I am doing a try blog post. A difficult one. Found on another blog.
My life in years from now. If I imagine. And wish. And do not worry.
At least three things.
In 1 year (23).
~I have moved from my current student's flat, closer to the city.
~I have figured out where to do my MA.
~I might still be depressed. But I can talk about it.
In 3 years (25).
~I am doing, or have just finished, an MA in English literature. Preferably in the UK.
~I have made friends. And become close to them.
~I have been able to run 10 km quite easily.
~I know what is wrong with me and my head. And I know how to work with it.
In 5 years (27).
~I have had a relationship, at least once, with a man or a woman.
~I have a cat.
~I have written something I am proud of.
In 10 years (32).
~I have taken or am doing my PhD in English Literature, maybe on modernists, or how space/room is conceived.
~I have lived in Leeds again.
~I live in a flat or a house I like.
~I write. Or teach.
~There are some children in my life. Nieces and nephews hopefully.
~I am in a relationship? Or have had a serious one at least.
In 30 years (52)
~I teach at a university. Maybe in Sweden, but I have or will teach abroad as well.
~I have cats, still.
~I have nieces and nephews. And maybe, maybe, a child of my own.
~I have published something written. Apart from the thesis.
~I have run at least one marathon.
~I work not full-time. Maybe 75%.
Honestly. I was not that difficult. It seems just very unlikely.
It is exciting to think of myself in these ages. This is good for me to read when I fall into holes of meaninglessness.
Showing posts with label writing about myself. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing about myself. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Sunday, 8 February 2015
18 February
I am counting down the days. It's little over a week left--ten days. Then I will go to a neighbouring town and see a person with almost the exact same name as mine (it's ridiculous). That person will most likely ask me about how I feel. What I was like when I was a child. What I do during the days. What I find difficult in my life.
I will reply and struggle to reply and study what's behind the person talking and wonder if I can really say that out loud. I will look at them and say, I'm fine, and then avoid their eyes when they ask if I ever think of suicide.
I shouldn't want them to find something, something disabling about me. But I do. I want them to say to me, yes, you do show symptoms of this or that. Because it will be on paper. It's not supposed to be this difficult. It will be a relief, a promise.
But on that paper, it will also say: This is who you are now. This is part of your DNA. It won't help if the right person loves you or if you read the right book or if you move to the right city.
A promise.
It will be comforting, nevertheless. And they might be able to help me. This is how you love. This is how you feel less lonely. This is how you become loveable.
This is how you live.
So I am counting down the days until I get to go to a psychiatric surgery in a neighbouring town, to see a person with almost the exact same name as mine.
(Holding on to promises.)
I will reply and struggle to reply and study what's behind the person talking and wonder if I can really say that out loud. I will look at them and say, I'm fine, and then avoid their eyes when they ask if I ever think of suicide.
I shouldn't want them to find something, something disabling about me. But I do. I want them to say to me, yes, you do show symptoms of this or that. Because it will be on paper. It's not supposed to be this difficult. It will be a relief, a promise.
But on that paper, it will also say: This is who you are now. This is part of your DNA. It won't help if the right person loves you or if you read the right book or if you move to the right city.
A promise.
It will be comforting, nevertheless. And they might be able to help me. This is how you love. This is how you feel less lonely. This is how you become loveable.
This is how you live.
So I am counting down the days until I get to go to a psychiatric surgery in a neighbouring town, to see a person with almost the exact same name as mine.
(Holding on to promises.)
This Is a List
5 things I say a lot
- svin(mycket/jobbigt/gott)
- Jag vet inte
- Jag är så trött
- Jag vet inte hur jag ska förklara
- Kanske
- Jag är så trött
- Jag vet inte hur jag ska förklara
- Kanske
(I honestly don't know.)
5 things I think a lot
- I am so ungrateful/useless/worthless/a waste of space
- I love women so much
- I am depressed
- Don't think about that
- *What I would say at this moment to someone if I met them right now.*
5 things I dream about a lot at night
(I dream very little, but these are the few recurring ones)
- Being in love and being loved by someone I don't know.
- Having frustrating and stressful conversations
- Being trapped or stressed or in a hurry--often involving a murderer
- Getting stuck at something unable to finish it
- Being pregnant and about to give birth (this happens so often!!)
5 things very few people know about me
- I am depressed/have anxiety/social phobia
- I have seen therapists and am now doing cognitive behavioural therapy online
- I write on this blog!
- I am bisexual, undecided or very uninterested
- The very few people I have liked or had crushes on
5 things I love to do
- Read and find myself in other people's writing
- Walk in the forest
- Be completely alone in a foreign city
- Cook and do the dishes with an entertaining podcast
- Organise
5 things I want to happen before this year is over
- Visit Iceland
- Go back to Leeds
- Get to know someone I adore
- Finish something written
- Move
5 things I order abroad
- Veggie burrito or something at Chipotle
- Red velvet cake
- Anything vegan or vegetarian
- Eggs
- Breakfast!
5 things I miss in my wardrobe
- A perfect winter coat
- A silver grey chiffon midi skirt I saw on a girl in London
- A pashmina scarf
- Tops that look good with skirts
- A raincoat
5 things that smell wonderfully
- Ground coffee
- The forest
- Horses
- Bird cherry
- Summer mornings
5 things I want to get better at
- Writing
- Talking to friends
- Feeling things for people
- Making bread
- Languages
5 things I laugh at
- Podcasts
- Parks & Rec, Broad City, Friday Night Dinner, and so on
- Clever jokes
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Texts posts on tumblr
5 things that make me who I am
- My insane love for reading
- My somewhat insistent/annoying/clever joking
- My cleverness and good reading-head
- My independence and craving for solitude
- The space between everyone else and me
p.s. I adore the new design on the blog.
p.s. I adore the new design on the blog.
Sunday, 18 January 2015
Undecisions
I think at times of becoming a nun. The life style appeals to me, at leas the life I things they have. It consists mainly of silence, contemplation, reading, studying of texts, helping out in the community, taking in visitors and taking care of them, teaching and living with only women. (It is the last part that appeals to me the most.)
At a moment of more indecision than usual, in the middle of a spiritual period I had a while back, I even looked up what kind of orders I could join, and was disappointed and discouraged. It would take long time--to not speak of the fact that most orders are catholic... Which does not appeal to me. Where is the vaguely protestant order which you can join and participate in after a year? Or even better, the agnostic order? I do like the idea of serving some kind of higher purpose, even if I don't believe in that Abrahamic god.
This is ridiculous and unrealistic, naturally. But nevertheless, I want to be in place of quiet and solidarity and where I am less and just part of a whole. Oh the quiet, and the space, and the slow passing of time.
Saturday, 3 January 2015
2014 review
I wanted to write something about the year (I have writing itching in my fingers), so I have taken a list from a favourite blog of mine and edited/translated it.
Describe the year with three words.
Leeds, lit-studies and depression.
How did the studies (and job) go this year?
My studies were great. Both terms were fantastic, educating, uplifting, inspiring and absolutely wonderful. At the same time it has been incredibly difficult (at one point I even considered dropping out). The spring was mostly wonderful and my grades were fine--I got the UK grade 2:1, which is something like C/B I think. The autumn has been more anxiety-filled and exhausting, but I have gotten great grades, so far all A's on essays, and A in the only course I have finished so far.
The job has gone on. It has been both meditative and boring. Lately, mostly boring. I am in charge of social media which is at times fun but mostly anxiety-inducing and horrifying. I am thinking of quitting it.
The people in my life this year.
I have attempted to withdraw, which I have succeeded with I would say. I don't have to see people as much what with living alone. But friendships are more or less the same, although I am less close with one of my best friend. Gets along better with certain people at work. Met lovely people at Oxfam in Leeds. Did not really befriend anyone this year, except possibly someone at work.
Social life has, overall, been very difficult this year.
The best trip this year.
Naturally Leeds, but if I had to specify more (what with being there for six months...), it woul be the short trip to Haworth I did when I wandered on the moors, the longer trip to Cardiff, Bristol and Bath and maybe my first few days in London before I went to Leeds--with the flavour of freedom in my mouth.
Best memories or moments of the year.
The evening I went to the poetry reading at uni, in Leeds, where I had wine and fell in love with poetry and talked to and saw people I liked.
When I got use to being in Leeds and realised my freedom of being there. Those freeing walks and bus rides and coming home to my flat.
The Head and the Heart concert in Manchester.
Any one of the good seminars/meetings I have had with my two favourite teachers this year.
Travelling alone. Some of the other concerts. Coming home to my flat, even this one in Stockholm.
Worst memories or moments of the year.
I would rather not think of them, but some of them are: the first few days in Leeds, when I was leaving Leeds, the first week home in Sweden, this entire autumn. When I was too drunk at two points, but my mainly last New Year's Eve. Some of the concerts I went to this year, when the mass of people have me panic.
What was the best thing you bought?
Maybe my black skirt on sale in Leeds, or books such as Glass, Irony and God, The World's Wife, Division Street, and The Waves. Can't think of anything else in particular. I bought a lot of skirts and dressed in England that I love.
What was the best gift you received?
Virginia Woolf's and Sylvia Plath's diaries. An analogue camera I got from Lina. Gift certificate to get a tattoo (which I haven't used yet). *The gift of knowledge.*
What was the biggest musical discovery?
BY FAR Kent. They made my months in Leeds. God I adore them, especially the latter albums. They are my favourite Swedish musicians.
Here is a playlist with the music I listened to this year.
What was the biggest literary discovery?
TOO MANY. Whole genres! The English 18th century literature, Boswell, Maria Edgeworth, Ann Carson, Helen Mort, and the re-discovery of Virginiaa Woolf.
What did I watch?
Few movies--the only one I remember liking is The Hours. But on TV: Orange is the New Black, Downton Abbey, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & recreation, Broad City, Historieäterna, Hannibal, Buffy (still stuck on the sixth season), Friday Night Dinner, Girls, Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Pushing Daisies, and Veep.
This I should have done more of.
Always reading. Maybe talked to someone. Said yes. I did dare to do a lot, but I could have dared more. Believed in myself. Oh, and writing, definitely more writing. And more taking photos and blogging. Ugh. I will try to be better this year...
This I should have done less of.
Drinking wine... Doubted and hated and been ashamed of myself so much. I have been wrong to doubt myself so much this year. I should have done less of the things I did not want to do.
Biggest insight of 2014.
That I am unwell, maybe. That I realised I am actually depressed and anxious--that this is what depression and anxiety is.
And the insight, that Leeds is where I want to live, and English literature is what I want to work with, study and think about.
This I bring with me into 2015.
Very little. 2014 has not been good at all--and I don't believe 2015 will be any better. I will remember that I like running and that I can get good grades in literature courses. But a whole lot of memories from my home on this planet.
Describe the year with three words.
Leeds, lit-studies and depression.
How did the studies (and job) go this year?
My studies were great. Both terms were fantastic, educating, uplifting, inspiring and absolutely wonderful. At the same time it has been incredibly difficult (at one point I even considered dropping out). The spring was mostly wonderful and my grades were fine--I got the UK grade 2:1, which is something like C/B I think. The autumn has been more anxiety-filled and exhausting, but I have gotten great grades, so far all A's on essays, and A in the only course I have finished so far.
The job has gone on. It has been both meditative and boring. Lately, mostly boring. I am in charge of social media which is at times fun but mostly anxiety-inducing and horrifying. I am thinking of quitting it.
The people in my life this year.
I have attempted to withdraw, which I have succeeded with I would say. I don't have to see people as much what with living alone. But friendships are more or less the same, although I am less close with one of my best friend. Gets along better with certain people at work. Met lovely people at Oxfam in Leeds. Did not really befriend anyone this year, except possibly someone at work.
Social life has, overall, been very difficult this year.
The best trip this year.
Naturally Leeds, but if I had to specify more (what with being there for six months...), it woul be the short trip to Haworth I did when I wandered on the moors, the longer trip to Cardiff, Bristol and Bath and maybe my first few days in London before I went to Leeds--with the flavour of freedom in my mouth.
Best memories or moments of the year.
The evening I went to the poetry reading at uni, in Leeds, where I had wine and fell in love with poetry and talked to and saw people I liked.
When I got use to being in Leeds and realised my freedom of being there. Those freeing walks and bus rides and coming home to my flat.
The Head and the Heart concert in Manchester.
Any one of the good seminars/meetings I have had with my two favourite teachers this year.
Travelling alone. Some of the other concerts. Coming home to my flat, even this one in Stockholm.
Worst memories or moments of the year.
I would rather not think of them, but some of them are: the first few days in Leeds, when I was leaving Leeds, the first week home in Sweden, this entire autumn. When I was too drunk at two points, but my mainly last New Year's Eve. Some of the concerts I went to this year, when the mass of people have me panic.
What was the best thing you bought?
Maybe my black skirt on sale in Leeds, or books such as Glass, Irony and God, The World's Wife, Division Street, and The Waves. Can't think of anything else in particular. I bought a lot of skirts and dressed in England that I love.
What was the best gift you received?
Virginia Woolf's and Sylvia Plath's diaries. An analogue camera I got from Lina. Gift certificate to get a tattoo (which I haven't used yet). *The gift of knowledge.*
What was the biggest musical discovery?
BY FAR Kent. They made my months in Leeds. God I adore them, especially the latter albums. They are my favourite Swedish musicians.
Here is a playlist with the music I listened to this year.
What was the biggest literary discovery?
TOO MANY. Whole genres! The English 18th century literature, Boswell, Maria Edgeworth, Ann Carson, Helen Mort, and the re-discovery of Virginiaa Woolf.
What did I watch?
Few movies--the only one I remember liking is The Hours. But on TV: Orange is the New Black, Downton Abbey, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & recreation, Broad City, Historieäterna, Hannibal, Buffy (still stuck on the sixth season), Friday Night Dinner, Girls, Game of Thrones, Orphan Black, Pushing Daisies, and Veep.
This I should have done more of.
Always reading. Maybe talked to someone. Said yes. I did dare to do a lot, but I could have dared more. Believed in myself. Oh, and writing, definitely more writing. And more taking photos and blogging. Ugh. I will try to be better this year...
This I should have done less of.
Drinking wine... Doubted and hated and been ashamed of myself so much. I have been wrong to doubt myself so much this year. I should have done less of the things I did not want to do.
Biggest insight of 2014.
That I am unwell, maybe. That I realised I am actually depressed and anxious--that this is what depression and anxiety is.
And the insight, that Leeds is where I want to live, and English literature is what I want to work with, study and think about.
This I bring with me into 2015.
Very little. 2014 has not been good at all--and I don't believe 2015 will be any better. I will remember that I like running and that I can get good grades in literature courses. But a whole lot of memories from my home on this planet.
Sunday, 16 November 2014
November
I am having a bad time.
I try writing and I end up deleting it all.
I imagine myself saying it out loud and my skin crawls.
There is something with the dark that makes it impossible. I cannot get sunlight, not even moments of sunlight, not even moments of light.
I got home at four in the afternoon and made dinner. Got ready for the night. And there are hours left of the day.
I sleep too much.
I tried, sitting down at dinner, to follow along with my heart when it reached out and forward for something. When it searches for another time, to a future place, to something I will do or could do.
But my heart was flailing and I realised that it is not going to get better.
A doctor told me this week I was depressed, so I am looking for symptoms (is this depression?)
I suppose being unable to look forward to something is a sign of depression.
But it is also true. What could get better? What, in a single day, could be better than this? It is all up to my mood and my mood is such a slippery thing.
It does not matter if I change the house. If I live somewhere where I move differently. If I eat something else or see other people. It is still. Just. This.
Is this depression?
Or is it just facts? That, to an extent, it all comes down to my mood. (Is the world only my perception of it?)
There are hours left of the day, that I could use writing, but I just want to go to sleep. I imagine that I might need sleep. Sleep is always good, isn't it? I have to get up early tomorrow.
And tomorrow night will eat more of the day and then it won't be anything left and can't the night just eat me, too?
Is this depression? Being unable to organise the day to use the hours I am awake to write essays and not transform them into night hours (November helps me in this).
I am clearly doing something wrong. Something I ate made me this. Something I did not do. A book I read at the wrong time. A class missed, where everyone learned how to be human beings.
I don't believe I am depressed because that seems an awfully easy way to solve the meaninglessness of life.
Is that depression?
I don't have to tell anyone, honestly, and I can write it only to myself. And imagine that I tell you.
Nevertheless, it is not the easiest time. This November (and October and September and August). And I don't believe it can be any easier.
I try writing and I end up deleting it all.
I imagine myself saying it out loud and my skin crawls.
There is something with the dark that makes it impossible. I cannot get sunlight, not even moments of sunlight, not even moments of light.
I got home at four in the afternoon and made dinner. Got ready for the night. And there are hours left of the day.
I sleep too much.
I tried, sitting down at dinner, to follow along with my heart when it reached out and forward for something. When it searches for another time, to a future place, to something I will do or could do.
But my heart was flailing and I realised that it is not going to get better.
A doctor told me this week I was depressed, so I am looking for symptoms (is this depression?)
I suppose being unable to look forward to something is a sign of depression.
But it is also true. What could get better? What, in a single day, could be better than this? It is all up to my mood and my mood is such a slippery thing.
It does not matter if I change the house. If I live somewhere where I move differently. If I eat something else or see other people. It is still. Just. This.
Is this depression?
Or is it just facts? That, to an extent, it all comes down to my mood. (Is the world only my perception of it?)
There are hours left of the day, that I could use writing, but I just want to go to sleep. I imagine that I might need sleep. Sleep is always good, isn't it? I have to get up early tomorrow.
And tomorrow night will eat more of the day and then it won't be anything left and can't the night just eat me, too?
Is this depression? Being unable to organise the day to use the hours I am awake to write essays and not transform them into night hours (November helps me in this).
I am clearly doing something wrong. Something I ate made me this. Something I did not do. A book I read at the wrong time. A class missed, where everyone learned how to be human beings.
I don't believe I am depressed because that seems an awfully easy way to solve the meaninglessness of life.
Is that depression?
I don't have to tell anyone, honestly, and I can write it only to myself. And imagine that I tell you.
Nevertheless, it is not the easiest time. This November (and October and September and August). And I don't believe it can be any easier.
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