Au Revoir, Where it All Began

I’ve been getting used to living here, I’ve been getting used to not functioning properly, being lazy, asleep, far away, unreachable.

My cabin in the woods, my safe haven, my cute little city with its weird drunk and crazy people, cold atmosphere, may we meet again.

I have changed, which is exactly the opposite of what I said five months ago when I first came here, thank you for letting me change.

You know what? Life happened here, it happens everywhere, I just wasn’t ready to accept that. I thought life happens when you start living out your dreams, needless to say I was wrong. I feel a lot more than I used to, now I have actual, genuine hope.

This five months was all I needed; this was the adventure of my life, the very first of a life full of them. I got to be the mean girl with mean and smart comments -without actually being mean, I got drunk, found my way back to my room, I got to read a lot, I got to meet a wonderful friend, whom I’ll always be in debt to, for making me realize it’s not impossible to be alone in this world of immense greatness -without knowing, I got to feel infinite, I got to feel the days as they pass by…

I got to see tomorrow not just as a day but as the abundance of possibilities it holds.

It feels so bad to be actually leaving this place and to step on another journey but every ending is starting something new.

And I’m gonna make sure my new journey will count, cause this time we have, it matters.

This space we hold and the oxygen we inhale is not for nothing, we are not space-holders.

We are not meaningless.

Marissa D.

Potentially Nothing (?*)

*Potential, too much potential = zero outcome, if you are me or like me of course.

Maybe if I had a potential to become one specific thing, then sure it would matter a great deal, if I wasn’t raised too oblivious then yes again, it would have been important.

Don’t get me wrong, my parents did a great job with what they had; which was me, a lazy, stubborn princess, who thought she could take down the world because ‘she had potential’.

You remember the kid from school who could draw pretty pictures, who everyone adored? How about the one in dance class who could stretch really deep? The competitive horseback rider? The violinist? The singer? The one with the great hand writing? Who learned to read before anyone? Who wrote plays and organizes school activities? The ice skater, the ballerina, the artist, the gymnast…

That kid who you secretly hated…

That kid who didn’t care.

That kid who thought really high of herself, ended up continuing and actually doing nothing.

That was me from kindergarten ’till high school; then down the rabbit hole. I thought the world was my play ground and I could do everything. Back then when I was actually good; I wasn’t trying to be good, I was having fun. And I knew I had the unlimited supply to do what I wanted; as long as I was interested in something my parents would do anything in their power to support their kid’s dreams.

I was abusive towards that power and I got bored pretty quickly. Whenever I felt like I was not the best I quit, hence I was so used to being the admired one, I couldn’t have another kid steal the spotlight.

The Little Drama Queen; I would have hated me if I met me.

In high school, I became one of those wallflower kids;even my grades were mediocre. The gym teacher liked me, but I knew she was pitying me. I heard her once saying: ‘Too much potential, she just threw everything away, she could have been big’.

I remember after that day; I set a reminder for future me; ‘I have a lot of potential, so I will be nothing; too much confidence screws you.’ I just received it, thanks little bitch.

Potential only means something if the person is interested in investing in it; I believed talent was all I needed thats why I don’t have a title to put in front of my name today; not a dancer, not a painter, not a writer, not an actress, nothing.

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

‘Roaring Ages’ of Student Life

I’ve never felt this alive and meaningless at the same time.

My existence in this world, as an Erasmus student, means nothing, I worth nothing, I suck as a 20 year old student. Even in the basics.

This place is a student heaven; it is cheap, it’s safe, has ‘cheaper-than-water-alcohol’, a good night life, no one cares about anything, school is easy, life is affordable… Anything a 20 something would dream of…

I’ve never partied in the ‘American Movies Way’, as in ‘crazy’ getting drunk; caring about nothing drunk. I have never danced like nobody’s watching, I haven’t made out with a boy before.

And I haven’t experienced being hangover before this.

And never smoked. To my surprise, I turned out to be a drunk-smoker. Almost 12 in my first night -not proud.

I’m living alone for the first time, in the dorms but still away from home and on a budget.

I love the ‘Roaring 20s’ concept, but this life is not for me. After every party, I feel depressed, I feel bad for all of the lost souls who try to look like they’re enjoying the party. I see it in their eyes, they don’t.

Some do, them I resent. I am the biggest lost soul of all.

For the depressed artist types, it is hard, for me it’s really hard. In 1920s people were the depressed types, they escaped their problems by always being foggy or ‘tight’.

One of the worst things someone can have is self pity; can’t help it. Feeling meaningless is not a thing that can be cured, you have to trick the mind. The ‘over-thinking’ one I have is weird.

It has been two and a half months, and without the drunk people, I never had human contact, no hugging, nothing.

I’m not build for this, I partied, I drank, smoked, kissed, crushed on people, danced… I sometimes wish I was the fool who enjoys these stuff, than I hush myself, everything is better when you have enough.

I lived more in this 2 months then I’ve lived in my first 19 years in this world as Marissa. I’ve felt stuff, I threw up some liquids, I smoked and burned my fingers a little, I spent sleepless nights jumping, I slept in the stools, climbed my own mountain, stared into the nothingness, obsessed about someone, lost myself, learned that water is the best friend I have, travelled, emptied my wallet…

But I’ll never surrender who I’ve been, for who I’ve become.

(and vica versa)

Now, is it time to return? Or this is just the beginning of a new chapter?

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

 

Poisonous Blanket

 

If you have met people like me who like to live in the verge of being depressed, playing with life, pushing the edges to extend their world, and sometimes who push to much so that they fall back in the warm blanket, known as depression, you would know the allure of dark novels (and other dark stuff).

It’s just like you can feel the darkness wanting to suck you back in through out the pages, and yourself fighting back to it, you feel complete.

And sometimes you loose the battle. Afternoons turn to the night, nights are about expecting the morning, mornings feel like they’re rushing through life and the cycle is complete.

-I should state here that my depression is just as much as the next guy, not too depressed, not that perky either-

Suicide is my main topic for some time now; they say it is the most selfish act one can make and as the most selfish person I know I’m surprised that I’ve never ever thought about it.

When I think about it, I love life, even though I feel depressed a lot.
Does that mean I’m not actually depressed or being depressed doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t love life?

So many questions and I want the answers – I hate not knowing- that’s why I’m reading too many ill-fated books about ‘catching the bus’

Even ‘Into the Wild’, in my eyes is about suicide; its his goodbye letter to the world, his goodbye to all of the things he didn’t have the chance to do, to all of the people he couldn’t but could have become. In the end he wants to get back, though there was never a way back. The point of no return. His destiny was set before he was stuck there, the moment he left his life, he, in a way, killed himself. That’s what should become of us as humans who do not like what they were given?

It’s not right. But what is right anyway? Parents losing a child? People dying on accidents? People dying on purpose? Hungry kids, migrants, what?

After you set your mind; after you jump, after you swallowed the pills, after you take the poison, or even after you pull the trigger, will you regret it? Like you know nothing will change, now your are dying and what if you regret it? There is no going back, point of to return, you fired the gun. During those milliseconds what happens? Do you go in panic, instead of ‘in peace’…

Then are you really free?

I don’t think so; you leave a lot behind, how can you be in peace? But that is why it s called the most selfish act one can make.You only think about yourself, not about what others expect you to do. Rebelling to live, or to die.

Like everything in this world, does all of our act brings us closer to death? Time passes and every minutes counts to our death,we are our own clock; when the midnight strucks in our bodies, we won’t be only loosing our pretty dress, fancy car and buttler, we would be dying.
We would have died. After that does anything matter? Are you literally gone? Or keep going on to an afterlife?

Will you be sleeping at last?

The Blackhole Known As My Heart

Love; they say it’s in the air, they say it’s in the water. Which air, which water? Sexual attraction then, where is it, in the hormones? I’m 20 and I’m not sure, I’ve never had my heart broken. Let’s just say; no one ever loved me enough to eventually break my heart, or I’ve never loved anyone enough- at all.

I don’t know why! And that’s my least favourite phrase.

I’ m seeing almost everyone who were on the same boat with me moving on, getting ‘special someones’, falling in love, making mistakes, learning to change and evolve. And I sit at Starbucks alone, trying to find a reason for my lack of attendance into the land of the ‘vigorously beating hearts’.

I am a Love-Zombie. A really cheesy sounding one.

I mean you have to date people while growing up so that you would learn ‘how to date 101’ and use those skills later in life. I feel so left out and the worst part is I might have left myself out.

I was the ‘Weird Girl’ who had crazy ideas, who wore colourful things, hung out with the ‘Black Wearing Team’, who was a little loud when she wanted to talk and really quiet and edgy when she didn’t. A three-month it-girl, turned stuck-up ice princess.

Not a great recipe for a reputation right? And when you go to the same college as the others from your high school years it is harder to break out of the box.

Now, it is my Erasmus time and no one here knows me, but maybe I was a fool to think this would be different. Yesterday my friends were stopped by a dude and he didn’t even look at my face. Not even once!

There are a lot of potential reasons but just to further emphasize my point I looked cute and was properly dressed, I was put together and seemed friendly.

Anyways, the story I actually wanted to tell is about how much of an attention wh*re I’ve become. Just look, I’m already obsessing over that one guy who didn’t look at me.

The real concern I had here is that nobody ever loved me aside from the people who basically have to love me. So, for some time I thought I was gay, maybe that was the reason for my lack of partners. And I definitely believed that scenario, I imagined fake situations where I was coming out to my family and friends, marrying a women, starting a family… As long as I was loved -hypothetically-  that was fine.

The problem with me is that I was ready to accept love from whatever direction possible and now I see the problem within this. It is not fair to the other to expect love and not give that in return. I want to feel loved and wouldn’t he wait for the same? Shouldn’t he get it?

I want suck love like a vampire sucks on blood. That is not OK. That here, is a problem. I was so busy trying to be loved, I never tried to actually like and eventually love someone. I always waited for someone else to love me. And I don’t know how to do that?

The question is: ‘Do I even love myself?’

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

Way Down I Go…

So, yeah almost three weeks in my ‘Erasmus Journey’ and this is what I wrote crying in random pieces of paper;

On my way, Day 1

They say life begins at the end of your comfort zone, for a girl who lived in the same triangle for years that zone is pretty small.

I am one those people who can only be comfortable in their familiar surroundings; the pressure of feeling safe is overwhelming, so we try to avoid it, I try to avoid it.

Of course ‘the day’ comes for everyone, for most it is the time you leave your home and family and everything that made you who you are behind to go to college.

I delayed that for two years.

Now it is my time to ‘spread my wings’ and literally fly.

Later that day

A leap of faith… Yes I am finally on the Erasmus boat, sailing through the unknown, although is it really? (if you know eventually you are going to get back to your life)

Sailing to the known, not a great discovery journey, right? It makes all the effort and pain to get there unworthy, cause the ending is written already. Why would Columbus sail if he already knew what he was going to find there? Why would anyone search or work for anything if the result is known to be reachable?

I wanna go back. Period.

Day 5

Now that I flew, I feel further away from my dreams, cause I already know what I want from life. I can say it without feeling like a fool now; it is a cliché but I want to be an actress. So why am I here?

What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What?

I wake up to my brain screaming like this every morning.

Followed by emotional breakdowns.

Then more crying.

Hating myself for making the decision.

Despising myself for being weak.

Going out to distract myself.

Grocery shopping.

Meet with some people?! (I don’t know a lot)

Drink to forget (I can’t drink that much)

Sleep to escape.

P.S: At least now, I can cry on demand.

Week 1, Day 7

Not a great way to start my Erasmus journey, the problem is I’m really scared of being alone and more scared of not being able to be alone –if that makes any sense. I really like my own space, ‘perks’ of being an only child, but I like to share my life too.

I’ve been alone for too long that I forgot the basics of being friends with some one, all of the people I usually have around are either like me or used to me being weird.

My dad tells me to ‘Fake-it-till-you-make-it, just act like you are in a movie and play it good’. I like that phrase, but it’s hard to do it, my brain is sometimes too rational about some stuff.

Hello?! There are no cameras!

There are only a bunch of people, trying to act drunk.

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

 

Time and All My Enemies

WOW! Just wow!And a wow?! When did I start to sound like a gullible teen?

Reality check: I am one.

Minus all the drama, crying over exes, going rogue on my parents, losing all my sh*t, losing control, getting bad grades, be in bar fights… Nothing fun all in all.

The reason I’m so hung up on this, is that I’m seeing all my ‘friends’ again, seeing them getting better at those things, still immature but in a different level makes me feel strange. They somehow grew up- in a way. While I’m still the same; reading books, watching TV series, going to movies with my only friend left, who is like me in the outer level of her character, and still being depressingly in control.

Even my impressionable cousin moved on, from listening every word her parents say without question, to a rogue teen who will do just about anything to meet with her weird boyfriend. I sound jealous.

Maybe I am.

If someone- being me- starts to talk about how they don’t want something all the time, probably they do want it. The  question is: do I want a boyfriend?

Well no, not like him and not right now, I don’t know,maybe I do.

The problem in all those things about growing up is that, I don’t want things to change, I’m mature enough or I think I know enough to be mature and those people are absolutely not mature. If growing up means being immature stuck-ups for some time, I’m not that into it.

Evolution going backwards.

That sh*t is happening to me too probably, I judge them so bad, I judge everyone so hard and that isn’t maturity.Being mature is so overrated. I am so overrated in my mind, who am I to judge, they are living their lives while they can and I am only jealous because I can’t.

I’m afraid to change and go on my way, because I fear that everyone will move on without me while I’m away. Honestly, I want life to stop here, so when I get back I can find everything exactly the same. Never gonna happen, plus it’s not fair to them and to me, if I’m moving on they should too.

Just like in ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac, I’ve built my life around everyone I know, coming in and going out when I’m wanted or needed, without asking for more. I should have. But ‘should have’s and ‘would have’s are not real. You can’t change the past, although I’m sure as h*ll, will change my future.

It all starts in two days, with a leap of faith, into the plane going to Erasmus.

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

The Monster of Sociality 101

Time flies away too quickly sometimes, and sometimes it is just not enough. For me it is never quite enough,if I could I would stretch out the days until calling them ‘days’ would seem irrational.

Now, standing here, about to go to my once-in-a-life-time quest, which is called ‘Erasmus’, I’m terrified. an would to anything to squeeze out some more time. As an introvert, the little voice in my head is louder than ever, calling me out and blowing my ‘I’m calm’ cover. How can I ever do ‘Erasmus’? I don’t know how to party, smoke cigars, drink alcohol, or even how to dance…

All we ever did in high school was to ‘attend’ formal dances or just sit and drink, there were some parties, some seriously epic parties but they were for the in crowd only and I was not one of the cool kids. I was that strange, serious girl who only had few geek friends; a some-what pretty girl with a large stick up to her b*tt. So large you could have sensed it from a mile.

In college nothing changed, I was still the same girl with different but still uptight friends who were not allowed to go to the restroom without even informing someone. The one difference was the fact that I wanted to do all the things I couldn’t do the last semester as a high-school senior and I realized quickly that it was impossible, somethings are only meant to be performed during specific times; like walking (a baby can’t learn to walk after it is older than 4 or 5 years, because they learn about fear).

High-school was the 101 to social life and without that class you couldn’t just dive in to the ‘professional partiers’ club easily. It took a lot of effort but finally in my 2nd year I did went to a party and ended up falling in love with someone I just met and petting my not-s0-good friend’s arm in the food line. Perfect.

Believe me, I drank before and I don’t get drunk with just 3 drinks, although that night I kinda did. That night I really did let go and had fun, but now I am embarrassed. I do not like not being able to control my body and mind.

So ‘Erasmus’, I heard it is the best time of your life and you should celebrate it, but I don’t know, I’m just scared and I don’t want to be the girl who stands out there. Although I can’t help it, I can’t swing with the wind, I’ll break, I’m that hard as a tree.

Even if what happens there don’t break me, I will do that to my self pretty successfully. No matter what happens though I wanna be there for it good and the bad, nonetheless it it experience.

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

Hello, You’re Welcomed

I don’t think my mom ever thought of becoming a mom, it just happened to her, like most things in her life; unplanned, not unwanted, but welcomed.

She must have learned not to ask from life, because she wouldn’t have get them in the first place, or that was what she thought, she told me she learned it the hard way. Growing up, mom had a different life; ‘divorced’ parents, older and younger siblings from the other wife, again more so from the step-dad. Both man figures rich, still not capable of expressing love or simply loving.

What he lacked in love, he had it in his pocket, at least this is what I understood from what I heard. I’m judgmental about him, it isn’t right… My mom’s dad, I have no right to be, everything we have today is thanks to him,thus I am always grateful. I can’t call him ‘grandpa’ in my mind though, he passed away years ago, before I was born, and honestly I perceived him as distant.

Anyways what I am trying to come down to in all this word mess is that I am  different from my mom; she accepted what she got and she got good things in what really matters -like a decent husband, traveling the world, have a nice life right now- while I try to battle my way through things I already have.

I plan things, I try to control them like a good, but pathetic control freak would and I am a perfectionist. Mom, works through her problems with new age things, I sweep them under the rug, cause I love a good external perception.

I never accept anything, that is not something to be proud of, I can’t welcome what the wind brings.

Wanting more sometimes is getting less (than you wished). This is maybe why I act and feel like a brat, this is why I can’t let go,this is why a part of my personality is hidden in here.

Expecting more makes people unhappy, when actually we should seize every moment. Words are simple to put out though and I can’t listen to my own words, just like it is in any case.

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi

The Nebulous Times

Watching the sea, being with my mom and dad, feeding wild pigs in front of our house, taking walks in the sea side…

Looking at these, I feel at ease, like I’m no longer living a life, rather I’m dreaming, or in between. I no longer count the hours that led to the end of the day, the sun comes down too quickly anyways.

Depression, boredom? What are those things when you don’t have any time to worry about them?

This is my break from life and the city.

Until this year, maybe even until tonight, I didn’t understand why everyone (older people) loved the calm holiday spots. Now that it is slow around our spot, I finally do. This is the place where you come to take a break from all your worries and problems, this is where the time stops, unless you literally watch the clock.

Most importantly, this is the place where you forget about life for a while, not in a bar corner listening to the piano man sing about it (it will work too, just not in this way).

The bubble I’m in is no good for long though, there are still people out there, living the chaos; hungry in the cities, dying in the streets, crying in the sidewalk, shouting for help.

Do I hear them, do we hear them? Knowing does not mean hearing, caring does not help.

I do not help them, I see them, most of the time I don’t believe them. Honestly, sometimes I look away, then spend time thinking about why I didn’t help. This is how things are for many people, we are not bad, we are just ignorant.

When I do help, I help women with children who do not beg for help, we give them food, not money. Of course it makes a difference for them, but what about the others?

What about the migrants? What about everyone else who suffers in this world? What about the humanity, I know I lack compared to many nice people?

I live in my ‘nebulous of life’ this summer, then switch it to the winter version of it.

Again knowing my lacking parts is one thing, fixing them is another.

Marissa ‘Riss’ Demi