It’s weird not talking to you at this time of year. You’re always wondering what plans I have for New Year’s Eve. And I never quite know why. I rarely have anything big planned. Had a couple of years with some neat parties/gatherings of friends, but mostly I just stay at home with my family, eating a bunch of food, watching our usual New Year’s Eve programmes, and firing a bit of fireworks (less so in the past years – having a dog really makes you conscious of the terror those little creatures feel these days). This is the first time in eight years that I haven’t wished you a merry christmas. I do hope you had a good one, though. I can’t really imagine how you spend the night. With your family? With your boyfriend and his children? With everyone? I generally can’t seem to imagine you these days, not like I used to, when I rarely did anything else.
This blog has always been about you, and maybe that’s why posting has been so difficult for me over the last couple of months. I simply don’t know what to write if I’m not writing about you or to you. Ever since we first talked, my life pretty much centered around you. It seems almost kind of wrong to write about stuff that has nothing to do with you. But this is my place, and I need to reclaim it. I will no doubt write about you from time to time, but you’re slipping away. I can feel it. I’m letting you go.
I’m almost done moving into my new apartment. It’s just a matter of moving myself and a few items now, and then I will finally live by myself. I’ve been wanting this ever since I finished high school. That’s quite a while back. I’m looking forward to seeing what effect it will have on me. I hope it will bring some much-needed seriousness to my life. I’ve really been taking things for granted this past year. I’ve squandered opportunities. I’ve been less-than-active in my studies. I’ve written far less than I usually do. My own contribution to the newest edition of my online magazine was a collection of poems all written in Copenhagen, 9-15 months ago. It really hit me then how good my writing had been then, and how poor it is now. Honestly, I can’t form a sentence without it being over the top or not nearly grandiose enough. I need to find a new muse.
Solitude has always been the writer’s retreat when faced with lack of inspiration or style, and now it’s my turn. I don’t want to lock myself in, not seeing other people. But I do like to have the opportunity. I think I need a weekend or a week where I do nothing but focus and write. Get my head back into the things that matter to me. I also need to read a lot more than I do now. I can’t tell you how or why my focus has been lost. It just has. When I look around me I envy the people who strive for something, who can set their mind to a specific task and not stop until they have completed it. A great friend of mind recently told me he’s working on a book, and getting pretty close to having his first script ready (which he wants me to look through). I’m constantly impressed by him. It somehow seems like there are more hours in his days than in mine, but I know it’s just because he knows what he wants and he dedicates the time needed to make things happen. I need to learn how to do that.
I need to pick up my guitar again when I’ve finished moving. I don’t think I’ve played in a month now. It really has been an uncreative winter for me. My mood has arguably been better than most years – but I don’t really know which I prefer. Being happy is good in the moment, but looking back in a couple of months I’d probably wish I had been slightly miserable and writing my heart out. I remember last year. I had such a tremendous headache during christmas, I honestly prepared myself for dying. I was pretty confident that this was it – that I had been smitten with something terminal. Of course it wore off, but it gave me some great sensations while reading Prelude to Bruise, and I wrote some good things whilst on the medicine to get better, thinking there was no way out of it. I need to visit these kinds of extremities more often. I remember being very much into the idea of doing drugs two years back. I’m not as hot on the idea now as I was back then, but I guess I’d still like to explore it. I need a kick.
Life and responsibility for one’s own life is a strange thing. I don’t understand the outcry over suicides. To me that ought to be the ultimate right of a living being – to be able to end its own life. I’m glad it isn’t easy (well, at least not the psychological part), otherwise most people would probably end their own lives somewhere around the teenage-years, but I think society puts too much pressure on people to stay alive. Now, I try to hold all lives sacred, but in the big picture no life really matters in itself (it only becomes something that matters if we ascribe a historical quality to it). Don’t read this as a suicide note. It’s not, not at all. Just a thought that’s hit me whenever people talk about suicide. Yes, it’s an extreme move that will leave other people devastated, but that to me really shouldn’t be the determining factor. It should always be an autonomous decision by the individual, where there is enough to live for to keep on living, or whether it’s time to call it quits. We should stop treating life with this otherworldly divinity, and instead focus on treating it with respect.
I’m looking forward to writing my first post from my new apartment. I don’t know if it will be the next one, or if I will feel like getting something off my chest before then. My mind is unpredictable these days. And so are my words.
Bitzie's thoughts 