10/08/1996 (age: 13)
The academic year came to an end on 25 June. During the year I did my Profession of Faith; we went to another city with the class and I stayed in the same room as my best friend Lydia for the night. We stayed up late and with the other girls we made a lot of noise, running up and down the corridor at night like crazy! In the end most of the girls got caught by the teachers who gave them detention but Lydia and I escaped just in time. Luckily, we'd heard Mrs G's footsteps coming up in our direction and had time to run back to our room before she could catch us!
I wrote Lydia a long letter during the summer holidays but she still hasn't replied back. She called me earlier but only for 5 minutes because her mum was about to come home and she told me her parents didn't want her to contact me. I can''t believe it! She was my best friend last year but now I don't know.
10/08/1998 (Age: 15)
How can I express the way I feel? Ah, if I were a true poet I would know! I miss Annie dearly [ now that she's moved away]...
Slowly, I come to realise that I tend to dream my life instead of living it. I love passionately within the realm of my dreams and imagination but I feel nothing for the things of 'reality'.
I'd like to live more actively but all I do instead is sink deeper in reveries. Do I even want to escape them? I would like the best of both worlds, I guess.
I haven't received any letter from Annie for almost a month and I haven't heard from Alice either. This year school will impose choices on me that are certain to shape the direction of my life... I wish I could do and be everything! If only that was possible...
10/08/1999 (Age: 16)
It's 14:57 and I'm sitting at my desk. The cat is lying on the bed like a king, eyes wide open. He's so beautiful! They're playing "Jamais loin de toi" by Laam on the radio. That's all for now. See you later.
PS: it's 14:59.
[...]
10/08/2001 (Age: 18)
I could be good at painting, it might even be that I'm rather talented - if only I felt passionate enough, had the patience and strive to practice!
When people look at me they see a smiling girl who is somewhat playful and who travels a lot, and they come to the conclusion that I must be happy... and sometimes they even envy me! If they only knew what lies beneath the illusion of what they see...
Sometimes the pain I feel inside gets so strong that I feel like screaming in a vain attempt to expel all the anger, despair and fear that eat at me from within. I wish I could turn to someone and confide in them, tell them the truth of all that's been happening in my life, tell them how much it feels like a giant void now, but I can't. There is no one I can turn to.
I'm surrounded by people who have everything they need in their lives. My friend Annie (whom I met in high school back home and who is now away in a boarding school) has nothing to worry about except school and exams, then she'll just go straight to university. As for me, I haven't been able to go back to school since we moved away. I've been uprooted, torn away from everything and thrown in a thick fog with no compass to guide me. I live in a city I hate but I've been spending the summer at my aunt's in yet another country.
I don't know where I stand anymore... I feel so bad... so bad. So helpless... There's nothing I can do that could change anything and that hurts. Knowin that you're falling and being unable to prevent it as if your hands were tied behind your back...
Staying with my aunt has helped somewhat to feel again like a human being... they treat me like one over here, at least... they treat me like a young person. But at night I'm haunted by the reminder that it can't last, that this is only a brief respite before the storm hits again. I feel like something inside me has died.
10/08/2005 (Age: 22)
If all goes well I'll be going back to university to study literature... I also got my degree in law.
I saw Annie last Sunday; we went to the pub and got a bit drunk before going to one of her friends' place where they were throwing a party but since it was almost midnight by the time we got there there wasn't a lot of people left. We ended up sitting on a sofa, watching The Simpsons on a giant screen (the guy was rich and his place looked the part) while eating pretzels and drinking beer.
Zara's left London to stay with her parents up north. I might visit her next week. I met up with Annie again on Tuesday night and we went to watch "The wedding crashers" at the cinema, which was fun. We then went to her place and we watched movies until 3am. She mentioned that I looked thin, which only means one thing: I was quite big before and now the difference is obvious!
Ah, the therapist at the hospital prescribed me stronger medication.
10/08/2007
The academic year came to an end on 25 June. During the year I did my Profession of Faith; we went to another city with the class and I stayed in the same room as my best friend Lydia for the night. We stayed up late and with the other girls we made a lot of noise, running up and down the corridor at night like crazy! In the end most of the girls got caught by the teachers who gave them detention but Lydia and I escaped just in time. Luckily, we'd heard Mrs G's footsteps coming up in our direction and had time to run back to our room before she could catch us!
I wrote Lydia a long letter during the summer holidays but she still hasn't replied back. She called me earlier but only for 5 minutes because her mum was about to come home and she told me her parents didn't want her to contact me. I can''t believe it! She was my best friend last year but now I don't know.
_________________________________________
10/08/1998 (Age: 15)
How can I express the way I feel? Ah, if I were a true poet I would know! I miss Annie dearly [ now that she's moved away]...
Slowly, I come to realise that I tend to dream my life instead of living it. I love passionately within the realm of my dreams and imagination but I feel nothing for the things of 'reality'.
I'd like to live more actively but all I do instead is sink deeper in reveries. Do I even want to escape them? I would like the best of both worlds, I guess.
I haven't received any letter from Annie for almost a month and I haven't heard from Alice either. This year school will impose choices on me that are certain to shape the direction of my life... I wish I could do and be everything! If only that was possible...
_________________________________________
10/08/1999 (Age: 16)
It's 14:57 and I'm sitting at my desk. The cat is lying on the bed like a king, eyes wide open. He's so beautiful! They're playing "Jamais loin de toi" by Laam on the radio. That's all for now. See you later.
PS: it's 14:59.
[...]
Annie's mother finally called... one month late. Mum unplugged the phone so we wouldn't have to listen to her lies. I feel like crying. I won't be going to visit my friend in Boston after all. Alice and Annie are probably there together by now...
[...]
It's not working at all. I can't do anything under such conditions; the intensity of my boredom oppresses me, destroys any willpower I have left and I feel like drowning in inertia despite my best intentions. This boredom is poison to my creativity, it stunts me, angers me, exasperates me. I'm just wasting my time. I need activities, I can't just focus on one thing all the time, it drives me nuts! I need to be kept busy constantly, I need hyperactivity to motivate me... Boredom eats at me from within, suffocating me slowly, turning me into a useless vegetable. Having too much time on my hands only serves one purpose: to drive me to ask myself what all that time is for.
I'M SO BORED!
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10/08/2001 (Age: 18)
I could be good at painting, it might even be that I'm rather talented - if only I felt passionate enough, had the patience and strive to practice!
When people look at me they see a smiling girl who is somewhat playful and who travels a lot, and they come to the conclusion that I must be happy... and sometimes they even envy me! If they only knew what lies beneath the illusion of what they see...
Sometimes the pain I feel inside gets so strong that I feel like screaming in a vain attempt to expel all the anger, despair and fear that eat at me from within. I wish I could turn to someone and confide in them, tell them the truth of all that's been happening in my life, tell them how much it feels like a giant void now, but I can't. There is no one I can turn to.
I'm surrounded by people who have everything they need in their lives. My friend Annie (whom I met in high school back home and who is now away in a boarding school) has nothing to worry about except school and exams, then she'll just go straight to university. As for me, I haven't been able to go back to school since we moved away. I've been uprooted, torn away from everything and thrown in a thick fog with no compass to guide me. I live in a city I hate but I've been spending the summer at my aunt's in yet another country.
I don't know where I stand anymore... I feel so bad... so bad. So helpless... There's nothing I can do that could change anything and that hurts. Knowin that you're falling and being unable to prevent it as if your hands were tied behind your back...
Staying with my aunt has helped somewhat to feel again like a human being... they treat me like one over here, at least... they treat me like a young person. But at night I'm haunted by the reminder that it can't last, that this is only a brief respite before the storm hits again. I feel like something inside me has died.
_________________________________________
10/08/2005 (Age: 22)
If all goes well I'll be going back to university to study literature... I also got my degree in law.
I saw Annie last Sunday; we went to the pub and got a bit drunk before going to one of her friends' place where they were throwing a party but since it was almost midnight by the time we got there there wasn't a lot of people left. We ended up sitting on a sofa, watching The Simpsons on a giant screen (the guy was rich and his place looked the part) while eating pretzels and drinking beer.
Zara's left London to stay with her parents up north. I might visit her next week. I met up with Annie again on Tuesday night and we went to watch "The wedding crashers" at the cinema, which was fun. We then went to her place and we watched movies until 3am. She mentioned that I looked thin, which only means one thing: I was quite big before and now the difference is obvious!
Ah, the therapist at the hospital prescribed me stronger medication.
_________________________________________
10/08/2007
Today I have to go to the dentist...It’s needle day... believe me, I’m absolutely shitting myself!
It’s at 2.30pm and I’m dreading it SO much, the injections and all... Has to be done, though... no more running away from it this time and it will cost a massive 300 quid just to sort ONE tooth out... So yeah, it might be sunny outside but I’m not enjoying it. I feel so anxious I had a lot of cereals this morning, munching away my stress...Then I went for a little run, it lasted maybe 5 minutes but it did make me feel slightly better.
I smoke FAR too much and it’s starting to have an effect on my lungs and throat. Baaad.
I’ve been off work since tuesday night and haven’t heard anything from any of my “friends” from work. Nice, isn’t it? I guess it can only make it easier for me to leave incognito, which is what I plan to do. I’m not going into work tomorrow but will go to my sunday, tuesday and wednesday shifts and on Wednesday at 10pm exactly it will be OVER for good with this job. Of course, I’m not being naive in the least, a lot of things can happen in the meantime, especially when sleezball Sam comes back on Tuesday....
Oh well, we’ll have to wait and see, I just don’t want any more nasty surprises...
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10/08/2008
The trouble with too much imagination is that it is bound to take you further than reality and therefore there is always a painful crashing down period.
There is something about feeling too much or being so sensitive that every simple beauty or glimpse of what is hardly ever noticed becomes an epiphany of some sort, yet pain is as much emplified for no logical reason. As feelings keep burning lungs and spirit the mind grows weary and a mental torpor slowly eases its way through the body itself until the light is so faint that you stagger down the deep well you knew was there all along, but you can no longer avoid it.
There is so much beauty through the pain of living that it is bound to kill a spirit in its bud if one dares to gaze at such spendor for too long. Written words are a painter’s brush forming infinite combinations of colors to mirror hues of rain and sunlight. Alone they are little more than shadows of what they ought to become. Together suddenly the world is set alight and there are no limits.
These days words seem to flow out of my hands and I watch the threads of thought slide along those lines without even knowing whether it is really me who is writing or something beyond my own self already. When one achieves greatness of any kind, does it mean the soul must have gone to other shores where only splendor and perfection prevail? Like a vessel the body translates or conveys what little can be from those unfathomable shores and withers slowly under the strain, much like the one who one day built wings so he could reach the sun.
But what do I know? What am I? If there is but one thing I am aware of it is how tiny my body is amidst the ocean of life. But my mind? How far does it stretch? How far can one venture and be certain that it is not in fact an illusion of infinity? What if what I took for infinity was only a trick of the light too bright and I kept flying in circles? Who would warn me? Who would even notice?
Sorrow tires me yet my mind feeds off it. The contradiction is again sublime.
If I were made of words I would want to be a poem.
10/08/2009
My computer is finally back home where it belongs. My one possession. A week ago, it had to go, and I wondered why - I still wonder why. Things happen, things break.
I had much time on my hands. I looked at the pile of books waiting to be read in a corner, collecting dust on their clean covers. I picked one up and I've almost finished reading it. As always, I’m left with the feeling that I haven’t had enough time yet to digest what I think I may have understood for myself.
Am I here to make friends? Am I here to matter in reality? I think not. Am I here to make an impact? Maybe. What would frighten me most would be to have an impact that was more negative than anything else... because I know now that I have a conscience, and that unfathomable notion is crutial, or so I feel. I never want for one split second to forget humanity, and the intricate meaning that it holds. Perspective is perhaps another crutial element needed when one attempts to make sense of the world. Without it, it isn’t long before one is caught putting that world into boxes that are flawed in some ways. Without it, we might as well be blind, or become so in the long run.
Perspective, patience and... Something else... These two are part of the key to true understanding, and they complete each other.
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10/08/2009
My computer is finally back home where it belongs. My one possession. A week ago, it had to go, and I wondered why - I still wonder why. Things happen, things break.
I had much time on my hands. I looked at the pile of books waiting to be read in a corner, collecting dust on their clean covers. I picked one up and I've almost finished reading it. As always, I’m left with the feeling that I haven’t had enough time yet to digest what I think I may have understood for myself.
Am I here to make friends? Am I here to matter in reality? I think not. Am I here to make an impact? Maybe. What would frighten me most would be to have an impact that was more negative than anything else... because I know now that I have a conscience, and that unfathomable notion is crutial, or so I feel. I never want for one split second to forget humanity, and the intricate meaning that it holds. Perspective is perhaps another crutial element needed when one attempts to make sense of the world. Without it, it isn’t long before one is caught putting that world into boxes that are flawed in some ways. Without it, we might as well be blind, or become so in the long run.
Perspective, patience and... Something else... These two are part of the key to true understanding, and they complete each other.
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10/08/2010
… Still feeling very empty… drained?
Shattered.
These last few weeks, these past two months… they were all pointless, all just another illusion. Wow. That really, really hurts. Nobody has any idea how much I’ve been hurt and tortured from within in the space of a few weeks. Nobody cares, of course. Words, as always, are worse than the wind. I’ll always feel and think too much for my own good, it seems. And still I need to move on, taking it one day at a time until I can finally wake up one morning without feeling that heavy weight on my chest.
How long is it going to take before I stop pointlessly checking my mail, eh? I made some tiny progress, mind you: I haven’t messaged or emailed him over one full day… Go me. I feel so wounded, it’s unbelievable. I don’t think I’ll ever come close to understanding what was actually going on. I’ll never understand this one glitch in my otherwise very empty life. It was just another sick joke from Life, wasn’t it? It knows too well how to get me by now. It can play with my imagination, and from there everything goes literally to hell.
I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t think I ever knew a damn thing in the end.
Everything has again taken the colour of stupid these days. In my reality, I still need to carry on ‘as normal’… People smile at me and I smile back at them. Inside I’m bleeding, but I know they can never see it.
Everything has again taken the colour of stupid these days. In my reality, I still need to carry on ‘as normal’… People smile at me and I smile back at them. Inside I’m bleeding, but I know they can never see it.
I tell myself "it will pass. Yes, it has to. This emptiness eating at me, it will pass at some point. When, I do not know. But eventually…”
Like a ghost, I carry on, smiling and nodding, perfecting my social mask so no one can see in how much inner pain I am. So no one can see how much I hate everything right now. How much I want to climb atop the highest mountain in the world and scream till I lose my voice.
Isn’t that what we all do? Isn’t that what we all have to do?…
One thing is for sure: identity is an illusion. There is no ‘I’ within, only a constellation of masks we create throughout existence, which are then worn according to a situation or the people we need to adapt to. That’s why trying to figure out the true self is a waste of time. If I stayed completely isolated for a long enough period of time, maybe I would only get to wear one mask, but still, it would only be one version of my self.
There is… no self. Only selves. The key, I suppose, is really to take control over what selves one wants to keep, and what selves one wants to bin. If I keep only those that make absolute sense and the ones that help me get to a perfected reasoning, then maybe there is hope that my person as a whole will begin to make sense in reality as well.
[The nickname] Aliska is just another role I play. The role of the deep, wounded thinker in a world that will never listen to reason.
I have played so many roles in my life. One once told me that humans were really role-playing animals, and I can’t agree more with that point in the end. This whole world is like an ancient Venitian ball where people used to dress up and wear those colourful feathered-covered masks.
Wearing those many feathered-covered masks, people keep dancing at random with one another, and it doesn’t matter where the steps lead them, because they can never see beyond each step. Above them stands the ‘authority’ that pretends it knows better, but everything in reality is based on illusions and flawed perceptions.
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10/08/2011
I’m in deep shit… I haven’t started yet on the feature, and my deadline was supposed to be today… yeah. I don’t even know where to start. It’s going to be a big MESS. Shit.
Beside that I have so much work I could cry…
To make things worse, I did no extra work over the weekend, just couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Then there were those riots erupting in London and it made for compelling viewing, I guess. It’s hard to believe your eyes when you see hordes of teenagers and young adults running down the street setting buildings on fire to break into stores and steal trolleys full of goods. The police did nothing to stop it except trying to contain the situation and deal with the fires. Even in the early hours of morning thugs remained free to carry on looting the stores they’d broken into during the night.
Beside that I have so much work I could cry…
To make things worse, I did no extra work over the weekend, just couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Then there were those riots erupting in London and it made for compelling viewing, I guess. It’s hard to believe your eyes when you see hordes of teenagers and young adults running down the street setting buildings on fire to break into stores and steal trolleys full of goods. The police did nothing to stop it except trying to contain the situation and deal with the fires. Even in the early hours of morning thugs remained free to carry on looting the stores they’d broken into during the night.
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10/08/2012
I only have a few minutes to spare before I need to get dressed… I woke up late. Well, I want to go to work early so I can finish early. I don’t know what they’re playing at in that office, but it’s starting to piss me off. I gave my notice last week and I’m still waiting to hear back from HR about it. The guy keeps saying he’ll get back to me. Either he’s the most incompetent HR person I’ve ever met, or he’s up to something. I just want TO GO. I’m tired, fed up, you name it… I just want to get away from the place. I’m stuck with a feature I’m not sure I can actually write, and I can no longer stand the stress levels I'm put under.
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10/08/2013
I’m failing again, but this time I have to face my failings full on. I’m SO tired of fucking up with people, especially in work situations… I’ve again managed to stir up some drama… it must really be that I’m not suited for office life. It drives me nuts, having to sense and endure all the conflicting energies around me, day in, day out… Going to work yesterday was horrendously difficult, but it’s only going to get harder.
I’ve single-handedly managed to alienate myself by sending a complaint by email to the main manager, and the woman then happily proceeded to blow it out of proportion… I shouldn’t have sent this… but then now at least it’s showing people’s true colours in full daylight… and it’s like watching nice little dolls turn into monsters, or little squirrels turn into snakes in front of your very eyes… it’s incredible… and frightening.
Having said that, I’m taking it all WAY too personally – and that’s why it’s driving me insane. It’s made me crack up like an egg for all to see, but the worst part of all is that it’s making me make mistakes at work… There seemed to be no issue in the end yesterday, but I fear I really fucked up on my calculations last night… and this time it shows because the percentage differential day on day is HUGE on a set of quarters… I have to face the consequences of my errors… and I must face my failures. Even if it means having a correction – I have to face it, and face them.
I need to stop taking it personally and focus on doing my job. That’s all that matters now… I don’t know what happened this week… it all feels more like an unfolding nightmare and the stress and lack of proper rest make it impossible for me to look back on the last few days and make any sense of what happened… it’s like a big bad blur… It’s scary how exhaustion can affect you, and when you become an emotional wreck, well, all hell breaks loose… I am at my worst and at my weakest when my emotions get out of control… which is exactly what happened. I become this paranoid, self-pity party that acts like wild fire burning everything around her.
It's all taken such a horrendous turn for the worst that I still can’t believe this past week even happened. I just can’t wrap my head around the chain of events that unfolded… what’s certain is that it has left me with a strong, unshakable sense of finality when it comes to where I now stand at work. The only sense I get now is that it’s all over - whatever that means. Any thought or hope of ever fitting in has been dashed, and there is a deep sense of certainty about it that I can feel inside that also adds to a strange hint of sadness weighing on my chest…
After all, I did really want to be part of a team there… I liked most of the people there and tried my best… but everything is shattered now. Everything lies before me in tatters and there is no going back from here. That’s the finality I sense so strongly. It’s really over.
Remember how I wished for a sense of closure in the aftermath of the whole Jamesgate affair?... well, I never thought the one I would get would involve the workplace itself.
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10/08/2014
I’ve been meeting up with an Italian woman I met on a hike at the start of the month and we go out for walks around London together. Last night I took her to see Wicked, which I hadn’t seen either. It was pretty good… but the whole theme of looking at evil and twisting events to make it look like evil was in fact good disturbs me… It’s certainly interesting to look into what makes people do evil things, trying to figure out what makes them turn into monsters at times, but it’s something else to write it all over again to say that what we thought was evil was in fact good. That’s what they did with this musical, making it look like the wicked witch was in fact good and it was the way the story had been reported by the wizard that made it look as if she was bad… Hmmm.
I also went to hairdresser – finally… I hadn’t been in more than a year, I think! Nothing much is changed, though. It was more of a trim than anything.
Oh, what am I supposed to do?! It's already August and my life is like a giant void at the moment. There is no direction… Sure, I’m writing but it’s a slow process and at this point I don’t expect at all that I will ever make it in anyway in this world.
I like being alive, I like being human and experiencing Life in general, growing and learning, appreciating moments and laughter but other people – society – make me feel as if I don’t deserve to exist. Ah, but when people want to take from me then there’s no issue at all.
I guess there is no point in anything except God.
I’m reminded that these days I’m caught in some kind of ‘temps mort’ that can’t last… It would be terrible to reach September and having nothing lined up… I’ve been working on this stupid e-commerce website but I honestly can’t see how it could work. It’s a mess. It kills me to have to see that I’m a loser, and that I come from a family of losers. Nothing we do ever works. We’re like social retards.
I’ve been enjoying spending time with Mara the Italian tourist but she’s leaving at the end of the week… and then I will be left alone to face my fucked up life. Everyone else around me seems to be getting on in some direction while I remain stuck in limbo.
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10/08/2015
Nothing can stay great forever.
Empires are raised high and then they collapse. On the individual level, it's easier to recognise the same pattern in the way beauty, or at the very least youth, is invariably lost at some point. Nothing was meant to last forever in this plane of existence.
I feel the restlessness of unsettled youth, having recently entered its twilight. I'm on the verge of reaching the equinox of life when youth and old age are almost exactly of the same (average) length whether I look back in time or ahead of me. What I feel mostly is a growing desire to be fruitful in some way. To some this desire doesn't manifest itself in quite the same intellectual way but it is there, manifesting itself instead in more concrete terms through the longing of getting married and having children. These children are the fruit and respond directly to that desire to be fruitful. To others, the fruitfulness might find better completion in the work they accomplish, or the art they create.
Whatever form it takes, the desire needs to find a way to be fulfilled... and so I find myself getting increasingly restless as time continues to eat away at my youth. I realise that one way or another I will need to make a drastic choice, a drastic commitment in order to bear fruit in my life.
Apart from that, I went to the dentist this morning and for the first time in my life I didn't mind... The thing is that now that I understand in depth that everything about this life is transitory in essence - good or bad - it seems to make it easier to brave whatever comes (because all things come to pass).
I seem intent on chasing the most constant. The eternal. The most perfect.
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