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It still feels like 2013 never really started. That’s...

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It still feels like 2013 never really started. That’s probably a sign that I am still fucked up. Five months into the supposedly new year, the year my life is supposed to begin anew or something like that, and I have been living in standstill since I don’t even know when.

Berlin is lovely and depending on who you ask, I have been waiting weeks, months, years to be here. Moving countries wasn’t a mistake, yet I can’t shake this persistent feeling that I have arrived too late to a party thrown in my honor. The perfectionistic side of me will not relent. She says I would have been finished writing my book by now if only I’d found the guts to leave Boston a year ago.

(And there is that lie I keep telling, about wanting to live in Berlin the utopia, the most interesting place on Earth, when really, I just didn’t want to live in America anymore.)

Sometimes, I think it’s my cowardice that is to be blamed for what happened last year. Then I think, is it cowardice to not want to save myself or is it really more akin to a death wish, a kind of suicide? Either way, I let it happen. Fair-weathered friends. Manufactured scandal. Your judgment. My fears. I always just let these things happen.

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I worry about little things. I worry about big things too. It’s hard to figure out what is worth remembering and worrying over, so I try not to remember or worry much at all. This makes me feel more at peace, though not necessarily happy.

For example, I don’t remember what I did for New Year’s. Or rather, I can’t so I don’t try, because if I can’t remember, then there must be a good reason why. I can’t recall much of last year. There are vague outlines, sketches of people, and a voice or a laugh, but I don’t care to concentrate on the details. I know that this is a sign I need to slow down or “take care of myself” or eatpraylove, whatever the prescription. But I’ve known this for a year now, and even though it defies logic, I feel like I can’t be held responsible, like someone should stop me. (From what? I’m not sure.)

And anyway, nobody stops me. So instead, I keep dream diaries and little logs of my days that read “Weekend visit from X” and “Flea market with Y”. Punched into an iPhone. Scrawled onto used dinner napkins. This way, I will remember.

I abandoned journaling five years ago, abandoned it without a second thought, and I still can’t relearn the habit. I think I believed it was the only way to save myself. The irony of it all.

How do you explain a breakdown that you are not sure will ever end? You don’t. Or you do, but you fail to capture the intoxicating feel of it, the bliss in the free-fall,  the willing capitulation to a force that you are not sure you understand, a force that should terrify you all the more because it is yourself after all that escapes comprehension.

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For a long time, I loved who I wanted to be more than I loved myself. (No secret that achievement comes naturally to those who have something to prove.) There is still no forgiveness here, but at least I know there’s something to forgive, someone waiting for answers.


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