Am I finally exhaling atheism?

This morning I was sitting quietly on a chair at the reception of a tour agency waiting for my turn to get interviewed (long story).   There was another candidate in the chair in front of me.   Later a couple of women professing The Jehovah Witnesses came in with pamphlets.  I thought “oh no… here I go”, but then they limited to give a pamphlet to the other candidate and then said something about Jesus and left.  They didn’t even look at me.

Snakes

Last night I had a horrible dream involving snakes wanting to bite me.  They were all over the place, and I couldn’t walk fast.  You are probably familiar with this, you know, when you dream and you try to move but you can’t, or move really slowly and you feel the frustration as you try to escape, usually from something that is threatening you.  It usually happens because your muscles are paralized while you sleep and you feel that restriction reflected in your dreams.

Anyway, I kept getting bitten, but my slow movements made me realize I was dreaming, so I woke myself up.  When I woke up, I told somebody about the snakes, and they made fun of me.

“But I thought you liked snakes!”

“I wouldn’t be scared of snakes…”

“Snakes? Pfft!”

 I was so angry at this.  Who do they think they are?

But then it turned out I was still dreaming.  I had “woken up” inside another dream.  I hate when that happens.  How do you know when it’s actually over?  I could be dreaming right now.  Maybe my depression symtoms are actually caused because I’m dreaming and my muscles are naturaly paralized so I feel like I need to drag myself everywhere?  

Well it was worth trying.

Lets just say I did wake up.   And in real life, I do love reptiles.  I love iguanas and snakes.  The only reptile that scares me is a small transparent lizard that likes to hang out at nights.  It’s so small and you can see all its organs… I always fear they are going to jump on me.  And indeed, one day, one did.  But that’s another story.

Speaking of snakes, the biggest one in the world discovered so far used to live in Colombia.  Or at least that’s where it was found.

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090204/full/news.2009.80.html

58 million years ago, it could have been hanging out around the place where my house is now.  Apparently they loved hot weather.

Can’t take my eyes off of you…

I thought it would pass.  But I’m entering week No. 2 since I watched one trailer from “Batman:The Dark Knight“.   Ever since I sat there in front of my tv and I saw this insane clownish villain, I was taken.

It has been annoying for me to see the hype that surrounds the death of Heath Ledger.  And The Dark Knight success as a result of what it would seem an incredible marketing campaign (if it was on purpose, but of course this isn’t the case…).   It almost seems like people  only praise Ledger and the movie, because he’s dead.   I suppose in some cases this may be true.  I was recently reading Seaneens blog where she acknowledges how the hype might have been somewhat bigger than the real deal in regards to the movie.  Not surprising I guess.  But I had no such expectations.

Two weeks ago I had no idea that Heath Ledger existed, much less that he had died.  I fell in love with the joker without knowing who he was behind the character, or that he had passed.   In some way I’m happy that I was able to get a relatively unbiased opinion about the character without the compassionate factor, or whatever you call it.   I only saw the character and thought it was amazing.   I laughed like hell and the first thing I did afterwards was to go online and google him to figure out who that awesome actor was.

About the movie itself… well, I liked it.  I liked the ending which is a lot to say.  But I’ve never been a fan of Batman or comics in general, so it’s not too meaningful for me.  Without the joker I would have forgotten about it very soon.

So, I googled for “joker” and “the dark knight” and I got a name.  “Heath Ledger“… didn’t ring any bells really.   A rather weird name in my opinion.  That’s all.  I was surprised then to see lots of “RIP”s around his name, but my first thought was that I probably misspelled the weird name; how could he be dead if I just saw him and this a new movie? ha.

It turns out I did know Heath from other movies.   I saw “10 things I hate about you” about 3 years ago on TV.   But I couldn’t believe it was the same guy.   I remember I thought he had the most gorgeous smile in the world (seriously), and I had lots of fun watching the movie, because that’s “the one where you can also see Julia Stiles” and “that girl from Alex Mac is there!!“.  In the movie he also let a little bit of his Aussie accent come through, so that killed me.

I don’t usually care for celebrities… I don’t watch E! channel, I skip the celebrity gossip section, I know about Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse because they’re all over the place.   If someone famous dies, the reaction I would expect from myself would be “Yeah, whatever… Sucks, doesn’t it?”   So I couldn’t understand why I was so sad when I realized Heath was gone…

Maybe it is the fact that I had just discovered of his existence to realize it was never really there at the time.  It’s like I discovered a ghost.   I was ashamed of myself for being sad, and of course my friends helped me by mocking me when I told them about it.  Then I expected I would play along and laugh at the whole deal too, but I just stayed sad.

Until this moment I thought I was the only one being stupid.  But when I found so many people around the internet claiming that they have been crying over it, I wanted to dig a hole and bury myself.   I don’t know if it’s this complex of mine about wanting to be “the only one”, “the special one”, etc.   I know I act like that sometimes, it is one of my flaws.  

If I’m a freak, then at least I want to be the only freak in the room.

Crazy.  And you’d think that make me get over it.  Well… NOPE.

I can’t get over it.  Not yet at least.  I have been watching all of his movies and interviews like he was an old friend of mine.  Amazed every time.  I watched Brokeback Mountain, I watched Batman… again, I watched 10 things… again, and I watched Lords of Dogtown.  I  even downloaded the scene of 10 things where he sings “Can’t take my eyes off of you”.

The only reason I haven’t watched A Knight’s tale, Casanova or Candy, it’s because I have no access to such movies in here.   I loved what I’ve seen so far, he’s completely different in each one of his roles.  The Joker is absolutely amazing.  Heath completely disappears into him.  I watched Batman yet again this afternoon and I got lost in the character… again.  The Joker is the best thing I’ve seen… and I can say it without fear because I thought the same before I knew all the things that surrounded the actor who played the crazy character and died shortly afterwards.

So, I am inside this vortex, while I laugh at myself.  I shouldn’t be feeling this for someone I never knew.  But I am.  I really hate it that he’s gone.   I have been outside in some random street when it comes back to me and I say to myself:  “sucks that you’re gone”.   I have had dreams where he shows up at my door dressed as the joker and tells me that he’s not actually dead,  he just had been kidnapped for a while.   Then he becomes his normal self and makes a call and goes away in a plane.

I have even thought of his daughter and how she’ll never know her daddy.  He’ll always be some ghostly idealized figure to her.   The thing she never had for real.

And then I laugh again for being such a sentimental girly.

Oh, c’mon! This is ridiculous.   Like there wasn’t enough people grieving him that are not random strangers who didn’t even know of his existence 2 weeks ago.  Plus the huge mob of crazy fans.

Still… every time I re-watch some of his movies or something on youtube about him, I think “Awesome! Can’t wait to see what he does next!” and then it hits me again.

There won’t be a next time.   There’s nothing beyond this.  Nothing.  Game over.

And the world will keep moving on.  Like it always does.

The most perfect color

When I was little I thought that maybe colors weren’t real as such, they were just a perception.  Maybe all humans share the same favorite color.  Who is to say my purple isn’t your blue? I could see green and you see red when in fact it’s the same exact color being perceived differently.

After trying to open my mind so much it physically hurt, I realized that if the above paragraph is true, it would mean that all humans for some reason share a unique favorite color.

It’s easier and more logical to conceive that all humans just like different colors, that are truly, different colors.

It doesn’t mean I am saying perceptions cannot differ, but I was wrong when thinking a different “perception” would affect whether I see green or blue.

Instead a different perception is what will make me feel all fuzzy in the inside when I see something purple, while Sulz might say “uggh” at the same object.

That stopped me from thinking my purple might be your orange.

That and finding out about wavelengths.

Fun Times in a Fun World.

Mood: busy/annoyed/unspired. All due to long day at work and general stress.

Reading: A Short Story I was sent Online. Fun World by William Routhier.

Listening to: “Falling Again” – Lacuna Coil. I enjoy the band sometimes, but it’s not my favorite one. Now, this especific song, is another thing. I absolutely love it. Don’t relate deeply with the lyrics, but the lyrics + the sounds cause one of those wavelength sync moments… the effect is impossible to describe right now. I would say it’s like being high, except I’ve never been high. But It’s like I imagine being high would be, minus the hallucinations and the laugher. And it’s not even the whole song, it’s a part of it. Darn.

Now you wish I had just said “I like this song.”

Anyway. Thinking of: My trip to Bogota last week. I finally bought a 1GB SD memory card, so I don’t have the limitation of taking only 7 to 10 pictures at a time… which means that: I took pics of anything moving or still and of things that are irrelevant or unfunny to the general public. But I won’t bother you with that… so much.

I left the random, people pictures for Facebook so they can laugh at them, I’m sure you have no interest on watching random people drooling at a hamburger after a long day. You can go to your local restaurant and see a bunch of those scenes yourself.

For blogging, I went with the Tourist-Like pictures: less playing around and more about creating tangible-ish memories of things seen to compensate a lousy memory and create the illusion of being able to enter those memories everytime you see the pictures.

Care to join me relive it? Follow the chocolate rabbit…

 

My Kriptonyte

Sometimes when reading other blogs, besides thinking about the authors story itself, you find yourself dwelling about your own experiences.   Sometimes a big time path is open, and you have no other option than to write your own blog on the feelings that have been relived.  I guess it’s blog inspiration, but me being me, I always make everything sound more complicated than it is.

I got inspired by this paragraph at Sulz’s referring to an old friend of hers:

“So, I left her before she could hurt me even more. It was a stupid and immature decision, but I felt like nobody understood my position. I had way more insecurity issues back then and I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. I just did what I knew best, leaving the party when the fun is over.”

I felt it was my own brain talking, except I didn’t put it into words myself. 

I’ll call the subject of my own story Serena.  Just to avoid excessive pronouns.

Serena is now working as a doctor in a little town.  We started school together but I was left behind due to my “time outs”, so she graduated first.   I met her when I was 11 years old.  When I was 13 we were best friends, and stayed that way for over 6 years.  Despite how things turned out, I owe her many things, knowledge about life, culture, music, the world, independence.   I always saw her as my older sister, I admired her, loved to spend time with her hearing about her adventures.  She always had something to say.  I always wanted to listen.  She was my role model, I would believe anything she said.

We were really close and everyone in college knew it. After our friendship finally ended, something that I can trace back to about three years ago, people around us talked.  Some people said they knew it was going to happen because we were very different people, and didn’t understand how we became friends in the first place.  Some seemed to be incredibly happy for her because they saw me as the shy apathetic little sister with problems, who holds back the older, wiser, more likeable sister from having the fun in life she deserves.   Some were actually happy for me, they accused Serena of being overbearing and manipulative, and that she was trying to make a mini her out of me.  That I was her little project.

I was the direct cause of our friendship to end.   One day I just cut the friendship from the roots, I stopped speaking to her, looking at her.  I cut her out completely.  I had tried to do the same thing, more subtlety a few times before that moment, but she always found the way back, she always understood, she was always patient, she always tried to make it better.  She helped me even though I was hurting her constantly all due to my immaturity and serious insecurity problems.  I’ve always thought the most insecure people are the most dangerous.  I was the dangerous one, unstable, my mind switched from love to hate really quick and the nicer she got the more horrible I was.  I noticed this, but it only made me bitterer.  When I was with her I was a horrible person.  When I was away from her, I was a great person.  I didn’t go away earlier because I always thought it was a stupid situation, that I could fix it, that I was so aware of my own evilness that I would be able to control it, to will it away and be a friend to her like she was to me.  

It never went away. 

Despite being for the most part a great and caring friend, she had her own issues.  Serena is dominant, never shows a weakness, always has the truth, and always speaks with affirmation sentences instead of “I think”, “I believe”.  She had a rough past; but turned out into a strong, independent woman with clear goals and opinions.  Somebody like that coupled with someone like I used to be: a little girl who is just exploring the world, who has an inferiority complex and is always second guessing herself is a combination made in hell.  For that I do give myself some slack.  Her strength twisted my mind and increased my weakness.    

I knew her deeply, I knew more than that, and I shouldn’t have let myself be tricked by her dominance.  But I did… I fell, and badly.  At some point of time I was so filled with self-hate, absolute envy, that everytime I saw her I couldn’t help but seeing how horrible I was compared to her.   I was always wrong, at least when she was around.  I was always listening, not because I had nothing to say.   I just didn’t dare to talk, maybe she would argue with me about my opinions (she probably would have, and I would not have the tools to fight back.   

Whenever something good happened to me, I wouldn’t tell her anymore.  I didn’t tell her about my first kiss, about my first date, and about a bunch of things friends tell each other about.  I was sure she would ruin it.  So I was living two separate lives.  The one as her best friend, going by the flow, by her plans, her music, her food.  She was the cool girl, the one with awesome ideas and a great idea of fun, always happy, always confident.  The other life I had was by myself, my music, my plans, my everything alone, in my world or with other people I didn’t feel threatened by.  I could not mix the two.  All I wanted was to make her part of my plans but I was terrified it would ruin them, not because of something she would do, but because I would start comparing and going paranoid about how lame my stuff was.  It was too much work.  It was exhausting to think so much and to feel so threatened all the time.  I kept trying to remember the good things, tried to be good, and tried to love her back, but I was too envious to do so.

When I started feeling just a bit good whenever something bad happened to her, I knew I had to stop it.  I was turning from attacking myself, to attacking her so I didn’t have to attack myself anymore.

I couldn’t allow myself to become like that… I was horrified of myself by that point.

So I did what I do best: I ran away, using a silly fight as excuse.  Disappeared from earth before she could keep on hurting me.  I remember thinking of her as my kryptonite.   It was an unbearable situation and despite the immaturity that motivated it, even now I think it was best that I stepped out.  I needed to live my life by my own truth, my own mistakes, and my own things without her influence. 

I grew up a lot ever since.  I learned so many things.  I didn’t see her much around, and when I did, we acted like strangers.

Last June, I was falling badly into depression again, not in a way I couldn’t handle, except the stress started to pile up and kept on piling up and didn’t stop.  The lack of coping mechanisms I had in the moment was serious, and the pressure was increasing.  I had a crisis, I couldn’t cope, I was panicking and I stopped everything I was doing. I couldn’t cry, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t move.  The feeling was overwhelming.

The next thing I know, Serena is talking to me, comforting me, hugging me, and cheering me up.

I think I started crying, because I didn’t understand the situation.  My brain was asking “did I finally go nuts?”.   It made no sense.

She never showed hard feelings, she kept behaving like a patient sister despite it all.  It only made me feel worse. 

After I got myself together, I thought I’d probably had grown up enough to be her friend and deal with her superiority complex given that I don’t have an inferiority complex anymore.

I apologized in a heartfelt but vague way, because to be honest, this reasoning I’m doing now… when I broke the friendship, I had no idea.  I didn’t know why exactly I was doing it; I just felt I had to run.

I still don’t know what’s going to happen.  I’ve talked to her lately, and it has been a success.  I’m more confident and share more stuff.  It’s going well, but it still feels like a huge risk.  I’m afraid that if we get close again, that side of me I don’t like to see will resurface.