11/26/2015

Thanksgiving, motherfuckers. [EXPLICIT]

Welcome to the sweariest post I have ever written in my life, just in time for the holidays! Yay! 

I have never celebrated Thanksgiving, but to me it kind of feels like Christmas: too much food and too many hours sitting at the fucking table talking about bullshit you don't care about. 

However, during Thanksgiving you're supposed to give thanks for random shit (You're a fucking genius, Laura, you really are). And I guess people get very predictable and give thanks about every single good thing that happened in their life, because some people have the ingenuity of a brick. 

Anyway, because I'm very original, I'm going to give the sweariest thanks you've ever read. 

I'm thankful for fuckboys, assholes, bloody cowards, fucking liars, and rotten players. I want to thank them all because it's a learning process and you can't tell fucking idiots apart from decent people unless you stumble on said idiot. It's acquired immunity, I guess. 

I'm thankful for fucking heartbreak. Does it hurt? Like fucking hell. Is it worth it? Damn, yes! It prevents you from stumbling on the same bloody rock again (the rock is bloody because it's covered with all the blood your heart bleed after the fucking heartbreak). 

And I'm thankful for fucking anxiety. It fucking cripples my life and I become a shitty mess after panic attacks. But it has also allowed me to see the things I don't need in my fucking life. 

So happy fucking Thanksgiving, motherfuckers. 

11/18/2015

By the same waters, under the same moon

Dear William, 

You've been gone for two months already and to me it might have as well been two centuries. We agreed not to write, we agreed that you were becoming a hermit for your own good. We agreed that it was over and we agreed not to miss each other. I just couldn't make it.

I must have started writing this letter at least a dozen times. Putting one letter behind the other, chaining words together, the ink blurring with my tears, only to tear it in as many pieces as I could. Telling myself I was a fool. A dozen times I started it and yet it always said the same, I miss you. And, as much as I know I shouldn't, I can't help it. 

I know you're okay. I don't know how I do, but I do. Sometimes I look at the moon rising from the sea and I know you are by the same waters. I know that you are sitting at the edge of the cliff by the lighthouse. You're alone on the island, alone with that dog you adopted just before leaving. You took the dog but left anything that had any kind of connection with me. Yet, you couldn't leave the sea and the moon behind. 

I know you won't write back, but I hope that from now on when you stare at the moon you'll think of me. 

Yours, 

Karlie

11/09/2015

On the road to 28.

Once more, here we are; writing a post trying to evaluate how my life has been on my 27th year on earth. If you have been following this blog for some time, you'll remember how I did this exact same thing last year, and the year before (you can find the posts under the label "Birthday" (yes, I'm very imaginative)). This year wasn't going to be an exception, this year COULDN'T be an exception. What comes next is an exercise of self-therapy, so I guess I better start with something light and cheerful.

This year I continued living in Barcelona, but I changed flats and managed to spend more time at home than I had done before. I almost moved into the lab in summer, when I would spend long days in, but that's actually a different topic. 

This year I have also worked a lot, I got some stuff published (find it here), and have applied for a time extension for my PhD, meaning that I'll finish it a year later than I had expected. Work took me to the SfN conference in Washington DC days after my birthday and to Paris twice, once for only one day in the middle of February and the other for some more days in the heat of June for another congress (both of them only intensified my love for Paris, especially as I got to walk around Montmartre when there was no one around). I also spent one whole day explaining my research to visitors who came to the Open Day, it was exhausting, but completely worth it. 

My journey of introspection took me to the Baltic States, where I went looking for cold and deserted places, and they certainly didn't disappoint. I spent lots of time alone during the sixteen days I drove around, lots of time by the wild Baltic Sea in Lithuania, but especially in Latvia, lots of time by the tame Baltic Sea in Estonia. And I fell in love with Latvia, wild, raw Latvia (and also a bit with Selga cookies from Laima), and I fell in love with the Baltic Sea. I did meet lots of different people around there, people who had gone there only for the cities, people who had gone there seeking for something else, it was a good experience; and at the end of the day that's what you're left with (this and a ton of pictures, you can find everything about it under the label "roadtrip").

Other than that, I did more things. I finished the whole A Story A Day thing, but I didn't stop writing as I wrote some more stories this year (not as many as I did last year, but enough). I also co-wrote a story with Richard (@imasillypirate) that is probably the strangest thing I have ever written, but I also had lots of fun writing it. On more crazy things I did, there is that time when I ran a half-marathon (and didn't die) or starting to swim in the sea (I even bought a wetsuit that I'll put on and have to take off as soon as I'm in the water because you could cook pasta in that water (It's maybe at 18ÂșC and I still think you can cook pasta in that water)). I also attended three weddings, because, apparently, 27 is the age when people start getting married. Going to weddings meant I had to doll up and wear long dresses, which surprisingly I loved to. And I celebrated my birthday ahead of date with my friends twice, which is not the first time it happens, but it's the first time it happens because I simply don't feel like setting it up.

Not too bad for now, huh? Don't worry, things go downhill pretty fast.

Before going downhill, however, let's talk about funny things (a.k.a. my so called love-life). As of the last 27 years my love-life has been ranging from non-existent to "and you think that is love-life?", but at least I've learnt to stay away from fuck-boys (so there's that). I've also learnt that for something to work you need both the right person and the right moment. Usually, for me, it's the wrong person at the wrong moment and that hurts like hell, but sometimes it can be the right person at the wrong moment and this hurts even worse, because it hurts also the other person, and you're left feeling guilty over something you can do nothing about and with a pile of feelings that have nowhere to go. I've realized I'm not in the best moment to be in a relationship, or how I will maybe never be. The fear of never really knowing love is real, there's a part of me that simply wants to experience it for a moment, even if afterwards it is lost forever. And if that ever happens it must not necessarily be with a man. Sexuality is something I have been questioning a lot this year, and although I'm mainly attracted to men, I have also been attracted to women, and it's something that could happen. This is not a coming out post, but I do consider myself bisexual/pansexual. Anyway, I'm still too fucked up to date anyone.

This has been a hard year. I've had ups and downs, but mostly downs. I had a harsh moment around February when I could feel something dark growing inside me, and that made me really scared as it made me feel like I could never enjoy nice things ever again. The thing with inner darkness is that you can either let it consume you or embrace it, I decided to embrace it, in the end. Just because it's dark it doesn't mean it's not good. And then came the anxiety, the crippling anxiety that made me freeze in the middle of the supermarket because I couldn't choose what to buy for dinner, the anxiety that would throw panic attacks at me as if they were stones. The fear, the fear of everything and everybody, the fear of having a panic attack in the middle of the street, in the middle of a wedding, somewhere crowded where I am trapped and not in control. The feeling of helplessness, of thinking I was being a burden, the feeling that maybe I was pushing my friends away, but that maybe they didn't care about it. I felt alone, I felt like I couldn't cope, and I even considered self-harm (and still seems like an option sometimes). At some points, it was so bad that I feared I was actually drifting into depression. Going on vacations helped, in a way, but there were still moments when my anxiety levels were off the chart. Probably the hardest thing I had to do to cope with them was to identify my triggers, singling them out required lots of hours of looking into myself, of asking myself what did I really fear: failure, being out of control. It might seem easy to deal with, but not being in control also includes being in crowded places and feeling trapped, so there's that. And harder still was to admit that sometimes triggers are not things, but people, and sometimes people you really care for, and there's nothing you can do about it without hurting them, even if that will make you happier; and it just leaves with guilt, because you still care for them, but reaching out would probably be too much for your mental state. I'm better now, I have been better for some time after a final terrible episode that had me being afraid of everyone on the street. Recovery is not easy, and I don't expect it to be, but I want to think that I will make it through. 

11/08/2015

Package

-It has arrived!- the excited voice of Liz said from the other end of the line. -Come home, I'll be waiting for you!

Liz and I had met five years ago. She was new at high-school, a transplant, an outcast, shy as a mouse, standing on corners doing her best not to attract any attention. I was the popular guy at school, say a sport and I was probably good at it. We seemed to have nothing in common, and for a long time, I didn't even realize she existed. This is how cheesy love stories start, right? Except she never fell in love with me and I never realized that she was the love of my life, she fancies women better and I had been lucky enough to find the love of my life. No, we met through common interests, interests that didn't seem to suit neither her nor me. It was one Halloween night, there was a Lovecraft reading at the local library and I had to go. Needless to say, none of my friends understood why I'd want to go to the library on Halloween and they dragged me from party to party. It took me a while to find a way to sneak out unnoticed, and, therefore, the reading had already started. I slipped through the main door into the decorated library hallway, it was eerily creepy. A skinny girl, dressed up in a dark tunic, was reading a passage from "At the Mountains of Madness". I had never seen anyone read Lovecraft with such passion, and it took me a while to realize I knew her. When I approached her, during the library party, she looked nothing like the girl at school. She was sociable, chatty, and eager to interact with anyone. We bonded over our mutual love for terror stories, and now we had it, the book we had been tracking down for so long was finally in our hands.

-I'll be there in ten minutes!- I said as I grabbed the car keys.

I told Dana I was going to Liz's and drove as fast as I could. She was waiting for me on the porch and rushed inside as soon as I set foot on her front yard. On the coffee table of her living room lay an old large oak box. Its hinges were rusty and it had intricate carvings depicting sea gods and the underworld, a large iron lock stared at us, waiting. Without saying a word, Liz produced a key from one of the pockets of her long flowy skirts. Her cheeks were rosy and her dark eyes sparkled with excitement. Her hand trembled as she approached the key to the lock, and we both held breath as she introduced it. The lock opened easily. An even older book lay on top of a dark blue silk cushion. It smelled of old library, and we were too scared to touch it. Gold faded letters glimmered back to us, untouched by sunlight for centuries. "The Necronomicon" it read. We sat there, staring at it, for a long time, wanting to touch it, but too scared to do so. Liz gave me a glance and I nodded. Yes, she had to be the first one to touch it. She lifted it from the pillow, reverently, and opened it with care. She flicked through the pages until she found what we had been looking for. Her brow furrowed as she went through the words. We sat in silence for ten minutes, her perusing through the passage, me staring at her. She then put the book on the table, open at the page she had just been reading.

-Can it be done?- I asked as she leaned back on the couch.

-Yes.

-Yes, but?- there had to be a "but", I knew.

-It requires sacrifice.- she paused for a second.- Human sacrifice.

-We will find someone,...

-No.- she interrupted me.- It has to be me.

-No!

-Yes. It's my destiny, I need to die so Cthulhu can rise.