would.

I’ve grown up a bit, and realized things rarely feel how they should or how they were imagined to be. (Because I’ve never had that experience)

But a while ago I had a dream that gave me a sense of closure.

I dreamed my ex came back and for some reason, I thought I’ll go back to that, how unrealistic, but I kept talking to my current partner (who was my ex at that time) and knowing I still loved him, but for some reason, dried up faith or something, I had to go back and try the old relationship. I did, and it was horrible, I felt so sad and it was bad (he didn’t or hadn’t changed, not surprised) and I finally left. I just got up, no bags and left and went back to Munich and fell asleep next to my partner.

I awoke feeling very confused (as I do with most of my dreams because they are always wacky and totally vivid). But I felt very confident I was where I wanted to be. Dream me had guided me here and I felt like it was a sign.

Because the broken things don’t always fix themselves, and sometimes, when your brain or heart doesn’t know where it wants to or should be, your dream self does.

I just recently rewatched the Miracle movie and it reminded me of the power of believing in something bigger than oneself.

It’s important to have something you can believe in. It’s hard to always believe only in yourself, and I have moments where I don’t believe in myself. But it helps to have something bigger to believe in, a sense of purpose.

I really lost that in the move, I had spent years focusing on a sense of purpose and believing my work made a difference and when I moved, it just disappeared. I didn’t do any activism, I left a community where I felt I had a purpose, and left my friends.

I was totally lost. While I still haven’t necessarily found a purpose yet, I’m working towards rebuilding that sense of self.

It was an essential building block of myself, and it’s quite sad it was gone. I’m not sure how I can bring it back. I wish I had a better plan.

My plan as of now it to find an opportunity where I can participate or volunteer, or feel as if I have a use in that sense. It’ll be hard and as of now I have no idea how to do this, but it will bring it back.

Or maybe after my studies, I find it somewhere else, hopefully with my career, although that is a major can of worms I can’t get into right now.

My point is, everyone needs a sense of being part of something, I think. And that’s what’s so dangerous, when you’re lost you can glom onto something else, some other cause, and it can be the wrong one, but you relish that sense of community and common purpose. I get that feeling. I think I’ve been deeply unhappy at not having that purpose, losing it, and quite lost.

While I’m not there yet, I’m trying.

I recently had a dream where two men in my life, former lovers of mine, were fighting. Which rarely happens, I usually have strange bizarre dreams like paragliding from South Korea to Australia with a tv star as my coach.

So this crazy personal dreams are almost rare. However I do have crazy vivid and wild dreams quite regularly. But in this particular one I had stuck up for this man who had been beaten up and who I loved and was beaten up for being with me and he betrayed me.

It was revealed that he was not who he seemed. While we were dressed up performing magic tricks in front of an audience who threw things at us after….my dreams man.

But it was really hard for me to rationalize after and process. I wanted to make the man who betrayed me the other man in my dreams, who was a childhood friend. I wanted the childhood friend to be the one who had taken such a hit for me and I felt so close to and not the other man. I didn’t want to change who betrayed me, it was still the other man, but I wanted to change the amount of connection and emotional baggage.

I, even awake, didn’t want that man to have betrayed me. It didn’t feel real or right, how could he? Asleep it made perfect sense and I moved on, but when I awoke I wanted to try to rewrite my dream.

Because I couldn’t deal with someone who I had protected, threatened people because they had hurt him, someone who had taken physical blows for me, would betray me. It was inconceivable.

But isn’t that life? The people who hurt us or betray us are people who we don’t expect. And it hurts and cuts more because we trusted them, and it did seem inconceivable.

My rational mind couldn’t deal with something my dream self knew.

So I’ve accepted the truth of my dream now and I’ve treated it as my dream self trying to tell me something I still haven’t accepted.

I don’t think I’m a total cynic. It’s more about being prepared, not thinking that certain ties are eternal. Maybe this does make me a bit of a cynic. And maybe what isn’t wrong is not the tie/bond, but the person.

Maybe it derive off a false sense of personhood, maybe my idea of this person who had sacrificed for me, was wrong. Maybe all along he was going to betray me.

Or maybe people change, and that’s the scary thing? That people can genuinely sacrifice themselves for you, make promises, protect you, but can change after and betray you. It seems real to them, and they can mean both the promising and betraying one equally well because circumstances and people change.

So maybe that’s what my dream self was saying. To accept people’s change? So I’m not exactly sure what this dream means, but I thought I would share.

It’s easy to suspect everyone and never let anyone in, it’s hard to let people in, trust, love freely, and then get burned.

Because it’s not scary to live a life without trust, it’s scary to live a life with trust.

This kind of picks up where the last post ends. I feel like an old person at heart.

I am turning into one of those people, those grumpy people, who look at kids playing in water and scowl when they splash water on me, how rude!

But I don’t go out to party, I prefer drinking in my apartment, a nice sweet wine.

I never had a heavy party phase, I’ve had little blips of mistakes and what not, but they’re pretty small. I never had moments where I did stupid reckless things, except maybe letting my ex drive me in his car (which was entirely stupid might I add), but it’s not like I drove super fast or played chicken in my car (being as I never had my own car). I am nor scorning that lifestyle at all.

I feel if you are being careful with yourself and others, then you do you. I actually have a bit of respect for people who go out till 5 am or dance until they can’t walk anymore, precisely because I can’t do it. I like my couch. I’m a bit of homebody. I like watching movies here. I like making food here. I like…here.

Also Munich is damn expensive. Like it’s pretty crazy.

But some people speak about that time of their life almost like it’s a rite of passage, it’s never the people who are my close friends who know me, but it’s those I run into at parties (when I go). I’m one of those people who, once my makeup is off and my pajamas are on, I am not moving my butt off that couch or outside, unless for groceries.

I don’t have many crazy stories about the things I’ve done. And the ones that are most memorable I have no recollection of.

For a while I felt like there was a part of myself that was missing. The young spirit. The ‘wild’ years where I could have those photos and stories and I could contribute when people measured up their drunk stories.

I felt like I needed to compensate. So when I had the opportunity I tried to play with the big boys and fell flat on my face.

So it’s taken me a lot to be okay with not doing that. To be okay with people scoffing at me when I tell them I won’t and want to go home and sleep, to be okay with people calling me a party pooper. To have to ignore the social stigma or that look when people look at me asking for my story and I just smile.

Because I’ve kind of accepted that it’s just not who I am. Plus I couldn’t even pull off one of those getting to sleep at 5 and waking up later being fine. I can’t do that. That would borderline kill me and make me a monster to deal with. I would be a grumpy sea monster.

I am a total oldie at heart. I don’t mean oldie like a bad thing, so let me rephrase.

A total comfort-homebody-coco-person. I’m about comfort, sleep, and card games (without alcohol).

And that’s beginning to be okay with me.

In Switzerland we didn’t have internet on our phones, but for some reason I carried it around with me everywhere.

It would be easy to reassure myself it’s a manner of comfort. If I needed to I could use it to call for help or what not, except I didn’t even have the number of our friend who was driving us around (which I realized now).

Which made my phone almost useless. Well it could still be used to call an emergency line or what not, but it wouldn’t update my email, I wouldn’t be able to post pictures.

It was just a simple phone.

Yet it felt a bit like a life jacket. And while I could legitimize this by saying I needed it for safety, and to a degree I feel I did, I think there is also something else lurking.

Even while I didn’t need it for it’s uses, it’s totally normal, habit, and safe to carry it around with me.

Imagine how disconnected I would feel without it, or unsafe. And isn’t that a bit strange? It’s just a little box? But when is the last time you have seena pay phone that worked? I rarely even see ones that work, it’s kind of strange, because I remember when there were more. Did they just get sucked up one day? Society has deemed them more or less unnecessary.

So our phones becomes those little lifelines and safety blankets.

I wish I could say that this has inspired me to have days where I walk around without my phone. But it hasn’t. I use it to communicate, to know I can call my parents whenever I want, to play my audiobooks.

I know it’s a safety blanket, that device I can use whenever I don’t want to make eye contact with someone.

I am accepting this semi-crutch, and maybe I can wean myself off it. Do I need it? Meh. Could I live without it? I can say I could. Because I have pretty high faith in myself.

I’m not addicted to it, since I can easily not use it. I use it mostly for communication still, and limit my browsing to my kindle.

But if there was not internet? What would I do? Play a lot of card games, board games, and do some reading.

Which sounds, actually, pretty relaxing.

But then again I’m an oldie at heart. I love talking on the phone, landlines, paper books, and cups of hot coco. Total oldie at heart. And that’s okay with me.

In my trip to Swtizerland I was surrounded by beautiful mountains and it was like I was transported to the Sound of Music. I wanted to climb every mountain and sing from the top….I really like that movie and for some reason it has imprinted on me.

Those views though…Spectacular.

There isn’t much to this post except that it was phenomenal sights. We crossed the San Bernadino pass and when we reached the top and could see around, it was unbelievable.

I felt like I was on the top of the world and everything was below my feet. It was totally otherworldly.

If you have instagram you can check out the posts with the link. It should take you to the page of photos.

Also I fly to the US this week, so that is exciting and keeping me busy.

Recently we traveled around Swtizerland and had no internet. This was annoying in the sense that it made it hard to share pictures and what not, but the way that it affected me, which I didn’t quite expect, was in its effect on our directions.

I have navigated plenty without maps, in fact my family was quite late to the GPS or navigation software game. I navigated plenty with just printed our directions or mapquest AND even plain old maps. I am one of those people who can read a map, it may not be fast, but it is a skill I have.

I won’t be one of those generations who cannot read a map at all. Maybe the next one after me is, probably, but I am not. I do have that skill. +5 Mapreading.

Even though, this was not reading a map, which I know I can do. This was reading a bunch of printed directions with a very large overview map, when we needed step by step little maps, which I would do in the older times.

Even more so, none of the roads wanted to tell us their names, actually. The street signs were almost nonexistent and when they were there, they were small and non reflective. Furthermore, the directions were in a format I was not used to and even had the same direction written twice and with U-turns, which had to be a mistake.

This made me very upset, because I know, with a certainty, that I can read maps and be a navigator. I’ve done that most of my childhood and I know I posses the skills. When we were in traffic, we could navigate ourselves around.

But it also made me realize how flimsy that piece of paper was, because as soon as we were off it, I had no flippin clue how to get around or what to do. I just threw up my hands and said, “I don’t know how to get us there” and “well god only knows what road this is”.

Of course modern gps’ know what the road names are, but to us without those, we don’t.

What am I trying to say?

Things seem so easy and concrete, plugging things into a GPS, but when they fall through and you go to your back up, it is revealed that even that is flimsy too. So what do we rely on? Should I get a compass and try to do that?

I’m not sure what to end this with. maybe it’s just a food for thought.

How do you get around?

Yesterday I fainted while getting out of a bathtub. It’s about the second time this happened, and it’s probably because the bath water was too hot and the blood rushed away from my head to other places. When I stood up, the blood came back to my head, oh hello there, and then I fainted.

This fainting was so strange though because as soon as it happened, it felt like I was plunged into some deep deep rem sleep because I immediately felt like I was dreaming. While it was only for a few seconds, it felt like I had just been awoken from a deep rem sleep and I was so dazed and confused, and also sleepy!

After recovering the whole day, before bed I had this strange thought.

What if I was still asleep, fainted, and just imagined waking up? What if I was still in that crazy dream sleep that I felt I was in before and I’m still fainted?

That was a pretty interesting thought. But another thought that popped into my head, was what if when we die, we just wake up in another dream? Kind of like the matrix. A dreamception. Because I’ve fallen asleep in other dreams before, so it can happen! With dreams upon dreams and dreams.

And then what if we were about to die, but then had a dream of a whole new lifetime before we pass away, or even multiple lives! (Not my idea, twas the donation from my guest blogger).

Anyway, that’s my most recent thoughts, freaky huh?