Friday, March 25, 2011

The Thesis

I'm totally into it.

I'm too into it even. I haven't even properly started yet and I'm already over the average page count.

In between the rows of text I wonder why it's always so that we have to commit to one thing at a time. And committing to only one, it wraps around me so tight that I see it when I close my eyes, I dream about it when I'm so tired I pass out and it's the first thing that pops into my mind as I open my eyes.

The enthusiasm sometimes scares the hell out of me, but then I get up, open the window and get reminded that it's just another crappy day.

I make a cup of coffee, pick it up, then sneeze and spill it all over the place. Another crappy day, yah...

Another day of peeking out towards the Sun through the curtains, of reading people's statuses about how they're finally able to sit out in the Sun and sip their coffees and of people passing by, wrapped in their own tiny biospheres and not minding my own.

The more I read, the more I want to write. But it doesn't work that way. There have to be some limits. There has to be an asshole who'll say: Let's just fuck with them and make them suffer a bit more!

So I'm writing and writing and writing something that I know will be cut out in such little pieces it will be unrecognizable to my eyes. My own eyes, who come with the body that the hands that wrote it are connected to.

A collage of someone's words typed by someone else's hands to be read by people who do stuff for other people...

Sisyphus seems like a first-grade newbie now, doesn't he? Or he doesn't. I'm not sure.

I'm way too into my own crap here.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

One Hundred Words: Retarded

I mean, how hard can it be?

Focusing on something that's important ― for a certain amount of time ― in order to get so many new doors open. To embrace countless opportunities, even at times like these, simply because it's one more crutch to be tossed to the side and jump free.

So why the hell am I cocooning and hibernating as if I fail to see all that's stated above?! Why is it so hard to get into it and forget the bullshit that's going around?

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!

And it's not repeated just to make the count.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Never

It seems to be a day like any other.

We're gathered in the living room, as so many times before. The whole house ― even though it's a house ― is cramped up and we usually have to waltz our way around it.

Dad is, as usual, sitting in one of the dining room chairs, turned towards the TV, with the remote in his hand. It's probably an image I'll always have in my head, but at least it's better than seeing the remote on top of the TV.

Who keeps the remote on the TV?!

All the furniture scattered around gives out a hint of a busy home. Chairs all around the room because the kids move them as they're playing in their blanketless blanket fort. The couch is usually packed with cushions, but they're all around the floor now, serving as a temporary safeguard for another just-about-to-start-walking kid.

It's a warm day, or at least it's so busy that I'm wearing short sleeves. I'm arched over a kind of a bowl of unknown origin and especially purpose. Next to it is a plastic bowl with soapy water and a little kitchen sponge which is supposed to help me clean the thing. I think of a couple of sarcastic remarks in my head and keep on wettening the little sponge and sliding it against the surface.

It looks like an overgrown cake cover, but it's made out of glass and it's way too heavy to serve its purpose. It's also got a slight bend down by the bottom, but on the inside ― as if something's supposed to get hooked up on it. Now that I think of it, it might as well been a chandelier or something. I'm clueless.

So I'm rubbing it spotless while there's kids worming around my legs, mum walking hastily around and dad still clutching his precious remote. A perfect family, I know.

So many things to worry about ― real or not ― one doesn't have to time to look around and care.

"Add me that thing...", dad says and points his remote in no direction in particular, as if not being sure (or not giving a crap) where the receiver (or anyone) even is.

I'm still cleaning the space dish with a lot of effort, most probably looking like one of the Housewives when they're washing three of their coffee mugs, wiping sweat of their faces. I look at him ― or rather the back of his head that's turned towards me ― and can't believe he's doing it again.

"Just a second, I'm right in the middle of this and my hands are wet and I th..."

He snaps, not even turning around and starts giving me a speech. I don't know what the words are, but I know the content. So I snap too.

"How am I able to do three things at the same time?! Did you ever turn around to see what I'm doing? Yeah, let me just get that for you while I have one kid super glued to each of my legs and I'm elbow deep in this thing."

Mum silently slides in from the kitchen, knowing it's going to be hell. I'm a nice guy all in all and even if I make sarcastic remarks from time to time and don't give people the answers they'd like to hear, I'm still a nice guy.

"I always have to tell you to do things", he yells, not even trying to turn around in his chair.

"Well, that's because you're bossy, not because I don't do them."

"I'm bossy?!", he inhales the words with such a shockingly hurtful expression on, well, the back of his head.

I cut him short and there's a downpour of the things I've been keeping inside all these years, not willing to bother really or simply helplessly aware of not being good enough. There's no point either, since there's no real communication after all. It's usually one talking and the other one trying to travel as far as possible in their thoughts.

I start my monologue and the sound on the TV is gone, the kids are instantly quiet, as if muted by a yet-to-be-invented remote control and mum is wiping her hands off her apron with a terrified look on her face. At least she knows what's coming up.

I yell. Not in a maniac way, not really meaning to hurt anyone, but with a rather determined look on my face. Somehow I always figured I'd break down and unleash the tsunami of emotions and memories drowned in tears, nasal secretion and saliva flying out of my mouth, but this was different.

It felt like giving a speech in front of a big assembly, finally being allowed to speak out and let everyone know how I feel without being interrupted, cut off or kicked out. As if reading aloud my list of demands, I start from as early as I can remember. How dad did this and that and how, when I was in primary school, he didn't bla bla... It seems like there's a gigantic PowerPoint presentation going on in front of everyone's eyes, but they're so caught up, thunderstruck and affected by it that no one says anything.

That tends to happen when one does not listen and when the dam gets blown off with a ton of dynamite. After what felt like hours, I started wrapping my monologue up, seeing that dad is slightly tilted away from the TV already, as if he turned around to face me but drooped back to his primary position.

Mum is still standing next to me, seemingly leaning on to a chair, but in fact leaving her hands hovering in mid air. Amazed, saddened and ― even with her eyes glued to the table cloth ― with that motherly look in her eyes.

"You never see what I do. You never care. You don't even care to look around to see what I'm doing."

I go on a bit more, blaming everyone and everything for the things that pass unnoticed. I don't need recognition or a task chart, but living like a shade of a maid can be so hopeless.

I'm almost out of examples to name and I've started the mandatory sibling comparison, although I hate it and it's super unproductive. I just try to make some sense of mentioning everything from milk bottles to blankets in the meadow and birthday cakes.

It's a mess in my head as well and I'm walking two steps left, then two steps right, frantically avoiding catching anyone's eyes.

Dad it totally bummed. Maybe it's the slideshow in his head, maybe it's all the memories swarming up or maybe he just doesn't give a crap, but he's staring at a single spot on the dining room table, only to tilt his head a bit further down when I inhale again after a full stop.

I start feeling bad. For him and for myself. For not being able to shut up already and stop hurting everyone. For doing this to him and to mum and to myself and to the silent kids and for any poor sod who might be walking down the street outside.

But I feel the urge to say it out loud. I hate psychology, but it somehow does help. It won't make things better and it won't fix them, but at least it's out there. For everyone to ponder upon and not just me.

Not being able to keep it all together anymore, I look towards anywhere.

"You were never satisfied. Never."

"Never", I hear slipping off my mum's lips.

And I wake up.

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