csjwrites

[csjwrites]

I hate the texture of onions

No matter how you make them, no matter what they're in, even if you try to chop them very finely, I dislike it deeply. I don't think I will ever like it.

It's not about the taste, either. I think they're essential to many dishes, but my preference is a food processor treated, microscopic onion particles that I cannot notice even if I tried. Minced garlic, minced onions, jar garlic... jarlic... jarnion. My apologies.

I try my best to like the food you make, but even as you know I dislike onions and try to make them unnoticeable, I still notice them. You're a great cook otherwise, and I don't consider my own issues a standard that needs to be met. So, I stopped telling you the onions bother me.

You try so hard already. You've tried so hard my whole life.

You care quietly, in small ways, and despite often being seen as stoic, you're so sensitive. Especially to rejection.

That love is in the silence, in the attempts to help me in the ways you know how, with saving my money and my lack of understanding over technology. A beautifully crafted dish that is as good as it's intuitive. It's practical, simple. It's the most valuable kind of love I've ever experienced.

I feel safe with you. I sample your kitchen experiments and practical caring in the small moments they're presented to me. I swallow the onions reluctantly and try my best to express my appreciation in return in a language that you will understand.

And then we argue, but that too, is because I feel safe. I get frustrated and make it explicitly clear, and you get too excited with the chili despite the fact that I have no spice tolerance. I apologise, and laugh through my coughs. You forgive, and apologise in return.

I've put you through hell, I know that. I've been manipulated by a false illusion of a father I hoped would care about me the way you have. I rejected you in favour of a lie.

I try to change that now. I do all I can to tell you that I see your efforts now. I sit in the silence with you and compliment your dishes. I tell you I love you too, because it's the truth. I almost tell you I'm glad you've always been here.

But I've made you suffer so much, and that is why I've stopped telling you about the onions. I promise I'll never doubt anything you've done for me again.

[csjwrites]

I hate my mother.

There's a lot I've forgiven my mother for, and I've done my best to understand her, but all my attempts boil down this one, inescapable fact:

I hate my mother.

My mother is a good parent to my two siblings, with their promising futures and perfect place in that simple, easy picture of a family that isn't broken up by things they cannot speak of.

I don't fit that. I have my mother confessing things I already knew. How my so-called father was a bad, selfish man who had no desire nor capability to understand others. Condescending, terrifying man who made sure I would not survive him unscathed after I didn't become the child I was supposed to be in his eyes.

My mother has her own issues, but it could be argued she has done her best. She tried to ensure I didn't have to grow up without a father, never mind the fact that it meant years of manipulation and pain, reconsidering my place in this world and a version of me that needed years to be able to move on, to laugh in that shell of a man's face and breathe again.

He means nothing to me now. I don't despise him anymore, because he has grown unimportant.

My mother, however, knew who he was, and tried regardless. It's not her fault. She tried, had no choices. Had she tried to take me away, she could've lost me entirely, in one way or another.

Still, when I look at all the ways she tried and how often it meant pushing me towards him, towards the teeth that tried to shred me to pieces, I eventually have to admit:

I hate her for it. I hate my mother for the fact that I ever had to learn to live in a world where that man means nothing to me. I love her, and there was a time where I believed that I would someday understand her enough to not feel this way. No, understanding has only made it worse. I love her, but I don't like her.

I know it isn't fair, but it is the truth. I hate her. I hate my mother.

[csjwrites]

The Footnote

Have you met them? The footnote in other people's pursuit to peace?

The footnote might be read out loud out of respect towards it being a part of book, quickly forgotten, because truly, it serves no purpose beyond additional information. Once you know it, it does not need to be acknowledged again.

The footnote is silent, dutiful in inviting people to their quiet home where they will share words of wisdom to the brave looking for their happy endings. They may turn around to open up their own mind to those, who do not know the protagonists that serve more importance than the footnote themselves.

They may rebel by stepping out of the obscurity, borrowing relevance, being more than just an abstract concept like an oversized costume, before realising once more that being full-fledged concept isn't for them.

The footnote brews tea and hums quietly in an empty space waiting for the next person they can advise with carefully chosen words. Faceless, shapeless, unimportant.

The footnote waits and waits, carefully typed into the bottom of the page, and watches as it's flipped before the reader even finishes the sentence.

[csjwrites]

I Think About Disappearing

I think about disappearing often

Of all the beautiful heroes of their own world leaving in the night, never to be seen again. The reasons they may have gone, all the things that justify their choices. I wonder how long it takes for the other tragic figures in their lives to finally understand.

Maybe those people were never really here.

I think about disappearing often, wonder how I would do it. Would I be missed by the right people? Would my lack of presence be a relief to others?

I have a body that fights against itself in a battle that currently, as we speak, exists in a fragile balance where the only victim is my sanity as I watch the nonexistent damage done. I'm not dying, and I'm glad I can say so.

But my body is a burden to whoever dares to invite me in their home and see the moments when maintaining the balance gets to me. My body is a burden I try to bear by myself, because truthfully, I'm not anyone else's responsibility.

Have a seat, a drink, a bite. I made it for you, especially for you, just like you need to maintain this balance of yours.

It's a thoughtful gift, one that I do not wish to ask for. Do not invite me to your home. Do not take part in this. My body is a burden, that is not for you to worry about.

I wonder if disappearing away would fix this. Erase the thoughtful minds that fill me with guilt. No matter how right you've done your most loving gift, and in the end, I find an issue. I can't have this, I will explain.

I'm sorry.

How far must I go until I no longer meet people who will make the offer? Until I will finally be alone?

Or will it take tipping the scales until I'm no longer here, anywhere?

[csjwrites]

Single Unit

My siblings have always functioned as a single unit.

Two years apart, they've always done everything together. It's never my brother or sister, it's always my brother and sister. These days, they study together, they play the same games together, everything they can, they do as an unit.

I thought growing up and meeting new people would've changed that, but it didn't. Sure they have their own friends, but at the same time, they know each other's friends, they hang out with them at the same time even if that means they're separated for that time but then they return home at the same time, after leaving at the same time. Don't get me wrong, it's not a matter of the younger simply copying the older. No, they have their own personalities and preferences, but instead of those shining on their own, they blend that into a delicate balance of contrasts and similarities, compromising and decisions together.

I don't really belong in that equation. I'm okay with that.

I'm older, an adult to their teenage selves. I live away from them, staying in touch and present as much as possible.

My siblings come to me for advice, sometimes. When they do, they come together, and we solve both of their problems at once. I confess my own teenage fuck-ups to them, in hopes of them learning from them instead of repeating same mistakes. They laugh, we talk, tease each other, and I understand why everything is better with someone by your side. It works for them, and one person's insistence to stop by my apartment is enough to bring both. I throw them both 20€ notes on their way out. Spend it wisely, save it if you can.

Some may think looking at the unit from the outside might feel like I hold less importance. The duo hogging my couch for the third time this week tells me I don't.

Perhaps I benefit from this, too.

And, perhaps, they can shine together.

[csjwrites]

To Be Loved

I don't think I know what it's like to be loved.

Perhaps that's the kind of statement that will have my friends telling me that my unwillingness to love someone else is something that needs to be fixed, solved through expensive therapy appointments.

I do know how to love.

I've loved, so intensely, so deeply it makes me question my own sanity.

Does it make me weak if I admit that the way things have changed may come from how I've been treated? Does it require changing my ways once more? Does it go against my unwillingness to do so?

I know how to love.

That's the kind of statement you'll never hear from me.

You're a constant presence in my life, a distraction for the days when stress from work and studies get to my head, when I just need a singular thing to focus on. Stay for a while, for the night, clear my mind with all that you are.

You don't need to know about my father, who doesn't even deserve to be called that. How I begged him to stay and understand me until I no longer could. You don't need to know about the suffocating silence and fights between my mother and I. How those fights stem from me trying to bridge the gap between us. You don't need to know about how my first girlfriend treated me. You don't need to know about how an engagement I fought for was based on nothing but lies I believed. How I defended him, only for it to turn into a joke about my inability to make the right choices.

I don't think I know what it's like to be loved. Maybe I don't need to know.

I don't ask to be loved by you, and I hope you never ask that from me either, and therefore you don't need to know anything.

So yes, maybe I'm bitter, and maybe my friends think I'm in denial, and maybe, just maybe, my unwillingness to love another person stems from all the times it was met with nothing but being shut out or worse in one way or another. In all the times the people I cared for failed me first. The truth is that I'm a nightmare to the ones who failed me, I get even in some form eventually. I'm a nightmare to myself, too, because I make these choices over and over.

You're a person whose entire presence tells a story of someone who would understand. Perhaps that is why we're both here.

It doesn't matter.

It's all so transactional and simple I fear the people around me are silently judging me for indulging in your presence.

Is it wrong to admit that I find comfort in the idea of nobody getting to know me like that again? In the idea of closing that possibility in my life?

I don't find it sad, and I know that those around me will not believe me. They'll tell me I'll change my mind eventually, realize that it was all that hurt talking.

What if I find comfort in that?

In you? Your presence, that doesn't have to mean anything at all. That doesn't come with expectations or telling you anything meaningful?

Is that so wrong?

Am I leading myself down the wrong path? Or am I possibly making the right choice for myself for the very first time?

[csjwrites]

The Psychology of the White Shirt

I talked about what I do for living again today. I realized it's a conversation that tends to make me uncomfortable.

I'm wearing a white shirt. You know, a collared button up that hasn't been ironed because it's one of those things I always forget to mention. Collar peeking from underneath my coat and hopefully hidden by the fact that people rarely stand close enough to really notice.

I isolate myself just enough to be seen but not known.

So yes, I had to explain again what I do. I'm a small business owner, founder of my own, vastly insignificant company that employs under fifty people. I'm an employer and an ambitious idiot and I don't like this subject. I got frustrated during the conversation and complained about my shirt.

I want to be lazy for once. Not aim to look polished and constantly fail because I forgot to get my shirts ironed.

But I must try, because a person perceived as a woman that looks good is rarely taken seriously, but a person perceived as a woman who doesn't care, who doesn't play the part, doesn't play into expectations, is taken seriously even less. It's a game you cannot win, now or ever. Play into the idea of the unbeatable corporate queen or die. Fail, be undermined. Play into the idea of the unbeatable corporate queen and die anyway. It's a slower death. You won't fail, but you'll be constantly questioned.

I wear my shirts as a shield, even when they're unironed. I let them peek above the collar of my coat and be noticed in the window that separates me from the rest of the office.

I look back to the me three years ago that sat in their shoebox apartment, and wonder how that person ended up sitting long hours in this place. I don't even care about showing up to the damn office because what cannot be done remotely these days but if everyone else shows up at least three days a week, I will on all five.

I'm now a student again. I study because I know I will burn out eventually in this world, and I don't want to see that day, and because, quite frankly, I hate corporate. Leave the responsibility of paying your salary to others.

I wear to school what I wear to work.

I chose to study an industry that thrives on uniforms.

Go figure.

[csjwrites]

because this post has gained some notes in the past few days i just wanted to hop on here and say

every nordic nation needs to recognise their colonialist past and present. as far as i can tell, iceland is the only one out of the nordic countries who never colonised anyone in any sense of the word (correct me if i'm wrong).

colonisation isn't just taking an existing, formed and recognised country, and forcing it under your rule. it is taking land from a people, it's banning culture, religion and language, it's forced assimilation and it's racism towards a people. just because nordic history is muddy at times, and has its own peculiarities like unions here and deals there, doesn't mean none of it is colonialist.

so yeah, regarding the linked post and the tags and stuff that prompted this post: sweden's history with finland is colonialist and unfortunately that colonialist and racist history lives on in the attitudes of today. and sweden needs to own up to it because y'all continue to offend and seem to find it funny even. but with that being said: finland, sweden, norway and denmark, ALL of you need to look back, listen and reflect. ALL of these countries have some questionable history, and none of them are free of having inflicted suffering or oppression onto someone else. nordic countries are not perfect uwu unproblematic model nations.

and yes owning up to the inflicted suffering and oppression includes norway, sweden, finland (and russia) taking a long hard look at your continuing colonialist ways regarding sápmi.

oh and btw this isn't like, an invitation into a history class held by me, and i will not be giving one. if you don't know what i'm talking about, google is your friend. and make it a deep dive.

[csjwrites]

There's a crane by the pond

Pure of feather, bright as the water,

Tall as the towers

That call for prayer of another

There's a lily in the garden

Veiled in silks, pearls and gold

Proud and kind,

Born of lineages of old

She sits by the stream,

Smile as bright as it's free

Forgetting for a day

That's what she'll never be

She reaches for the sun

To reach over these walls

Delicate, unburdened

Beloved by all

Soon she shall realize

Wings won't carry far

As the crown that isn't hers

Becomes hers after all

So the lily amongst tigers

Grows out her claws

Only to realize

To be a lily is not a flaw

And so stands the crane

Proud and tall

Where no king stands

Beloved by all

ㅤㅤ-The Lily Amongst Tigers

[csjwrites]

We're always told to think about the future generations, our children and grandchildren and so on, but maybe, in addition to being mothers and grandmothers, we should also just focus on being older sisters sometimes.

[csjwrites]

To Die Young

I always imagined myself to die young.

I still do.

Not young in a sense that I would be gone in less than a decade, before I even reach my 30's. Young, as in my mid-50's, when my friends start lamenting about being old already but I still could have things like retirement and the health issues brought by age waiting for me. I would never experience them, I would simply be gone.

I would still have the energy to travel the world so I can close my eyes under the Japanese sun or the Egyptian heat. Young, as in being just young enough to witness a loved one's second marriage but not them grieving that partner that always understood them better than the one that simply left.

I always imagined myself to die young.

I wouldn't die tragically, no. I imagine the most tragic thing about my death would be the fact that I still could've had life left. I won't mind, of course, because to be stagnant is worse than ceasing to exist.

I always imagined I wouldn't believe in things like savings or having a plan or knowing what life will look like in a decade. I can plan five years ahead, sure, but no further than that. Someone told me once that some people have kids but no money, and others have money but no kids. I will probably have neither. I won't be rich, nor will I ever be a mother, and I desire neither.

I will escape my homeland for half-assed dreams with a vague idea of who I am and who I want to be. Evidence of my existence will be minimal, and every time I resurface with new stories from across the world, I'll leave again. I won't have to exaggerate my stories, either, because I will take every opportunity to an adventure I find. Safety and certainty are certainly for those who don't carry my name, and will never know me either.

I will have enough to feed myself and look nice, occasionally splurging on expensive wine when I forget I don't drink or on handmade fans that will create a collection in my suitcase. I will never be able to afford a house or retirement. I will work a thousand different jobs, sell my art and heart to strangers. I will walk cobblestone streets in heels and donate anything I no longer need to prettier, younger people I meet on my journey.

I will change my plan whenever I want, and worry only about myself, but stay I will not.

I will stay elegant and free until the day I breathe my last breath, and I won't leave anything for my siblings, except the memories I had time to share. Perhaps those memories will then outlive me.

I will be gone sooner than you realize, as slightly over three decades is not that long time.

But when I do, know that I lived, and there was nothing more I could've wanted.

[csjwrites]

The Perfect Woman #3

People Talk

My mother is a teacher.

I bet you didn't expect that.

My mother is a teacher, working with the dreams and desires of children who have seen the ways the world can fail them way too soon. She's a good person to those children, an adult who pieces those dreams back together, makes them trust themselves. I know this, because I know how people speak of her. I know this, because I've heard of how kind and considerate she is. I listen to those words carefully, and I keep them in my heart.

My mother is encouraging, sweet and kind.

I listen to those words carefully, because I don't know that woman. I've never met her.

My mother is encouraging, sweet and kind. My mother is selfish, distant and cruel.

The only reason I know my mother loves me, or is at least supposed to, is because I heard it from someone else. I see the sympathy in other people's eyes, when the silence falls or we have a yet another fallout, and in the end, that someone else will be the mediator, come to me, tell me I should try to understand. She's my mother, she loves me, she tries.

I'm trying, too. Somehow that's always forgotten. I'm doing my best as well. I keep peace between us as well as I can, I navigate the eggshells on the floor of my childhood home like it's a dance only I know. The greatest choreography, my magnum opus.

I don't know how to read other people, but reading my mother I know better than I know myself. I hoped distance would change things. Living my own life, building my own future. Turns out I was wrong.

I always seem to be wrong.

Perhaps I was born wrong, and that's why I find myself wondering if she even likes me at all.

But I keep being told lovely things about her,

And I wonder if there's a universe where I know that woman, too.

[csjwrites]

The Perfect Woman #2

If my dreams come true, will you be there to witness it?

I looked at you, with your coffee and your pastel pink physical planner that you got two of so we could match, sitting in the comfortable yet heavy silence in the bubble we shared. Nobody else present to witness my sad attempts at building bridges where there were none, and failing miserably because we don't know how to talk to each other. Because I don't know how to talk to you beyond the surface level. It's easier to just rely on the ease and familiarity of the silence.

The construction failed again when I mentioned the desire to move out of the country once I graduate. You scoffed, asked how I was planning on doing that, and when I mentioned my degree would grant me more than enough opportunities to work abroad, you said that it wasn't a good plan at all. That I should stay close to home, to family. That leaving would only bring instability, uncertainty and that I would regret it.

I had a plan. I was really making sure it was a good one, too. That you wouldn't have worry about it not working out. Now you've rejected it and I don't know what to say anymore. Do I defend myself so you gain the right to get defensive? Do I tell you you're right only to leave anyway? If my dreams come true, will you be there to witness it?

I want to argue, to say I'm not a child, and that I am capable of making my own decisions and deciding if it's really worth it. It's not the path that would've made you proud and want to brag about me to your friends, though, so it doesn't matter. "Look at her!" "I knew she could do it!"

"You'll fail."

Well, at least I tried. I resign to finding comfort in the lack of words. You're here, near, and you're my mother. I've been told you care, that you love me, and even if you can't say it, it's fine. I understand. Words aren't easy.

Loving someone you don't understand isn't easy.

When the foundations of my bridges crumble and I've got nothing but rubble and weak concrete in my hands, I get desperate, and you end up believing that it's alright, we've got time. I'm running out of vain pleasantries to utilize so I end up repeating myself over and over.

Over and over until I get tired, try to assemble my blocks again into something meaningful, and you're reminded of the fact that this is all falling apart and take offense for it.

"Do you think it's going to rain tomorrow?"

We're running out of time, you and I. This illusion permits only one form of distance, and if you won't speak to me and I won't speak to you, will it fall apart, and the only thing we'll have left is praying for my failures to bring back the proximity when nothing else will. I won't fail, of course, I'm too careful for it because you taught me to be.

So when the sun rises to shine into my tiny apartment in a city that is timezones away from you, I won't expect you to call, even if I wish you would. I'll think of you every time I remember the lack of stars above me in the city lights, and I wonder if paying for your ticket would be enough to get back the familiar yet suffocating bubble we shared.

I wonder briefly if things could've been different, if things could've been easier. I push that thought away immediately. We're not the mother daughter duos from American movies. We're people of unsaid words. People, who only understand each other in the quiet. In this bubble, in these moments, only to continue barely on the same planet as soon as the silence breaks.

Or, perhaps I'm only delaying the inevitable and lying to us both.

And maybe, if we get particularly unlucky, like we have been so far, you won't be there to see it when I finally become myself.

For now, though, the silence is enough.

[csjwrites]

The Perfect Woman #1

In another world my parents never meet.

My mother lives her life, focusing on her studies and then her job. She spends her holidays traveling, sharing a bottle of wine with a friend in France and exploring the streets of London, walking on the beach barefoot in Vietnam and falling asleep to the sounds of New York.

She might learn to love red on her without me telling her it fits her, instead of being convinced it doesn't suit her. She'll still wear blue as well, and her house will be filled with shades of the color, all decorated just the way she wants.

She'll meet my stepfather eventually, possibly have my siblings, but she will do it after experiencing so much more. He'll support her dreams and she'll support his, and eventually they'll move to Singapore for his work and because she craves new experiences.

In another world, I don't exist, but she'll be happier, and won't know a thing about hurting in the hands of my father.

[csjwrites]

On Fools & Men 2/2

The Queen

Foolish is he, who tries to tame a lion with well-tailored lies and insults thinking that words can declaw a creature born to kill, who raises his daughter into a fighter and then hides behind his own arrogance believing he's untouchable and invincible

Father, my claws are intact and as sharp as you made them

I have my rage and my hurt I have kept with me all these years and gods know I saved it all for you

Gods know I have devoted myself to chasing your approval before, uncaring what it means to me, ignorant to the fact that you do not care, willing to do anything for you to see me and approve my existence, when you continue to turn a blind eye to me being there

Father know that I am done, and I will never seek your approval again, because when you're gone and inevitably destroy yourself, I will still be there

You wanted a king, a son, but it is me who is your legacy and carries the crown

[csjwrites]

On Fools & Men 1/2

The King

Foolish is he who does not hear the whispers of the shallow stream, that so quietly dries out when the summers are dry and the wind forgets its voice

Where we once walked, naive and free, far into the fields and the sands adorning the shore, still a prison for many souls so shamelessly falling from grace

Deafened and drowned out by your laughter, locked inside the walls we once called a home

And loud was your laughter, loud and clear

So loud indeed that no other voice could stand a chance, calling your name, calling you the most precious thing in the universe, and so with those voices died my childhood, short and sweet, so unimportant

Because I was not precious and I was not special, I was a curse, all that I was, not fit for a heir or a leader

They needed a king, a son, and thus I was hidden away from the world

[csjwrites]

Happy mother's day to my mother, who I continue to have a complicated relationship with. I know she has tried her very best, and I know she loves me.

Happy mother's day to my grandmother, who once spoke those words I still carry in my heart. She's a brave woman, and I adore her strength.

Happy mother's day to my great-grandmother, who I looked up to as well. I wish I can make her proud with my own bravery someday.

Happy mother's day to her mother as well, despite me never knowing her. She was always spoken of fondly, and sometimes I wonder what experiencing the warmth and love of someone like her would've been like.

Happy mother's day to every Karelian mother, in the past and the present.