Don’t dream, it’s over

All good things have to come to an end.

Never thought it would happen so suddenly, and without a chance for a proper goodbye. But I guess that’s how it is. All I can do now is miss you and the way we used to be.

Remember forever all the fun, laughs and good times shared. Also the serious words spoken privately, and all the things I got to know about you that I will always carry with me but never share with the world.

Your creative genius, your artistic talent and your surprises. Things that are a  part of what makes you a  one of a kind person. So happy to have been there to witness all of that.

Wish you all the best for the rest of your days and hope you always keep your positive outlook and  happiness.

Good luck, goodbye.

The unexpected

Most of the time I have no clue where I’ll end up when I start to write. Sometimes that works very well but at other times the result is just a mess of unfinished ideas.

What this will end up being is impossible to tell at this stage.

Same feeling of not knowing what will be or even happen next is what I’ve got when I see my new friend online.

Even as I like the constant status of never knowing what will happen next , it doesn’t always sit well with my anxiety and worry about not being able to predict what will happen. At times I succumb to a lot of emotional stress but I do my best to fight it.

The overall feeling is happiness after all. Perhaps even a level of happiness I have never experienced before. So spending time with my friend is most likely only good for me. Despite the fact that I sometimes worry a lot.

However, I think I’m also learning to handle my fears and worries about the unpredictable unknown through the interaction with my friend. So, I’m positive about the whole experience. Even if it drains a lot energy from me it also gives me energy and makes the rest of my life easier to handle.  I’m not feeling all alone anymore.  I have something to care about – and someone to care about. It takes me away from only thinking about my problems and worrying about them. Instead I can focus on others, and on having fun.

Surely, I could do this without the internet and the online world but even if it’s a mediated experience it’s still about social interaction and dealing with real thoughts and feelings so I do think it’s all good in the end.

Still I’m sometimes surprised about all of this and find myself wondering if it’s just” a dream I will eventually wake up from,  but then I remember it is actually really happening here and now.

Some more

There comes a time when you…. know the time has come to raise….your keyboard and start to type yet again.

What about, is not entirely clear.

The reader might remember a previous update about a new friend I have been spending a lot time with for the past two months. If the reader can’t remember that update, it doesn’t matter.

To spend all this time keeps me on my toes, as I’m constantly learning a lot of things about myself, about her and life in general.

Often I find myself going outside of my comfort zone to try things I never thought I would ever consider doing. I find it to be more fun than I expected.

All of this makes me feel so much more alive.  The only worry I have is that it won’t last forever.

 

Sometimes I forget

I’m not the only one with a story behind me. I forget that sometimes. Perhaps I shouldn’t feel too guilty about it, I’m sure many, if not all, people tend to not think about the story behind the people they meet, work with, pass by in the street or interact with online. After all, there are only a few people out of all the people I ever cross paths with, that I will ever get to know enough to have some idea of their story.

In fact, I can’t say I know much of anyone’s story even among those select few I call friends. When I think back on it, I really didn’t know all about my parents stories and yet I spent so many years with them. I can’t say I know my brothers too well but of course better than most friends.

Really only one friend I’ve had through the years that I knew more about than I knew about anyone else in my life. It still saddens me that friendship didn’t last longer than it did. But, it wasn’t only up to me to decide that.

At times I find myself wondering if I’ll ever be that close to any one person ever again. And there are still moments when I miss that connection. However, the past is behind me and it has to remain there, as a fond collection of memories.

Maybe I’m not the most curious of cats when it comes to trying to find out what made other people who they are but I can’t say I don’t watch or listen and try to piece it together from what I see and hear.

Or perhaps it all boils down to my disorder making it harder for me to interpret people but also more focused on trying to figure them out despite this extra difficulty. Not sure.

I  do know, I’m always talking too much about myself whenever possible. And that small talk is often hard for me, if I even try. But I try to learn to listen more and ask other people questions, since everyone likes to talk about themselves more than anything. Or is it just me?

The end of this draws near, as I notice I’m digressing. Always a challenge when writing without having any plan for what the topic ought to be.

A story

Winter, 1968

Looking back at old photos, I see a kid about 2 years old sitting in the snow, laughing at the camera looking all happy.  I know it’s me but I can’t remember it. Sometimes I wonder if  that was me and where that happy kid disappeared to.

Growing up in an apartment in a row of low wooden buildings along a road in the middle of a forest area  close to the air force base where my father worked, I remember having friends to play with among the other kids down the road.

Soon enough I had only one really good friend.

It was a nice place to live in as a kid though. Lots of space, a vast forest  around, very little traffic on the few small roads and also the airplanes to look at through the fence to the airfield whenever there were nothing else to do.

Then when  I was about 5 years old, I  moved. My parents built a house in another area and I found myself in a new neighborhood. Found some new friends or at least other kids   to play with but mostly I still hung out with my friend from the old place.

We remained friends until around 12 years old, then we drifted away and went separate ways.  He found new friends and interests, I remained the same and kept to myself. I guess it was inevitable.

My teenage years I spent without any close friends or friends in general. Outside of school I sometimes spent time with some younger kids who hung around the neighborhood. Better than always being alone but at the same time not really good for me in the long run. I missed out on all the usual teenage stuff.

At school the bullying that had started when I was about 9 0r 10 years old only got worse. To avoid it all, I stayed mostly at home when not in school, in my room or in the backyard. I wrote stories, worked on comics, played, painted, dreamed, read books, listened to music, studied. Luckily my young nephew spent a lot of time at my house during those years so I wasn’t always on my own.

At 13 years old,1980

In high school things got a bit better over time. I got some friends in class I spent most of my time with during school hours. Also, I managed to get to know a girl. Some small steps towards a better life were taken. There was not a lot of bullying at this level but the damage had already been done in the past. All of this I have written about many times before on this blog. In this post, I’m trying to describe other things I have been thinking about a lot  lately.

Right after high school I got a job in a grocery store and started earning my own money. I had nice colleagues and liked to be working instead of studying. The plan had been to go to college right away but after I got the job I didn’t want to stop working. I figured higher education could wait.

Outside of  work, the friend situation remained the same. I had no friends outside of work. Only talked to my brothers, my nephew or my cousins.

Many times I thought about this situation and also tried to change it but at other times I didn’t bother. Instead, I told myself not to worry. It’ll get better with time.  Except it didn’t. Nothing changes by itself. Changes has to be made. I didn’t try hard enough. Or I gave up to soon. I don’t know.  One thing I know is that I often pretended there was no problem having no friends to hang out with on a Friday night, even though I thought it was a huge problem. I told myself I was better off being alone while I suffered from it at the same time. What else could I do to not drive myself crazy. Well, I wrote a lot of stories about people who weren’t lonely and miserable. People who made friends and found love and all the things I lacked but wanted. Except I didn’t know how to get any of it.

I switched jobs after less than two years. In those days a job was easy to find. I liked my new job. Still in a grocery store but closer to where I lived and with better pay and other benefits. Not long after starting there, I decided to stay in that job as long as possible, maybe for the rest of my working career. I was happy with what I had.

Outside of work, I remained alone and lonely. I started to go out more though. Visited museums, the cinema and concerts. Started travelling when I had saved enough money for tickets. I visited the UK and later made several trips to the United States. Life wasn’t so bad but it could be better, was what I kept thinking.

These being the days before the internet, my spare time visual entertainment was television, VHS movies and video games. Computers I knew almost nothing about and I didn’t even own one until I was 30 years old.

When I finally decided to go to college, I bought my first computer and got hooked up to the internet. At first I didn’t know what to make of the online world. It did take some time to understand how to use the internet and all other features of a computer. Soon I started to explore, made my first visits to chat rooms, learned about news groups and looked through home pages of all kinds. Learned some html coding and tried to set up a page of my own. However, most of the time online I searched for useful information related to my studies or I looked at porn. (Let’s be honest. At least, let me be honest: if it wasn’t for the porn industry, internet would not be what it is in many ways. That’s what I think anyway.)

I liked being in the academic world, at the university I felt at home from the start. There were always people to talk to about subjects that were interesting and intellectually stimulating. There I could also make use of my writing skills.

Outside of school hours, I still hade no real friends though. However on the internet things happened. I started to make  friends online, at chat rooms. How this happened I have written about before in great detail, on one of the pages of this blog. Those interested can easily find it for further reading.

It made me happy to have friends to talk to, even if “only” online. My life suddenly took a turn for the better. Even if I had medical problems and soon other problems too, for some years I was mostly happy about having friends. One online friend became a very close friend and really helped me to grow and change a lot of my thinking.

Without the internet, none of it would have happened. Sure, other things could have happened instead but that’s impossible to find out now.  All I know is that I don’t wish to change any of what happened, my only regrets are connected to what could have happened had I dared to do things I didn’t have the courage to try.

Then the disaster struck. I lost my job. At first I wasn’t too worried even though I knew it would be a tough time finding a new job. Soon enough, I learned how tough it really would be. I had managed to get through my father passing away from cancer, and through a struggle for years with my own medical problems but trying to get back into the working life has proved to be an even worse struggle. For a time it looked like I was saved when I got a job at a new store but it didn’t last and after that there has been no progress at all.

During these years of unemployment my personal finances have collapsed more or less, I’ve become really poor and even though I’m grateful to live in a country where there is still some welfare to keep me from a life on the streets begging for money, I can’t say I enjoy being forced to rely on the government for my survival. I’d prefer to work for a living as I did for many years in the past.

Without my friends online, I doubt I’d make it at all these days. My friends keep me sane, keep me from giving up when I feel like giving up (and I often feel that way). Thanks to my friends, I find some strength and motivation to keep on going even when it all seems hopeless. Thanks to my friends I can still laugh and smile and keep some dreams alive. I can still feel like a human being.

Sure, those are big words but that’s how it is.

From here there is only one way to go. Forward. That’s where I’m going.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I didn’t write it for you, dear readers, I wrote this for myself. It’s the only way I know how to write.

A funny thing happened

No it didn’t.

Simply had to use that headline because I have no imagination left. I want to write something really interesting, entertaining and funny but all I come up with is monster mash and cat vomit. Not much fun in that.

So, what else is not new? That I am a bit strange. Not odd. Strange. However I’m working on being not strange. As if that would be better. It would at least be normal.

I woke up early this morning. I had a nice dream. Not sure what about but I woke up feeling nice inside. Sort of happy.

For some reason, or lack of reason, that feeling made me remember when most people in a chat room I used to visit thought I was gay. No offence to gay persons of any sex, but I know I am not gay, or bi, because nothing in this world attracts me more than a woman.

Or, well, sometimes a very good meal can be more attractive but let’s not derail ourselves here. Not too much at least.  Which leads me to think maybe I seem gay to some very straight people because to them I act or express myself rather like a gay person would from their point of view. That’s the only way I can understand it.

I had a gay friend on the internet for some years. He acted like any person would. Nothing like I thought a gay person would. But he told me he was gay and I had no reason to suspect he wasn’t, but I still didn’t find him to be different from any other friend I’ve had. Except maybe that it was easier to talk to him compared to the supposedly straight guys I also talked to from time to time.

I guess to some of the other straight guys I was a threat in the battle we all fought to gain the attention of the model on cam, in whose chat room we all gathered night after night to chat time away. Or something of that nature.

To be honest, I never liked to compete with anyone for anyone’s attention online or offline or anywhere. Sure, it’s a flaw to not be a very competitive kind of person but I’ve never liked to compete because I’ve never learned to lose without losing my face. I can’t take it on the chin like a man and move on. Instead I often want to end my life instantly. To rid me of the pain of loss I refuse to compete and let everyone else worry about that.

I have taken part in competitions but always had that fear of being devastated if I lost, which I almost always did. Still, those times I really wanted to be in the competition. Because winning would have been priceless.

Back to the matter of my supposed gayness. I can see why the question appeared in my offline life as early as in school when I was only still entering puberty. I was the guy in the back of the room, with the long hair, who tried to hide from being noticed and who was the target of almost everyone’s ridicule.

About to party, 1983

I read books about hobbits and talking animals, I made strange drawings of ducks,smurfs, rabbits and of characters from Star Wars and  the Asterix comics, I wrote strange stories and I listened to weird music.  I played with dolls. And I let my hair grow to down below my shoulders. I didn’t participate in any fighting or sports. I had only one friend – a guy. Only got to play with the girls during recess, or be all alone, because none of the guys wanted me around. Of course I must be gay. Maybe that’s why my childhood friend stopped seeing me once we got into our teens. I always thought it was because I was such a nerd but perhaps I seemed like a gay sissy too.

Anyway, it didn’t bother me what anyone thought. I always knew who and what I am. Again, I have nothing against homosexuality, I’m just not in that closet waiting to come out. However, I suspect some of the boys and later men who have called me gay may have had a closet of their own to deal with coming out of. I’m only guessing.

Mostly though, I think they were only trying to intimidate me or insult me or perhaps they were jealous of me having better luck talking to some of the women because I was able to make decent conversation. At least I could in a chat room but certainly not while I was in school. In those days I was terrified of talking to any girl for whatever reason. And when I say terrified, I mean terrified. Torture seemed like a better alternative.

This little story stopped making sense long ago. I’m aware of that. However – I’m getting close to the end of it now so you have only a few more sentences to read yet. A few more sentences like this one, which starts off like it will be leading you towards some sort of meaning at the other end but in fact it just stops suddenly. Annoying, isn’t it? I should know, it happens to me all the time. How and why, are not valid questions at this time.

The end.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Hi there…

Yes, I’m still alive. I know I haven’t been writing much here lately. I’ve been too lazy. I haven’t been too busy. I have been doing things but mostly I’ve been sleeping. Well, not only sleeping. I’ve been at the office, I’ve been at home and I’ve been eating too much, gained too much weight,  been feeling a bit down and out and somewhat depressed. Lonely. Confused. Not in tune with anything.

So this weekend I’ve enjoyed some fun times and seen a good friend. Suddenly I feel reborn. Funny how some late night fun can change my mood and my outlook on life. Or at least turn it around for the better. I woke up smiling this afternoon. Haven’t felt like that in too long. Decided to just be in that feeling and not do too much. Of course I had my usual urge to send countless tweets and emails to my good friend to let her know just how good I’m feeling today but then I stopped in my tracks and decided to not do my usual stunts. Instead I’m going to keep myself under control and let my friend have her weekend in peace without my urgency.

So I’ve let my Sunday unfold in about the same manner as most other Sundays. Been reading the morning paper. Had an early dinner. Listened to music ,watched some videos and looked through my Tumblr dashboard. Backed up some files. Cleaned up the hard drive. Listened to more music. Watched some TV, read some news.  Had a shower. Plan to go to sleep early and be ready to start a new week in a good way.

Other notes. My old friend has not answered my last email so I’m guessing I can let that whole thing rest and remain a fond memory.

I’ve been looking for a direction but haven’t really found one. I have plans and ideas but I seem to have trouble making them happen, turning them into something real.

Always been a problem.

I don’t want to spend any more time living in my head. I’ll be 45 this year. I have to grow up now. Start to act my age. Only one problem – I find growing up to be a bit boring. I don’t even know what it really means. Once long ago I thought I had grown up. I acted like someone a lot older than my actual age. Then I lost that somehow. Probably I got scared of life after my father died. Or I started to think of living as pointless, a long wait for the end that no one can escape. So – maybe I should set out to find God? Not my cup of tea, old boy. I believe in humanity and in human beings and that’s all the faith I need.

Been watching lots of movies the past weeks. Too many to mention. Most of them were good entertainment. Some were a bit boring. Some I haven’t been able to finish. Like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I hope to finish watching during the coming week.

Once more I’ve managed to write a post with no real point to it and going all over the map in terms of topics.  That’s how my mind works when I set it free.

Hope it hasn’t been a waste of your time to read this.

Peace.

Things happen

Some time ago I got an email from an old online friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time. I was happy for some news, even though the news wasn’t only good. Most of all I was happy the communication wasn’t terminated and that the friendship had not reached an end. Still, not long before this happened I had made my peace with the fact that the friendship had reached its end and that it was time to let it become a fine memory and move on. Now, after having the latest news, I feel somewhat conflicted. I don’t know when or if there’ll be any more news but I can’t rule it out. I just don’t know how I feel about bringing this friendship back to life. As much as I want it to continue I can’t deny that I also have made my peace with it being over and keeping it alive just for keeping it alive does not really appeal to me that much. However, I will see what will happen and keep the door open to whatever will be.

How to be a friend

I’ve been terrible friend at times. Probably most of the time, because I’ve rarely had any real friends. There, I admitted it. An ugly truth but it needed to be told. I’m not a good friend person. I have tried to learn how to be a good friend but to be honest I am sure I still have a lot to learn in that department.

Anyway, I have had some friends. Still have some people I count as friends in my life.

Today I got an email from one friend, a person who used to be a very good and close friend, for the first time in six months. It made me very happy to read that email. Very happy to know my old friend is still alive and at least living.

The coincidence being I saw that email right after having watched the movie The Social Network about the creation of  Facebook. Since that movie is somewhat about friendship, it got me thinking, especially after reading the email, about my own way of being a friend and how I treat those I call my friends. Not always a  pretty picture.

I’ve not always been there when I should have, I’ve avoided confrontation, I’ve not always been honest about why I haven’t been around and other things like that. I’ve been a coward, I’ve  been selfish. But I’m working on being a better friend.

Because I really want to be a better friend. To all my friends. Because my friends mean a lot to me. More than they know.

Thursday November 3, 2011

The  year is closing in on its end. What has 2011 been like? For me. Not much different than 2010 but not much to write about.

Most of the time has been spent searching for work and waiting for answers. The rest of the time I’ve spent online. With friends, or alone. Watched movies, read books and listened to music. Done a lot of thinking. Had a lot of fun but also been very sad and depressed at times. Had very little money but managed to survive. I know that the future looks much like more of the same but there’s also a chance that things can change for the better. I keep hoping it will.

The bad part of 2011 has been to lose my old friend. I don’t have any communication with her anymore and it has been hard to see that friendship fade away. I’ve tried to keep it alive but it takes two to tango. I have to respect her not wanting to keep in touch anymore.

The good part of 2011 has been the friends I still have. Especially one of you. Also to have finally finished my Bachelor’s degree ten years overdue feels very good.

Peace.