Liljumper’s Adventures

I hate waiting. I don’t like to be kept waiting or to wait too long. I mean there are reasons and exceptions and special people, so this is by no means a rule.

I guess I just don’t want to regret waiting. I don’t want to regret waiting for someone, something, anything. Because in the end the only one who will take your priorities and feelings seriously, or first, is you. You have to be your own advocate, your own best supporter. If you continuously put off plans for someone else, how is that being your best advocate? Now there are times when you have to, this only becomes a problem when it’s a trend.

In my last relationship I waited for everything, for events to happen such as when someone would finally be faithful or be serious, or to go on dates, etc. It was all about waiting and putting the ‘us’ the relationship, first, even when it hurt me. And in the end that wasn’t the way to ensure the success of the relationship because it signaled to them I would always be there, ready, and waiting. It wasn’t respectful to me by me. It also wasn’t helping my relationship either, it was just putting the inevitable off, for about five years. Looking back there’s all sort of signals and signs that should have told me, this person will never wait for you. Because if you’re in a situation where you both wait, make joint decisions, that’s not a problem. It’s only a problem when it’s not equal and when it’s one person always waiting.

This waiting for someone to change is the worst. You have to be okay with the person always being the same because change can always be a possibility, it never should be a requirement.

So I guess my goal in life and always is never to be that person again. The person caught waiting on the sidelines for things to happen, for people. I want to respect my priorities and know when it’s best for me to move forward, to go somewhere, to do something. There’s always a balance, but it’s important to not get sucked into the ‘us’ and forget that you. While there’s a relationship, it is essential to be made of two people, not just one same thinking entity. A relationship functions as a bond between two people, two separate people who jointly form a bond. There should never be a total submission or merging into one. There can be ways for two people to move together, to jointly change, to sync, but they are always two people.

I recently saw Finding Dory on the plane ride back to Germany (recently? It was a whole month back…scary how time flies) and loved it! Seriously, I have already pre-ordered the DVD, Blu Ray and Digital copy so I can watch it whenever I like. I recommend you watch it, seriously, it made me cry multiple times.

Reasons why I loved it:

1. It spoke to me about my adoption. Dory has always not remembered her parents and has struggled to find a family, so her journey to find them is touching to say the least. Marlin and Nemo help her, yet they too become lost and Dory must believe in herself in order to find her family (Marlin and Nemo). Dory feels badly because she cannot remember, and does not see her own potential. I don’t want to give away the story or the twists, but it is a tearjerker for me.
2. It has a baby Dory fish and otters.

Actually I do want to talk about the end. I’ll put a “Read More” button below, so if you want to see the movie and not find out, don’t read further!!!!

Continue reading Finding Dory Movie

I decided to cut off in the middle. I decided to disregard everyone else and just do what was best for me, which was to start cutting gradually to make sure I was happy with it all.

To chop it all off just felt not like me and it felt not like the right choice for me. It felt like a hasty decision that I might come to regret and this way I could make varying decisions and not regret any of them.

I was able to make the decision that was right for me at the moment and be able to not regret it.

 

So first off, there will be two posts today, I thought about doing a lot of moving around and feeling guilty that people will get two emails today and what not, but this has to be said. I’d write it today anyway, so I might as well post it. I also know it’s on everyone’s minds, how can it not be?

Anyway, I did not want to wake up today, not because I knew the result, but because I didn’t want to face the reality of whatever it was. I feared in my heart the result that followed. I have been pretty silent on social media about my feelings and the complexities of the issues. But the only thing I want to say about it, is how? I do understand that it is complex and that a lot of people feel like the worst of two options, but the campaign is built upon hatred, prejudice, and intolerance. It is made up of hate towards everything that I know in my heart. I did not vote with my body or my vagina, but with my heart. I tried to vote against hatred and against walls. There has been much discussion recently about the complexities, the wrongs in the system, the money, the greed, everything. But on a very basic level, for me, it was about not supporting someone whose statements rely on hate.

Enough on that because I just can’t even think about it anymore. I felt so disappointed with humanity today. I know that it being so fresh and my opinions will change, but I’ve felt this way for a while. Ever since doing my activism and fighting against people who would not accept the truth of sweatshops or the truth of the abuse. I have not been able to go back because it’s so emotional tiring and upsetting to me to always fight against ignorance, hatred, and violence. Against people who will not respect basic human life and care more about money or images or brands. Against people who don’t care that real blood and tears go into their clothing. And so for a while I’ve felt impatient, to say the least, with humanity. It’s why I have had to take a really long time out from all of this, from sexism, from the election, from all these issues that just hurt me. But I’ve realized that you can’t take a time out from it, I can’t. It’s not how it works. So this time away has only been half soothing, but also my head being in the sand for a bit. So today only confirmed something that’s been lurking in my heart for years now. A deep disappointment and sadness.

It’s also extremely hard for me because I feel so sad, obviously, but now so conflicted. I don’t think I can live here forever, or for a long time now (more on that in a later post). I’ve had so many hard feelings here, so many limits of myself I’ve run up against and challenges I’ve faced. Now I don’t know where to belong. I mean I know where my home is, homes are I suppose, but it’s this awful disconnect. This looming bodiless floating sensation. I almost feel like a plankton in the ocean between unsure about where I belong, pulled in both directions. This day has left me with lingering unanswered questions about my future (as if there weren’t enough already). Where do I go? How do I come to terms with the image of my home as so very different than what I thought?

There isn’t much for me to do today, and I know I need to rouse myself and keep fighting on, to not be content with this apathy or this hatred. But for today, I just feel so sad and unsure about so many things.

I got my grades back for the program. A 1,52. I felt initially okay with that, because I thought it would be much worse. The whole experience has been challenging, very frustrating, and painful.

Then I found out that it was just ,02 away from the higher boundary. Like I’m one day born after the cut off for Capricorn. And that was the final straw for me. Because it felt like it was there mocking me, telling me that I thought this was going to be okay and look how they tricked me. How I struggled and felt so awful and disillusioned. But in my thesis bubble things picked up, I felt good about it and could look at it as a learning experience.

I would have said I had gathered perspective. But now this ,02 comes back to kick me down again because it brings back all the memories of why it is even that low. To explain though, the cut off was from 1-1.5 (A) and then 1.51-2.5 (I don’t know what that translates to in the US). And it’s like all those teachers who couldn’t teach and were bad and couldn’t tell me what they wanted are back. And it’s like those mandatory trips I had to go on which were expensive, more than they said, are back. It’s like those times where they wouldn’t even tell us what was graded until too late are back. All of these horrible moments, all those feelings of sadness and anger are back.

Thinking back on these years and these feelings returning making it feel like, for what did I do this?

This just feels like the final straw on my pile of straws and my piles of gripes and uncertainty and I feel like it’s mocking me. I thought I was clear of this and finished, finally finished with feeling wasted, awful, and sad. I felt I ended on a high note, a good feeling.

And then this comes, to tell me there is no justice here. There is no feeling of security, of making it, of triumphing. You don’t get rewarded for trying your hardest, more than others to succeed. You don’t get rewarded for spending hours of work or for going to office hours early to be first. You don’t get rewarded for feeling like things turned around.

And that’s what I have to get used to. You don’t get rewarded when the system is dysfunctional and doesn’t work, when it can’t and won’t help you, when it won’t be clear, when things are challenging. Even when the very system you live in doesn’t work (not even your fault) you don’t get a break, you don’t get rewarded or even points for trying. You get nothing.

When there are no guidelines, no rules, and a lack of good professors you don’t get rewarded for trying your best at those odds. You get what you get, that’s it. You don’t get condolences, sorrys, or help. In the face of it all you get nothing, no help, no support, no avenue to talk to, and no hope of change.

You are a number. You get to be a number, because numbers don’t have feelings or justice of senses of right and wrong. They get to be numbers and go through life as numbers. Their feelings of injustice don’t count. And nothing they do can change that.

 

They can be a source of pain, and usually are. It can be good pain, bad pain, or just pain. And when they end they can be sour and bitter and painful to the bone. There are questions of why and how and who is to blame. When there are other factors, homes, pets, cars, children, futures and pasts, there is so much more sources of pain and betrayal. We can feel tricked and deceived, we can feel lied to. We let this pain into our hearts and we can let it change our relationships to others and to ourselves.

During our relationship and after we form images of ourselves and other people. We romanticize, villanize, and realize we never even saw them for who they were. We saw their image, we saw what we wanted to see and not what was. The illusions disappear like smoke and what is left is the ash behind. Sometimes that’s why we lash out, because we feel like a fool for never seeing the face behind the mask, the truth under the illusion. We feel made the fool.

So we vent, we tell people about our deceptive selves the deceptive others, we portray these images, these pictures of our lives and our relationships. And they’re not always accurate. Because their steeped in emotions. They reside in them and they stew in them and they become distorted. Like that one incident which rears its ugly head and morphs into something else. We spread these images and they can evolve, grow larger, become much more than we intended. We begin to believe our own illusions. And we let that poison spread.

How do we separate it? Can we distill it, do we begin again, how do we rid ourselves of that stain? It pervades our memories and our words, it’s everywhere. So how can we filter back to the purity, the truth (if there ever was one)? What do we do with these monsters, these clowns, these masks we’ve had for years, that we’ve become used to, that others know. How do we unmask ourselves? How do we remove the makeup, open the shutters, and uncover the facts?

 

I have said that I wanted to cut my hair after the wedding. It was becoming physically painful for it to be in a ponytail and a bun. Even after a few hours my scalp would hurt, almost feeling like it was slowly being pulled out.

I discussed this choice with a lot of people who suggested I should 1) keep it long because longer hair is nice and 2) I should donate it. Now these two suggestions have left me with some of a dilemma.

I do love my long hair, and it took me four years to grow it out this long, but it’s so long. It’s almost down to the middle of my stomach. It takes a long time to brush, and dry since I don’t use a hair dryer. It takes a long time to do stuff with. I cut it after I came back from Germany almost five years ago when I decided to be here and so it recognizes a huge change in my life. I heard stories about how when people want a change, or have made a large change, they cut their hair. And that’s been so true for me. Hair has been a way I have been able to drastically cut ties and change how I felt.

However, if I want to donate it, I have to donate quite a lot, the majority. Almost a foot or 25cm. This brings me to above my shoulders, not as drastic as I thought it was going to be originally, but still a huge change. I change my mind daily almost and it’s a really tough call for me.

There’s a part of me that is holding on to this hair, this length and there’s a huge part of me that is feeling the pressure to donate it all. It feels like if I want to cut I might as well donate. But that’s what I’ve always done, in fact the last time I cut it I also donated it. So there’s pressure both ways.

I feel if I don’t cut it, I’ve succumbed to the idea that longer hair is prettier and if I do and donate it I’ve succumbed to the idea that I have to donate it if I am going to cut it. Like I’m selfish if I don’t.

I don’t know what to do. There’s no denying the physical pain of it. Now that it’s trimmed, just a few inches less, the pain is substantially less.

I almost feel like if I’m holding on to this hair so much, I should just let it go, should cut it off. To see what is behind what I am hiding. But at the same time it is a security blanket, an identity I have had and do have now.

I don’t know what to do honestly and the decision is weighing down on me. I decide one way, to only cut 5 or 6 inches off and think wow, but then the guilt gets to me and then I say cut it all off. Or then I mediate and say I’ll wait a few more months and cut it off when it’s below my shoulders post donation.

There’s so much uncertainty and doubt and anxiety in my life that this hair has become an anchor. Something certain, something I know is true about me. I don’t know if I can let it go, or if I can have the courage to cut it.

It’s not even just the symbolism, I like to braid my hair and I can’t when it’s shorter, I love to put it up into buns and experiment. Also my hair starts to flip out when it’s short and I look like a weird curved human head.

I don’t know yet what to do, but whatever I decide, I’m sure there will be a post about it.

Quite recently I have had to rely on the google lady a lot. By the google lady I mean the one who gives you traffic instructions. I grew up on maps and got used to reading them a lot, then I went to college and so many more directions were online. In Munich I used the google lady a lot when I first moved there because I didn’t know what the streets were called. Then when I would go around with friends or my partner, they knew where we were going. So I got quite complacent with directions.

Walking around Munich last week and its surroundings I came to two realizations. 1) I don’t know really how to get around, without the google lady and 2) I don’t know if I really know Munich.

I’ve been so focused on my work and my studies that I haven’t done the tourist things or even explored places I don’t go frequently. So now that I will, and have, some more free time, I am determined to try more new things, go new places, even if it means I just ride the subway to the end and see what there is. I know people who did these things when I moved here, but for me moving here wasn’t about the tourist things. I was moving into a life. I had traveled here so much before and I didn’t do those things.

I don’t really like to do things by myself really, so I’m not sure how successful it will be, but I want to try. I see Munich now as a temporary place, somewhere I will be for the near future (however long that is), but I still want to walk away thinking that I was there. Knowing places, having a favorite cafe, or a favorite spot.

It’s time to redefine my relationship with Munich.

And of course, I’ll keep you posted along the way

Isn’t it strange how when you hear someone coughing, then you get the urge to cough? Even if you don’t have to!

I had a week or so when I was sick and had no voice and my throat felt raw during the wedding. I had barely any voice and only enough voice to speak my vows. It was the last thing I really said that day.

It was just funny how I heard someone cough and then I felt the need to. I could suppress it, but then it felt like an itch and I’d have to cough at some point.

Have you ever got into a coughing feedback loop?

There has been so much going on in which we’ve had to be hosts that it’s almost getting crazy! It’s so tiring to be hosting to go around and clean and what not.

There’s been so much for the last two months that it’s been crazy, the exhaustion after this is going to be so much because of all we’ve been doing. Also there’s going to be a huge influx of free time, what does that even feel like anymore?

I can catch up on reading, I currently have over 5 books left on my to read list that I need for my blog, and then for fun books too. And find a job of course.

So there’s still stuff to do, but less of hosting and stress.

In two months we’ve hosted and celebrated two weddings and I finished my master’s thesis. It’s been so much and such large milestones. There’s still more to come and the rest of the year to see what happens.