Do You Really Want to Know How Insane I am?

Some days one wakes up feeling like shit or rather that the world is shit and since you are a part of it, you yourself is entirely made of shit too.

Today was one of those days.
I do not know if it had to do with falling asleep with a splitting head ache or if it had to do with the fact that the sun forgot to rise today.

But I woke up and the first thought in my head was “I am not good enough for him!”

Why this should be true I do not know. Since I am better looking than him, much smarter and overall nicer than the loved one. But even so, I woke up thinking “Nah, there must be someone better for him!”.

And from there on it starts, the stories I build up in my head.
I mean all of my free time and some of my un-free time goes to making stories or movies in my head. Many times I am actually "writing" in my head as the story progresses. I will go back and erase words or changes phrases. (Nuts!)

Every since I was a kid I would play the “worst case scenario” scenes over and over again like a mantra in my head. If we were in a car I would make movies about for instance the breaks failing on a downward hill and what would happen in the short span of time before impact into the deep ravine.
Every movie is different. Sometimes we would survive and other times we wouldn’t.
I would try to figure out in what way could we survive. Pulling the hand break? Swerving in a zig zag way till the car slowed down and came to a stop? What if there was a lot of meeting traffic? Maybe doing a sharp turn so that the car would point up wards or sideways over the road?

And then if this didn’t work, what happens after impact? Do I survive and nobody else? And in what way would I be hurt? What would the pain be like? When and how would I be rescued? How would it feel to lose the person sitting next to me?

But maybe I die and the others in the car would survive? Hmm? In this case I would probably find bliss in my heart, cause after death there is serenity. No more worries. Nothing to wonder or make movies about. If my movie ended with death for myself it would be good.

But the main movie of today was “He Met Someone Better!”. It was quite a good film.

First scene: How do I find out.

Do I catch them in the act? Maybe he tells me or maybe worse, a friend of his tells me?
And then what, what do I feel?
What is my first reaction, throw up? Getting that “ice cold pail of water falling on top of you”-feeling?

Second scene: What so I do next.

Do I coolly pack my stuff and leave?
Throw a tantrum and break a few glasses and plates over his head?

Third scene: Does he regret

Does he come begging for my return? And how do I react to that?

Usually I watch the movie over and over again, each time changing a setting or a phrase or an action and trying the different emotions out.

Its like testing to see how I feel about something that might happen but hasn’t yet. Like an emergency plan made up beforehand so that when the thing actually does happen I will know how to deal with it because I’ve done it or a version of it a hundred times before.

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about my love or any love for that matter. This is what I do with every single event in my life. If I am to have dinner with a friend, I will beforehand make a movie about how the dinner will be. Tasty, disgusting, friendly, argumentative…

Every day will have at least ten different movies in various genres, today was a day full of negative energies so it is not a good day to give as an example, but here is todays repetoire:

Matinees:
“He Has Met Someone Better”
“My Friend will Overdose and Die”
“The Gas Station is Leaking and all the Neighbourhood will Explode”
“My Best Friend Committed Suicide Last Night”
“My Mum and Aunt were in a Car Crash”
“He Has Met Someone Better”
“My Dad is Sick”

Evening shows:
“He Has Met Someone Better”
“My Friend will Turn into Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from all the Drugs”
“Telling the Boss’s Boss that the Boss is Shit”
“New Work Site up North”
“He Has Met Someone Better”
“My Dad is Sick”
“Death in a Car Crash”
“Headaches from a Brain Tumour”
“Wisdom Tooth – Goodbye!”
“He Has Met Someone Better”

and the last movie of the night will be “Arrgh! I hate the Soppy Comments to this Post”.

Now off to bed with head still splitting.

Parents

A difficult species, parents are the two beings one is born from and then grow up with.

Two people, who love you unconditionally. Or so they think?

Two personalities, with their own lives that they have lived to the fullest. Or rather not?

Two grown ups. who say when you are little “As long as you are happy, we don’t mind what choices you make in life” and then when you get a little bit older they say “Maybe it would be better if you take flute lessons instead of guitar, it’s a much nicer instrument”.

A father, who dotes on the child and loves her to bits by singing and telling her stories and answering all those impossible questions of an innocent. But when she gets old enough to see his unhappiness and she asks about it, he breaks her heart into bits, by ostracizing her. Taking away her right to his words, by silencing her world.

A mother who dresses her daughter lovingly up in flower patterned dresses and rosettes in her hair, praising her prettiness. But when that same daughter grows up, the mother’s focus turns to the ugliness of the legs or the scruffiness of the hairstyle.

A dad who says “I refuse to send our daughter to the University of Arts Saint Martin’s in London, she will suffer terribly from homesickness” just because he dropped out of the same school and also because he would suffer from longing, even though our relationship was silent.

A mother who wishes for me to find a nice proper man with a good education preferably a doctor or lawyer and it would be nice if he was Polish as well. But when I find a proper Polish man with a good education she still tries to hook me up with other guys.

A man who still says “As long as you are happy I am happy” but when I, his daughter tell him I am moving to another country to be with my love, to be happy, he suddenly breaks his silence and tells me in icy cold hard words about the stupidity of my choice.

Why is it so hard to walk away from that? Why is it impossible to let the words slide off my back without touching me? Why is the bond so strong to these people so hard to break? Why do I still feel so guilty?

Queens Birthday Party – Death

My father gets up telling me “Maybe it’s time to leave.”

“Ok” I reply, and turn to George, say goodbye shaking his hand adding that it was a real pleasure to meet him.

George nods approvingly mumbling “Likewise” as he struggles slowly out of his chair extending his hand to my father. “You have a delightful daughter!” he tells him.

Father looks pleased and says “Yes, thank you! Maybe we will see you next year at this function?”

“Next year… no, I don’t think so” George mumbles “I’ll be dead by then!”

“Hehe” father laughs in discomfort “you won’t be dead. But maybe I’ll see you before then, at the party held by Eva next week?”

“Next week? Ahh, yes…maybe. But I think I’ll be dead by then!” George’s replies seriously.

“Don’t be silly!” my annoyed father waves his hand disapprovingly to ward off the difficult subject. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you” he adds and turns to leave.

“But it is time you know!” George raises his voice after him “Its time to die! I’ve had my share of women, drink and fun, it really is time to go! I don’t know what’s keeping them from getting me…” his voice trails off.

My father with a firm grip on my arm guides me away briskly mumbling to himself "Crazy man! Absolutely crazy, that man!"

Queens Birthday Party - Sex and Money

“So where do you work?” George says leaning towards me.

“Core Service Management” I reply.

“Oh! Really?!” he says with some surprise and a touch of awe in his soft voice. “That must be good money!?”

“Do you think so?” I say puzzled “It’s ok I suppose”

“Well if you are into Whore Service Management it must be very good, you could even buy your father here, a very nice Mercedes?!” George sounds very impressed.

My father turns bright red and looks utterly chocked; and I nearly fall off my chair laughing.

“No George, not Whore Service Management. Core, as in the core of an apple, Service Management!”

"Oh." Clearly disappointed. George takes another sip of tea.

Queens Birthday Party - Feelings

In a posh suburb garden they hold the Queens Birthday Party - a gathering I never want to join, but never miss.

To give our father the treat of showing off his daughters to the British Ex-pats, my sister and I suffer the agony of eating scones with cream and jam while chit chatting to our first school teacher “Mrs Torture”. Later we have strawberries and ice cream paired with a tiny drop of champagne and experience a shaky display of an older generation mumbling ”God Save the Queen” accompanied by a Swede in a kilt(!) playing the bagpipe. (God save her indeed)

I am sitting between two deaf older men under a small and perfectly pruned chestnut tree. With my knees together, feet under the chair, I smile appropriately and nod to strangers with whom the only thing I have in common is being on that spot in that moment.
On my left, my father daydreaming and on my right George, a very thin WWII veteran, clean shaven but with a spot or two of dried blood on his chin where he probably cut himself in the morning process. George looked bored and he declared himself to be bored. With large unshapely lips that never stopped moving he declared his boredom more than once in a very soft voice.

“I'm bored! It was much better in the Fifties when the Ambassador had the party at the Embassy and they handed out free drinks, cigarettes and cigars. Back when my friend who was an anti-royalist always joined me just so that he could stuff his pockets full of cigars before getting pissed and lurching home. But this! This is so dull!”

My father looked up and smiled a lost smile, he had caught the topic of the monologue although not the details “Yes, but they stopped those parties because people got too drunk and destroyed the Embassy garden”

“What was that?” George asked, I repeated my father words but louder to which he replied “Yes, they stopped them. It was too bad and this is really worse!”

“Sorry?” my father questioned and I turned to the left and repeated George’s words but clearer. “Ahh.. yes” my father mumbled.

“Have you been in Sweden long?” George asked my father mouthing each word slowly as if a marble was turning over in his mouth, it was even hard for me to catch his words.

“Mmmm…?” my father said, clearly trying to disguise the fact that he had not heard. I twisted left and repeated George’s words again. “Oh, yes it must be 40 years now” he answered unemotionally.

"Come again?” George said, turning his ear towards my father, I turned (again) to the right and repeated my fathers words. “Ahh, yes… long time. I’ve been here more than 50 years now… on and off…going and coming…” George’s words trailed off into forever.

George looked away for a long while. We all sipped tea. Then George turned to my father and said “Do you ever feel at home here?”

My heart stopped. But I dutifully repeated the question to my left, father looked surprised and laughed that little laugh he does when he is a bit chocked and then said “No, I never felt at home here, but I never felt at home in England either.” My heart sank, I had known the answer but I hadn’t wanted to hear it.

After turning to George and repeating my father words, George looked at him hard, knowingly, searchingly and said. “Yes, I know what you mean. I’ve looked and I’ve looked and I've never found it, I doubt if I will find it either – home I mean.”

Queens Birthday Party – Prologue

There are a few topics in life one does not talk to my father about.

“Feelings”, “Sex”, “Money” or “Death”.