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A job I love

Today was one of these days that made me realize how lucky I actually am and how much I appreciate to be able to do what I do. I love my job. I’m working for a concert agency, I organize concerts and am able to make people happy with it. It’s a dream I had since I was sixteen/seventeen.

Back then, at that young age, I went to a lot of concerts and festivals with my friends. We basically lived on the weekends, when we were on the road, going to yet another small festival in the region, letting an older friend drive us around. When I was having my driver’s license I drove for myself as well, writing for a website that featured articles about these festivals and concerts. And yes, a lot of them were Christian, because I’m Christian, but that’s another story to tell.

However, my friends and I decided that it was annoying to having to drive all the time and we wondered what it would take to organize a small festival in our hometown. Big story short, wondering became doing and we organized a festival with around 300 - 400 paying guests.

It was then when I realized this is what I want to do with my life. Not because it’s such a fancy concept to meet musicians all the time (and I assure you, even now as I do it as a full time job I do in fact not meet musicians all the time). I enjoyed the people smiling when their favorite band went on stage, hit the first note, sung their first tunes and the mood was changing, people were screaming and cheering. It made me happy to see people happy.

I still do. It’s why I love this job.

Yet, doing what I do on a daily basis, a lot of the allure leaves with time. I sit in an office most of the time, and while I’m at concerts a lot as well, it’s still my job to go and work at those concerts. I didn’t forget why I love what I do, but it becomes a small background noise. After a while it’s so familiar you almost forget it’s there.

Today at work we had a workshop about the technical event systems. About the lights, the monitors, the sound system, etc. etc. I do not go into detail, that would go beyond scope here. It was a lot about safety, about communication but also about general basics. In the end, however, we were allowed to actually .... experience what we learned that day. I stood behind a mixer and pushed some buttons (however weird that sounds :D) and I turned on and off some lights. It was hands on, and I loved that. I realized again why I love what I do, and how it affects me to see a concert happening. I could easily imagine people enjoying something I work hard for. I could imagine the magic for first time concert goers and all-time being backers. I saw the astonishment in my colleagues’ faces, the simple joy of our teachers for the day seeing we got what they told us.

To keep it short: I love my job, I am so grateful I can do something I love. I know not many have the opportunity, but I would advise, fight for it. Fight for the job you love and want to do. Take the risk of doing it, and be able to enjoy going to work. It’s really worth it to be able to wake up and know that it’s something that makes you happy where you’re going to.

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I am what I am, even though I don’t know what that is...

The world is a strange place and we humans are the strangest thing in it. We feel too much when we shouldn’t, and feel too less when we should. We make stupid decisions based on emotions and overthink our own actions when all we should do is just move forward.

We find labels for everything and still none of them fits, because we are, after all, individuals.

I am demisexual and demiromantic. Usually I mostly say I’m demi-everything, because whatever aspect in my life I look at, the prefix demi fits. (With exceptions, because as usually exceptions confirm the rule.)

It’s a label I found fitting most and yet, sometimes, it doesn’t give me comfort. Demisexuality is part of the Asexual spectrum, which for me is weird. While I don’t actively have sex, I do know I enjoy it. Just, well, not with everyone. To be honest, the number of people I do enjoy it with is small. At the moment, there wouldn’t be anyone I know personally I think I’d enjoy it with. (Let’s exclude certain actors here, please.) Still I don’t feel like I’m part of the Asexual community, because I enjoy sex. I have a sex-drive and I even masturbate. Just like a lot of people do.

But I do not feel part of… being a normal white cis girl. I care too much for the queer community to feel like I’m straight. I want life to be easier for the queer community. I envision a day where no one talks about homosexuals and transgender and asexuality anymore, because it’s a part of everyday life. I envision a day where it’s no big deal who you love and what you feel yourself as and how much you have sex or not and with whom and with how many people. It’s the only right thing for me to envision, because I wonder why we even make a fuss about. There is no concept of normality in the world which wasn’t based on human principles. I don’t even know why I described myself as a normal girl just in the beginning of this paragraph, even as a stereotype. Normality is fake news. That’s it.

So why do I not feel like belonging? What I strive for in life and what I carve for are probably basic human needs. The wish for a relationship, someone to hold me when I feel alone, someone to fight with over cleaning the bathroom. It’s weird, it shouldn’t be so hard to achieve, but it obviously is.

I had a talk with a friend and she told me the concept of relationships is overvalued in our society and she is right. It is. You can lead a happy life as a single, be without a partner and be happy. I know and mostly I am perfectly content with my life. Yet, sometimes I wonder what it would be like, to be in a relationship and to be able to kiss someone (and have sex with someone) and feel good.

Maybe it’s human nature to want what you can’t have. Maybe I just haven’t found myself a place in this world yet.

It’s worth another post that I still don’t know if I’m bisexual, because I’m too less attracted to people to find out. I could be. The concept to be in a relationship with a girl is far more appealing to me than to be in a relationship with a man (even though I am, when I am, far more attracted to men. And women are the prettier species.)

It’s also worth to mention that I’m, despite what my rambling here indicates, happy with my life. I have wonderful, understanding friends. I am healthy. I’m close to be done with my bachelor and will very likely get a good job when I’m back from New Zealand. I have a loving family and I’m able to do what I like. Life is good. I just have too much time at hands and be able to think quite much.

I am what I am, even though I don’t know what that is.

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when the world is in tatters

Watching the news makes you realize how the world is crumbling at all edges. It’s cracking and bending and beginning to break. It is, mildly speaking, outright scary.

The current President of the United States supports fascism, sexism, white supremacy, racism and many more ugly things. He cares more about losing his voters than losing his decency. He’s supposed to be the most powerful man in the world.

The United Kingdom has voted itself out of the EU, without a plan of how to deal with the change. People fear of losing their job, their life as they know it, without a stable future. People don’t know what to do, because a whole nation doesn’t know what to do.

Australia must take a poll, to get the subject of same sex marriage into parliament. Like love is a thing of need to be discussed. Making it extra hard to get something so simple into a country’s law and minds.

I know I’m rather simple on the facts. I know I’m far from pointing out all that is going wrong in the world right now. I even left out several topics mentioned in the news I just watched a few minutes ago. It’s not the point I want to get across.

Not because I don’t condemn all of this. Not because I don’t support every willing person who stands up against these wrongs, points them out, shouts, rages and fights. We need the fighters. We need those who punch Nazis in the face (and I mean it as I say it). We need the rebels and those who walk the way that is not easy but right and just. We need all of them. Every single person.

But we also need those who can still smile. We need artists and comedians, we need actors and musicians, we need authors and poets. We need love.

I was so very shocked when I opened my twitter and saw this tweet from Patrick Rothfuss.

I’m reading his book “The Wise Man’s Fear” at the moment, and I can admit he’s an excellent writer. The number of books he has sold and the number of followers he has, shows, that he’s appreciated and loved for his work. He is an artist, an author, and he should never feel awkward for loving his work and trying to bring it to attention.

If the Nazis, and racists and sexists out there manage to silence us and stifle our love, they win.

If I’m bad at one thing, it’s losing. If I won’t allow one thing, it’s letting people undermine my passion to do good. To spread love.

Because love is so important. Things that make us smile are so important. Joy and happiness is so important. Focusing on the good things in this world, if just for a moment, to gather our strength and draw a breath to fill our lungs with new energy, is important.

We need to breathe, to keep on shouting to the world what is going wrong. We need to lay down and enjoy a peaceful moment, to keep standing up for a world without war and hate. We need to remember what we are fighting for, to destroy what is trying to rob those very things.

We need countries that open their borders instead of closing them.

We need parliaments that rather change their laws than separating families or not allowing love, because it seems different or unnormal.

We need same-sex couples, and couples of different skin-colors or races and see that in their love they’re not different at all. That in love we’re all the same.

We need people to say, “I support you no matter what! I’m here for you. I’m willing to learn and to listen, even if I don’t understand.”

We need hugs and smiles, and music and art. We need plays and laughs. TV series that refuse to use stereotypes, and people willing to watch and acknowledge them. We need books and poems, and loving readers. We need humans and humanity. We need love. So much love.

And if it’s expressed through a card deck, I’d take that every time.

Because we can face hate with hate, or we can face hate with love (and a little anger) and see what makes the real difference.

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when friendliness is considered weak

„No good deed goes unpunished…“

Wicked’s Elphaba may be a drastic example, but I can’t say I haven’t related to her. It’s surely not every day, but often I feel like goodness is view as weakness instead. I was raised to be polite, and my inner nature frowns upon harshness. It’s something I just don’t like to do, be insulting or mean. I can’t even curse. Honestly, I just can’t. I’m not even using “fuck” or “shit”, my vocabulary probably reaches down towards “damn” but even then, never towards a person. I’d say, “damn this isn’t working”, but I wouldn’t say “damn you”.

Our society has transformed to a constant battle of trying to stand out. Being average is meant being invisible. And being nice means it’s easy to be pushed into the field of averageness. It’s hard to make a way through this life living it in a friendly, comforting way.

I don’t think being a polite, friendly, helpful person makes you into someone weak. I think it requires strength to not start shouting insults, when something doesn’t go the way it was planned. I think it’s hard to smile, when all you want to do is cry, or swear or hurt someone. I think it’s hard to smile and mean it!

Hurting is easy. Some people hurt others, some hurt themselves.

Not hurting anyone is the hard thing to do. Because it requires patience, it requires strength and it requires a way to say, “fuck you” without saying it at all. To believe love to be bigger than hate, is what makes you into a good person, despite the repercussions.

I try to be such a person, and while I have no idea if I succeed, I know I wish the world would acknowledge it more. I wish people would try to look into such people and stop belittling them as naïve or weak. They’re not. They’re probably stronger than any of you.

Yet, even strong people need a break once or twice. Looking out for others makes people often forget that everyone needs to be looked out for sometimes. Giving love shows you how good it can feel to see other people smile. It sometimes makes you wonder if you’re allowed to receive such a wonder yourself.

Sometimes all people need to go one giving love, is a firm hug and a kiss on the forehead, telling: “I know what you do, and I am grateful for it.”

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Why do we stop to care when the story is over?

Yesterday I finally managed to watch “To Write Love On Her Arms”, the movie telling Renee’s story, as Jamie’s words told her story.

It was heart-breaking to watch the movie. For a great extend because I found a lot from the story of TWLOHA in the movie, words that mean so much to me. I saw her light and rain collide above the stage but I also saw the near-constant presence of evil ever since.

The latter pained me more, because it was something I always pushed aside, too eager to see the happy, bright side in Jamie’s words and forget the dark. Forget how good I can relate, and not at all.

I sought comfort in Jamie’s story, and forgot Renee while I did. Watching the movie reminded me that the story around TWLOHA is more than just a story. It’s a life, a real life, who has faced struggles and hard, draining times. I am grateful that the movie didn’t stop where the story did. It showed words that struck me deep within my soul.

“Hello. My name is Renee Yohe and I am still messed up.”

Because it’s true and real and it’s life. To be still messed up after healing. To not know your way, even if you believe you should. It’s important, for me especially, as someone who leads a happy life and sometimes forgets it’s okay to be messed up. To not have found answers to questions haunting you since your childhood. It’s okay to be messed up. It’s hope.

Renee fought darkness and sought life. I admire her for her bravery to not let the movement behind TWLOHA overwhelm her. Even if it probably did sometimes, at some points. I can’t say. I never met her, the real her. But if I did, I’d die to have a chat with her. Just talk. Sing maybe. Let songs carry us.

I read Jamie Tworkowski’s “If you feel too much”. I always had the feeling, while Renee fought darkness, he fought blinding sunshine.

Sometimes being in the light can be as frightening, it’s at the very last demanding. I believe I can relate. If you feel too much will always strike me as something both frightening and hopeful. Something that makes my heart yearn. Belong maybe. Feel understood.

He has written a story thousands of people can relate to. His words hang in people’s ears, when people talk about TWLOHA. I write about him. I wonder if he knows his story is as important as Renee’s,as important as those stories of the people he writes about in “If you feel too much”. I know how it is to dim your light, because you feel like all the sunshine around you don’t need a candle.

But sometimes it’s the warmth that counts and not the light.

I hope he never stops writing. I hope he never stops feeling too much.

I hope we all look further into a story and don’t put the book away when it ends. See if there is more. Create further content. Make it whole.

Care for life.

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about labels, demisexual and a maybe perfect world?

I never was someone to willingly put a label on someone to understand them better. In general, I find labels stupid, because a person is always so much more than a label, a complex personality of many traits which change constantly and develop. But in case of my own sexuality I realized it helps to put a label on myself, just in order to make me belong.

After 25 years of not-existent relationships, encounters that broke my heart in one way or another, love stories that didn’t end well and not feeling attraction towards someone in over five years I’m glad to know that demisexuality is something that exists and I am not broken. It also helps that I am not alone.

I just phoned with a friend of mine for two hours and I am so glad that she understands me, because she herself is in a similar position, and is hardly ever attracted to people (even when she is more easily attracted then I am, which still isn’t much when we here talk about one guy in a year or so, while with me we speak of about one man in five years). It helped to just talk, and realize I am not alone and that it’s okay.

I don’t know what triggered it.

Okay that’s a fucking lie. I know perfectly what triggered it. I have stated in a previous post that I had/have a celebrity crush, and I found out he has a girlfriend. Which is super okay, because he’s as I stated a celebrity, an actor, who, not to mention, lives on the other side of the world. I will very likely never meet him, and I don’t even know if I would like him should we meet. I’m not even sure if it’s personally him that hit me or the feeling of getting stripped of normality.

To be attracted to someone, and if it’s only an actor, gave me a sense of belonging. I believed I knew what it is to swoon a little seeing the person’s features and even thinking about sex, a relationship, too. I could indulge in talking about those topics, could imagine what society wants you to believe is accepted and normal.

I belonged, even in a very superficial way. Because, as I said, he’s a fucking actor, a person I never met and only “know” from the internet. So, not at all. But I belonged, I felt, and now I realize that it’s so super stupid to think I need to.

No one other than myself is allowed to judge over my life and my happiness.

I don’t want a relationship for the sake of it. I admit I am curious. I never had a real romantical relationship and I wonder if I am able to lead one. Sometimes I have the feeling I am just so broken in a way, that a relationship is something unreachable for me, because I am too strong, or too insecure, too different for it. Too individual. Too independent. Though different friends of my have told me I am not. Maybe I have to admit to the fact that some things are just as they are. That a relationship doesn’t make me feel normal, or belong. It’s not me that has to change, society has to accept that there are people different from their convenient views and that there is no black and white.

I hope for a world in which homosexuals are portrait as common and normal as asexuals, demisexuals, heterosexuals and everything in between, from people who aren’t white to the white heterosexual man, in which it’s not an issue if you’re transgender or non-binary or just a woman who doesn’t want to have kids and a husband. Or be a woman who wants it and isn’t ashamed. A world in which people stop to have to feel broken or different for not fitting into what are considered normal categories.

I wish for it because maybe then I would stop feeling out of place and would stop looking for something that I am not. Because I don’t want a relationship with just anyone. I don’t want to have casual sex. I tried. It’s uncomfortable. It made me feel out of my body. I had the dick of a guy in hand and wondered why the hell I’m doing it, how it even came to it and why the hell I am just thinking all the thoughts I thought.

When I was 14 I “dated” a guy, for a week. Then I broke it off. Because it didn’t feel right to be with him when I am not in love. Had someone told me that it’s okay to break off with him, that I hadn’t even needed to start it in the first place, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like I did something wrong. A girl called me a slut because of it. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened then. Maybe I wouldn’t have been hurt. I don’t know. I actually don’t give it that much thought. But just sometimes, like now, I wondered how relationships could have developed, when someone had told me that I don’t need one, that I don’t need to have sex, that it’s okay to not be attracted to the hottest guy in school and being hurt hurts no matter how much or less you felt.

Being demisexual is as hard as every other sexual orientation is. It had its problems, its benefits. It has everything, because it’s part of life.

I am part of life. I am part of this world and I want to belong. I want to stop feeling like I am a abnormality, broken or different.

And it’s good to know that I am not alone. That other people wear this label, too, not to rid them of their complexity but to feel accepted, to unite even if we all are different and unique.

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the parthenon of books

I was in Kassel the last two days with a class of my studies. At the moment the “documenta14″ takes place there. It’s one of the largest exhibition for contemporary art in the world.

One of the pieces you can see (even if you don’t visit the documenta itself) is “The Parthenon of Books” by Marta Minujín, an Argentinean artist. It’s an instellation in the middle of the city, built with (hopefully soon) 100,000 books. All of these books you can see have been once forbidden in the world, or are still somewhere.

I don’t want to go into detail too much about the piece of art itself, as you can read a great deal about it and Marta Minujín on the homepage.

What I want to talk about is my own humble opinion and feelings while seeing this installation two days ago for the first time. I heard a little bit about the art before we went to the documenta. We were told that it features forbidden books and I honestly thought of some immediately. Books forbidden under the Nazi-Regime, books from Karl Marx for example, maybe even some like Goethe or similar. But I mostly thought of old books, because honestly there can’t be countries still that want to forbid common literature. Novels, romances, fantasy. Normal books I read for enjoyment.

Unfortunately there are some, and it was terrifying to see what kind of books are (still) forbidden somewhere. Normal books like Harry Potter. Yes, Harry Potter!

Or Twilight (and while we can discuss the quality of the book, it’s still scary to know people think they need to forbid it.)

Or The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I love that book, it tells so much truth. It’s such a heart-warming novel about kindness and friendship. It’s for example forbidden in Hungary.

(Fun fact: This edition of “The little prince” hangs next to “Gossip Girl”. It’s another perfect example of the absurdity of all of this)

As a person who loves to read, but also to write, it’s shocking to know there are still forbidden books. I know that my stories, be it fanfiction or just those words here on this blog, don’t reach many people. I am glad if only one reads them. I don’t care if not. But I would care if someone would forbid my words.

They are my own thoughts, my soul bared on paper, my dreams and hopes and smiles. It’s my heart put to words, stories that existed in my head long before I banned them on paper. It’s a part of me and if someone would forbid my writing, it would feel like they forbid a part of me.

I am glad that Marta Minujín directs people’s thoughts back to the written word. I know less and less people read nowadays. It’s a little sad to know some words just vanish into the big void of nothingness. But it’s even harder to know people banish words there willingly.

If just few people look at this installation, see a book and become interested enough to seek it out and read it, I think the purpose of this piece of art has it’s eligibility. I at least found some books I definitely want to read, and some I have already and value even more now.

And for an end to this little rambling I quote myself:

“The written word is a memory to our pasts, futures, our hearts and souls...”

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about social media, love, me being me and riding horses

It’s not the loneliness that hurts, it’s the constant flood of media suggesting you need to have a partner. While I don’t necessarily exclude thousands of thousands romance movies, love-stories written in books or songs – because they do suggest it and in a very contorted way – it most often isn’t fiction that I want to literally get my hands on and rip apart.

Social Media makes it easy to portray happiness – real or not – with a few clicks. You find photos of couples everywhere and while I don’t begrudge anyone’s happiness and love, it often leaves an ache. Because it makes you feel like you miss something wonderful out.

What people show are the good things. The happy things, and while I know that a relationship is anything but easy, but rather hard work, what you see are those glimpses of joy. A smile, a kiss and hug. What I see is what I don’t have.

I feel like I’m an old hag with thousands of cats shouting at young couples or teenagers. I am not. (And I hope I never will be, never having a partner be damned.) I probably just want to get to the point that in civilization it’s not allowed to stay alone. Especially as a woman.

I am glad that at the last family party I wasn’t asked constantly why I don’t have a boyfriend. Maybe at a certain age people are afraid to. I know I had a conversation with a colleague who was almost awed when I told her I don’t necessarily crave a relationship, sexual or romantical likewise.

I do would love to have one, but mostly because I don’t know how it is to have a partner in life. I am curious if I would be able to, after being on my own for years. Practically my whole life. I also wonder if that’s just how it is, or if too many heart-breaks just lead me to shy away from men and relationships altogether.

I know sexuality isn’t something you can choose. I know people who would change theirs if they could. Some towards homosexuality, others away from it.

I also know sexuality is something that can change. While I would have called myself straight and heterosexual in my teenage years, I am not so sure about it anymore. Things change while you’re stuck in your own head. I am mostly stuck in my own head. It makes things complicated. Too much thinking certainly never made things easy.

I know that yearning for something I don’t know, when I see someone I just barely or not know at all post a stupid couple picture, is irrational. Love will either come or it won’t. It’s nothing I can change and I don’t want to. I will not throw myself into a relationship for the sake of having one. That would be childish. I need to come to terms with myself, what I am and what I am not.

But I know myself and I dream too much. I’m a writer, words and stories were always part of me. I make things up, built castle into the air and let them break apart. It’s a blessing and a curse, because none of my stories ever came true, and I dreamed of myself as the princess taking a horse to find her prince too often.

I can’t even ride.

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about celebrities, love and growing up

Sometimes the weirdest thing for me is to pine after celebrities. I feel like a too-old fangirl, being blown by a cute smile and shiney eyes.

When I was 16/17 I went to a lot of christian concerts more or less close to where my parents live. It was a great time, a time I felt closer to god than I do now, and a time that shaped my occupational outcome to great extends. It’s a complete different story to why that is and I better explain it in another post.

However, going to those concerts almost every other weekend, in combination with writing for a website that posted reviews and photos of said concerts allowed me to get closer to certain band members than other visitors. Not to mention that the Christian Rock/Pop-Scene in Germany isn’t too big. It’s mostly the same bands, the same people and the same locations. I knew band members by name, had done interviews with them, even walked up to them to say hi.

And I fell for a certain singer of one of the bands.

His band doesn’t exist anymore, no matter he still makes music. The last time I talked to him personally is years ago, and when I look at pictures of him now, I shake my head. What I want to say with it is, that today I don’t have any feelings for him anymore. But I still know how it had been to like him.

I am not talking about love. I believe that love requires a certain amount of trust, understanding and is a deeper feeling than pining for a person. But I liked him, I wanted to get to know him better and knew I never really would.

I only ever met him during those concerts, with hunderts of people surrounding us, all of them wanting to talk to him as well, celebrating their music and screaming when they came on stage. Not even the closeness of being able to say hi erased the feeling of just being a fan. And to be honest I was nothing more.

I am drawn to broken people. I don’t know why. There is something in my soul that allows me to see and to understand. Maybe it’s the own brokenness inside me. I believed I saw something broken in his eyes, believed to be able to hold him and make it better. Maybe all I ever wanted was that someone would do exactly that for me.

It’s a strange feeling to go back to that time. When you’re 17 you still believe in love to be easy. Now I know it is everything, but never easy. At least not for me. Love doesn’t come, attraction doesn’t come to me like it comes to other people. I long realized that I am demisexual, probably also demiromantic and no matter those are labels that can’t define everything, they are the closest to describe what I feel or don’t feel in one word.

I still believe in love. And I still hope that one day I find someone who sees that my strength doesn’t erase my weakness and my scars don’t erase that I am not broken beyond repair.

When I was 17, maybe 18 by the time, and slowly realized that loving a singer, no matter how close or far you are of him, will never come to fruition, I swore to myself to never do the same mistake again. There are enough other mistakes to do and believe me when I tell you I made most of them.

Pining for a celebrity is like reaching for clouds. That was what I believed in, and so I feel stupid and childish for doing it again. Especially when this time the celebrity is someone I never met before and only ever saw in the media: TV. Instagram. Twitter.

The internet allows you to believe you know someone to an extend, and still I know I know nothing at all. I wonder if I should know better than to check social media every other day and look for him. I wonder if I should know better than to day-dream how and when we could meet, even fall for each other. My head is perfect to spinning stories that only ever exist in my head, with full understanding they will stay there. It’s why I write. I never been a person to spam celebrities, drive kilometers for a slim chance to see them or similar. I dream. Like I dreamt back then.

Still I feel like 17 again. A time where my heart was broken and restored and broken and restored. It’s not exactely a time to which I want to go back to. I am happier now with 25 than I was with 17.

On the one hand I know I shouldn’t build dream-castles out of sand and some data collected on the internet. On the other hand, I also know that I am not in love with anyone, I am not in a relationship and fantasizing a little isn’t wrong. Those people live by their fans, earn their money through fans and need them to survive. Acknowledging a good actor for his skills or a singer for his voice is appreciating art. It’s what they do, and I have greatest respect for their work.

There is no correct answer to something containing matters of the heart. Maybe there doesn’t need to be one. I know I will always appreciate good actors, musicians, painters, artists. I know I will always be invested in people and things I like. And maybe it’s also okay to not let myself drift away in this appreciation, to be able to open up one day for someone who is real and close and mine to love.

I don’t know. I probably will find out one day.

I decided that should I ever meet this particular actor, I will tell him that I really love his skills. Because that is true in every sense and I think I would need to tell him. I don’t believe it will ever happen, but I guess never say never.

Stranger things have happened...

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Wegen dem alten Schinken und so... Ich hab jetzt nicht direkt danach recherchiert um es bestätigen zu lassen. Aber eine Erklärung, die mir ziemlich naheliegend scheint ist, dass man ja früher auf Pergament geschrieben hat - welches halt aus Tierhäuten hergesttelt wird ; >

(Rough translation for everyone not able to speak German: Concerning the “alter Schinken” ... I haven’t really put research into it, but one explanation could be that earlier people wrote on parchment, which was done by animal’s skin.)

You are right. I haven’t found some official source, but it seems that’s the case.

Also someone mentioned the old heavy books would look like a piece of meat. Which I find ridiculously funny, but hey people also believed that storms where the revenge of some angry gods, so why not also compare books to meat :)

Maybe not even so off, after all xD

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I believe

There is this wide-spread lie that you’re not allowed to write or draw in your books. Like they are sacred and will get defiled with ink on their paper. I don’t know where this understanding comes from, but I realized some time ago, that I will not follow its behaviour.

Maybe I watched too much Black Sails, where apologies and love-vows are written in books that mean something. Maybe I just read of too many people who marked words that touched them and therefore touched other people. Maybe I just like colours more than black and white. I don’t know. But I started to highlight passages that stirred emotions in me.

I started it first when I read the bible. I still do, though I have to admit that the last time I held this particular book in my hands is some time ago. It’s strange, as I still tend to carry one with me when I travel.

I lost track of the habit, and picked it up again. At the moment there are three books that I own which are more or less full of highlighted passages, underlined words, little drawings and notes. One I just received a few days ago. Also a tribute to Black Sails: “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. A friend of mine called it an “Alter Schinken” which literally translates into “old ham”. I have no idea why we German’s name old books as meat, but maybe they are both hard to swallow.

The other two books are “The Hut” by William Paul Young and “If You Feel Too Much” by Jamie Tworkowski. While the first one is more or less known, especially now with the movie out (it’s currently running in cinema in Germany and I still haven’t seen it), the other is probably rather unremarkable for most of the people.

It’s from the founder of @twloha (To Write Love On Her Arms) and the moment I read the title something in me ached. It’s probably the reason why I bought the book in the end. When I received it and started reading I cried after the first four pages. I still haven’t read through all of it.

The day before yesterday I opened it again, not sure what I hoped to find. I stopped at the title “What I feel vs what I know”. The headline is graced by words now. My own words:

Sometimes I forget how wonderful the world is. Sometimes I forget my dreams. Sometimes I’m hurt and my heart aches. But I am happy because life was good to me. And I believe. I believe!

Jamie writes about feeling more sad than happy, and feeling more stuck than feeling free. It’s worth to read it, if you ever have the chance.

The thing is, I know what he means. I know what it feels like to have a hole in my heart and ache and ache and ache, and to forget what life is worth. No matter I love my life, and lead a good life. Sometimes even standing up is hard.

Today was such a day. I must have dreamed something, which I rarely do. When I woke up there was the sick feeling in me that I don’t deserve love, because the rest of my life is too good. Like you’re not allowed to know hundert percent happiness, for nothing better can follow then. Or just because I don’t deserve a happy life.

It’s bullshit and I know it. But what I felt was entierly different. I lay awake in my bed and tried to shake off the feeling, but it was hard. It was too early for there to be noise in the house, the media either tells you about love stories or disasters and you lack the in between. It feels like floating with the dread of falling every second. It’s no good feeling.

Jamie describes it as a hole.

It certainly feels like one.

I was impressed by one certain sentence in the story: “i feel i should have found love by now.”

It both gives me hope and leaves me frightened. Hope, because Jamie Tworkowski is much older than me, and still struggles the same feeling as I do. It gives you a feeling of having time. Time to find love, something I ache for and don’t know why.

But it also left and still leaves me frightened because I know and he knows and we probably all know that love is not what solves the hole. No man or woman alone can ever be strong enough to fill that hole.

I have friends. Wonderful friends. A family I love and adore. I have people and only multitudes of people can fill this particular hole and make you whole. So why do we ache and ache for just one person, and I especially one I haven’t even met? I shouldn’t and I know it, but I still do.

I’m not in love. So how can I carve what I don’t know? And then believe I don’t deserve it?

The feeling haunted me the morning, and will for many more days, weeks, maybe even years. I can’t just shake it off. After so many years without a romantical relationship in a world that makes you believe you need one, you will keep thinking that something is wrong with you. I do keep believing something is worng with me.

But what I know is different. And I will keep telling me that I don’t need a lover, or a romantical partner to function. And I will keep on telling me that maybe one day I will meet that person that I can love. Without putting him (or her) under the pressure to fill any hole. Maybe all that person needs to do is to add a little to the heart,

To make you believe. Of possibility.

I know that I am worth everything, just like everyone. I know that love is many things and not only a kiss and sex. I know that there will be days in which I don’t know why I stand up, who I stand up for.

But there will be days I know exactely who to stand up for. Friends. My family. Old and new people in my life. Maybe one day even a person I will share my life with.

As Jamie said: “There is much to be thankful for.”

And I don’t want to forget it. So I believe. And breathe. And wait. And ache and stand up. Every single day.

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Why another blog?

Hello whoever you are. Hello to who is reading this. Hello and welcome, I am happy that you are alive.

You may ask, why another blog? Why follow me, when there are so many others around, maybe better ones, brighter ones, with more knowledge and better words. Well, I can’t answer the question.

All I can say is, that I felt the need to write. Write about what is important to me. Write about my life and my feelings. Write, write, write until there are no more words left inside me.

All you may read here is utterly personal. It’s about me. About my life, about what I experience and think and feel. It’s about being in love and not being in love. It’s about friendship and loneliness. It’s about feeling too much and sometimes not feeling anything at all. It’s about women, and men. About music, photography, quotes, a stipped soul until it’s bare. It’s entierly about me. But maybe it’s also about you.

I’m just a normal girl. Currently twenty-five years old. German. Tall. Trying to write my bachelor thesis. Reading too much philosophy and fanfiction. Watching series, sunsets and butterflies. Smiling. Dreaming. Hoping.

Welcome to my life.

With raindrops and mirror images.