in other words

“And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.”

— Douglas Coupland

within

there was a room, familiar but impossible to place in any specific context. the furniture was familiar also, but there appeared to be something off in the combination of them with this particular room  - like the chairs and the tables and the pale blue curtains hanging in front of the mute window would have been taken from somewhere else and inserted here, in a room that should have held some other kind of furnishing items. J thought she recognised the big table under which she was currently hiding from the home of her childhood friend, but on the other hand, she didn't remember ever actually being under that table, so how could she have known how it looked like from this point of view?

the child was crawling somewhere outside of her field of vision, she heard the ruffle of his clothes. J knew she was supposed to be looking after him, but at the moment the birdcage in front of her was much more important; and the small colourful bird inside it, so small it fit inside her cupped palms, for some reason it was crucial that it would not escape through the holes of the cage. that stupid child had broken the cage and now J was busy trying to cover the holes with her hands, so the bird wouldn't escape - but it did, there it went again, and she had to catch it and put it back inside the cage. the bird objected vigorously, she felt it flapping its small wings against her palms; but she had to put it back, absolutely she did.

it had all started to feel rather bizarre, so she took the cage and left her hiding place under the table. the woman with purple hair, sitting in the corner of the room paid no attention to her, or to the crawling baby in the corner for that matter. J placed the cage in the middle of the room and glanced down to see whether the little bird was still there. she saw that the holes in the cage where much bigger now, but instead of the bird out came some kind of small mammals. they could have been rats but they were not, the were sleek and long, perhaps they were minks? uuf, she thought, i hope they didn't eat the bird. but the bird was still there, so she just started to pull the minks (if they were minks) out from the cage, one by one, their glistening eyes staring at her intently as she did. there were so much of them, too much to be honest - no way they could have all fit in there.

this was getting rather silly. perhaps it was a dream?

J looked up to the purple-haired woman who was now standing in front of her. "can you grow a pair of horns? so that i know if this is a dream?" she asked of her, reasoning with herself that although things did seem rather genuine, if the lady she knew from somewhere would grow horns, surely it would be a dream.

without hesitation she replied, "like this you mean?" and grew a pair of horns.

it was a stunning realisation - being in a dream - and J sprung on her feet. "marvellous!" she shrieked. "it's a dream, we can go and fly!" and barged out of the room.

.

waking up felt as if falling through something; and the feeling of regret of not being allowed to stay in the dream was tangible and heavy, heavier than her consciousness falling through the non-existent matter. grey things around her everywhere, as if scattered clouds, and she sank through it like a stone cast in water - the experience was fast, but enough for the feeling to register.

and then darkness, and the awareness of being in a bed. not in the one she went to sleep in, but somewhere else, somewhere unrecognisable; and next to the bed, in the black space around the bed, an outline of a person. sitting there, as if part of the darkness; like the dark would have materialised. still, unmovable figure, a mere silhouette of a being but yet bearing such presence; all the night horrors of her childhood condensed into one. 

watching her in her sleep; controlling her dreams. hovering.

and then she fell again, and this time the darkness was real, and the bed was her own. the racing of her heart and the fast pace of her breath, the grip of horror around her chest - they dissolved as her consciousness cleared from the dream, blended into the darkness around her so that when she was finally fully awake they were only a faint memory of something that once happened. 

and there was no one sitting next to her that she could see.

want to run

i signed up for my eighth marathon - marathon de paris, mere four months away in the beginning of april. 

it has been a few years since i ran one. if my memory doesn't completely fail me the latest one was in prague back in 2009, and i recall it being the least pleasurable out of the marathons i have run. i didn't train properly, and also didn't rest enough before the race; this resulted in a little bit arduous last few kilometres, and i very clearly remember the moment of realisation i experienced due to this - it was the first time that i actually understood that it is not always possible for a person to finish the 42 point something kilometres. even if i was by no means close to quitting, i do remember my legs feeling a bit... heavy.

that said, this experience has really nothing to do with the gap that followed. up until 2009 i had ran a marathon per year, in 2007 i ran two; so i guess i sort of just had enough of it for a while. i lack the competitive nature in the sense that i am not that interested in improving my time or anything like that; the marathons i have run are there because i like running. in other words, i don't run in order to be able to run a marathon; i have ran marathons just because i can, and that's enough for me. deep down (not even that deep, actually) i am a very lazy and disorganised person, and  the idea of following some kind of program or planned training schedule in order to get better results, well, that's just not going to happen. put a 'have to' in front of something and i don't like it any more; this is one of the faults in my character.

so i haven't ran marathons in a while because i was perhaps a bit bored with it; but now i feel like it has been long enough, and i want to experience the whole thing again. the excitement on the starting line, the excruciatingly slow start when you can't even run because of the masses surrounding you, the mock of the kilometre signs that say 2 or 4 or something small like that; the little buzz you get when you pass 30 and the moment sometime after that when you know in your bones that you are going to be able to do this. inevitably, breaking the magical 40 and enjoying the last two kilometres, pushing yourself as far as you can, to the very limit, running a bit faster than you would actually have strength for; and finally, crossing the finish line and getting that cheesy medal you have absolutely no use for but you still take it, and feeling rather good about yourself.

i want that, and this too; i want to train for it. run the long runs alone with my thoughts, my small weekly escapes from the reality of it all. i want to feel the high you can get from only running and from nothing else, want to feel how my legs work and lungs expand, how my heart beats and becomes a bit stronger with every step i take. i want to feel the freshness of the air and the freedom of being able to do this, of being healthy and strong and running wherever i want.

in other words, to put it short; i want to run.

spider webs

fill in the blanks for me, would you, because i can't seem to remember the whole story -- if any of it. i can't remember the exact route i took to get to where i am now, and i can't bring back the words i said to make myself believe that it was ok to do so.

it is all more or less a blur for me now, and when i try to make sense of the unfathomable maze of events and people and reasons it feels overwhelming to say the least; and to be completely honest the fear of what i might find in the core of it all starts to strip me of my motivation to try. 

all i know now is that i don't know anything any more, of what i wanted or needed or hoped for. i have realised that my reality is based on the expectation of how things were supposed to be and not how they actually are; and the gap between the two makes the ground i'm standing on very uneven. the constant search for balance causes my patience to wear thinner and thinner, and the frustration that has been building inside me starts to poke its needles through my skin until i feel like a hedgehog turned inside out.

but i don't know, maybe when i'm torn into shreds, when i'm so full of holes that you can see through me, like a spider web or a shattered glass, when i'm almost invisible; maybe then i'm light enough to see things clearly. perhaps when there is not enough left to contain the weight in me i can let it go; perhaps then this will all make sense.

home sweet home

i've had 15 homes in my life, the current one included. the first one i don't remember much about; we moved out when i was less than three years old. the second one is what i consider to be my childhood home, the one which still holds the 1st place in terms of years lived in. the remaining 13 homes i have been through in the course of the past eleven years or so; three of these in tampere, five in helsinki, one in turku, two in budapest and two in prague.

i have my favourites, the ones i miss more than others and the ones i dislike. thrown in there is the worst time i've ever had anywhere as well, naturally; when you make a list, something is always left as the least preferable option. i have lived by myself and with people, in a single-family house as well as crammed into a one bedroom apartment with four other girls.

all these places i have considered a home, and for me home is a very important place. it's a base camp, a door which i can close and be left alone. home it is not important to me in a sense that i would want it to be of certain kind or have some particular characteristics; i just need it to be there so i have a place to hide into. i like central location over square meters (as you often do have to chose) and a hassle-free block of apartments instead of something with a yard and neighbours you have to socialise with more than greeting them in the staircase. i don't like owning things and buying an apartment feels about as appealing as casting my feet into concrete and jumping into the sea.

so in other words home is not a specific thing for me, the childhood one perhaps excluded. it's more of an idea, something that it is not tied into particular walls or place; and maybe this is why i find it very easy to pack up and go. next year i will be having a new home again, and i am more than looking forward to it; there's so many homes in this world i still want to have, and it's good to get going sooner than later.

deal with it

i find myself to be in a somewhat peculiar phase when it comes to running. on one hand i have definitely slipped into a winter mode; i don't clock my kilometres (even if i do know approximately  how much i run due to the familiarity of the routes) or time and my pace has slowed down. i don't feel any need to perform, so to say; i just run for the sake of it. on the other hand, i find it exceedingly difficult to take days off every now and then, even if i know that in theory this would be recommendable, and even when at times i feel the effects of daily runs in my legs.

i think it is mainly because running is one thing i can influence, of what i have control over; when other areas of life are sometimes a bit more chaotic, stressful and overwhelming, running is my corner stone  -- something that is mine, and there, and i know what it is all about.

everybody needs their coping mechanisms. 

small town

it's a peculiar feeling, visiting your childhood home. outside the familiar house is the small town where you grew up in, similar to the countless number of other small towns in this country where the majority of them are just that, generic and unimpressive and yet each a world of their own. all the places that you know probably better than any other only because you spent so much time in them; the somewhat strange mixture of fondness and dislike. hate and love are too strong words to describe your feelings towards this town, and this fact alone probably tells more about the nature of it than any lengthy description ever could. 

running on the streets of the town on a quiet sunday morning when the sky is grey and bleak makes you feel almost nostalgic; the empty shop windows, telling their own tale of the direction this town is heading into makes you feel almost sad. you see the town differently now, mostly because you yourself are different; when you were a child this was the extent of your world, and even when you got a bit older and started to realise that it isn't, in fact, so, this was still the place you returned to. now, when it is the place you visit and home is somewhere else you can't see it the same way anymore; and you never will.

but even so, this is where you are from; and you are the way you are partly because of it, whether you like it or not. you can't erase it, and why would you even want to, really; after all, you do have a soft spot for the place, in spite of yourself.

right now

nights were the worst, really.

during the days he was numb. when awake his mind was able to build barriers against the pain, close the gates of the walls enclosing his sanity and stop the grief from crushing in with all its force. it was a simple but arduous task, getting through a day - the act of breathing had never required so much conscious effort before - and it managed to keep him busy. he didn't think about G, didn't go through the events leading to his death; didn't allow his mind to wrap around the fact that he was not anymore. the knowledge was there of course, H did see the empty rooms and heard the deafening silence that occupied them now; but during the days, he was able to look the other way.

but nights, they were different.

when he slept his conscious mind gave in to the unconscious, yielded before what had happened and what that meant. it barged into his dreams, loud and rude and as impossible to ignore as a high speed train barging onwards when you are standing on its tracks, paralysed and panicked like a deer in headlights. and night after night it hit him with a force that swept him off his feet, overwhelmed his dreams and visions and left him shattered; just as shattered as he had been when G had fell.

every night H was there, and every night it happened; he was never able to stop it. G always fell, always always always; he always fell and he always hit the ground with the same, sickening thump that made H's stomach turn.

he always died.

and every time it felt as if it had been the first time; it never got any easier. in his sleep H had no way of stopping it from happening, witnessing the single most devastating incident of his whole life, and every morning when he woke up he couldn't tell which hurt more, his heart or his soul.

he knew, of course, somewhere in the back of his head that eventually he would have to admit to himself also during the daylight hours that G was dead; that even if he would sit in the living room of their home and stare at the door until his eyes went blind, it would not open and bring G back.

but right now it was too early. right now getting through the days that followed each other, each similar to the one before and to the one after, was really all he was able to deal with.

right now it was OK just to sit and not think.

not so

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, it is said.

of course this is not true. it doesn't kill you to be put down, day after day, to be taught through the hardest of ways that your opinion doesn't matter; that what you are is entirely wrong and crooked and that you should, in fact, change yourself to the core. it doesn't kill you to be stripped bare of your joy of living, be spooked by harsh reactions and sudden, irrational bursts of anger so that you no longer dare to express yourself at all or live in a way you would want to. it doesn't kill you to swallow your self-respect and shatter your identity, doesn't take your life to tone yourself down and give in, give up, lose yourself for the sake of something you can't even name any more.

you don't die of humiliation, of the excruciating feeling of being robbed of your life or of staring at the ceiling throughout the sleepless nights and hoping you would be somewhere else, that everything around you would cease to exist. your heart won't stop beating because there is nothing of you left; your heart doesn't care about this.

it doesn't kill you. but when you are a shadow of what you used to be, when before every uttered word you think whether or not you should say it, when you spend your time tense, careful not to move or breathe or be in a way that is considered incorrect - it most certainly doesn't make you stronger either.

swans

after everything, after all that had been said and not said and all that had been done, after all the things that hadn't seen the light of day, i knelt down on the shoreline of my consciousness. there was still some grace left in my movements but the tiredness was visible now; i could have not stood even if i had tried to.

in front of me opened a sea, nameless and faceless and odourless, so vast and deep i didn't have the comprehension for it. the horizon was further than my eyes could see or mind understand; this sea was not me, not mine like the sand hugging my knees and shin bones and toes was. not for me to venture on; this shoreline was where i ended.

i stretched out my arms and one by one let the memories go. paper birds, origami swans of different size and colour; all the nooks and crannies, each and every fold held a memory and told a story. every surface, be it wrinkled or smooth, was something that up until this point had made me me. there were the strobe lights of a night club and first rays of sun on a cold winter morning. the laughter of my loved one, loud and clear, and the smell of her cigarettes in my hair.

there were a lot of them, i saw that now as they silently drifted away from me; more than i had realised. some of them were black and burnt and it hurt me to look at them; some were bright and beautiful and so lightly carried away by the invisible current that they barely touched the still surface of the sea. one by one i put them down and released my hold, and they disappeared into the horizon i could not fathom; dissolved into the infinity that opened beyond and outside of me.

i was not sad; i did not cry. i had no reason to any more.