And so, in closing now, there is one night, an encounter as radical as any you will ever have in your life, and besides this, an encounter you tragically come to find was yours alone, nothing of it shared by this other who in your eyes was its very foundation. Of course she visited my dreams. And there is always that terrible sadness upon waking, a sadness with which I am sure we are all familiar...
6/13/2005 I'm glad you dreamt about me, now we are even... Yes, it is indeed strange to me that I still fantasize about a girl I knew for maybe six hours... Is this because there is so much room for projection? Or is it because she really was the way she was, in the space of those six hours: perfect? I'm sure many people have told you that you are alive in a special way, they are right, it is plain to see, and I don't forget rare (rather, singular) beauty like that… Sure, we are ALL singular but for whatever reason, or perhaps no reason at all, sometimes providence or chance presents an encounter that demands some unique kind of further inspection, verification, proceeding under the sign of this, even despite such potential hindrances as distance, age, etc. etc. Not to think-it-to-death, but you are beautiful to me, a rarity, so I know, always and especially beautiful. I don't mean for this email to be dumb or inappropriate, I'm just trying to say something about it and that can prove problematic... I understand there are an so many ways within language to approach speaking it... And not to cop out or anything, but it is always what cannot be spoken, for, once it has been collapsed into a finite sentiment, into language, into a word, it ceases to have its own living, dynamic, vitality. Maybe that's one vindication for the worth of the poem or pure music, these things can live like it does, and so they can approach it with greater accuracy… But I'm not a poet… And I won't be able to mail you any pure music for a while...
12/01/21. tuesday. 4:03 am. fuck this. i'm so fucking anxious i can't stand it anymore. i have no idea why my tinnitus is acting up. i don't even know if its that my perception changed and made it more noticeable, or something made it spike (no idea why or how, i don't use headphones, loud noises are out of the way, the only thing that could explain it would be the sugary drink from the oral glucose taste but that is reaching). but i'm tired. this room is way to silent, i'm having trouble sleeping. the past five or six days have been hellish for me. i wake up at 2, 3 or 4 am just as if i had a great night's sleep, and i get absolutely no sleep for the rest of the day. it is as if i had two cups of espresso right out of bed. my arms and legs feel restless, my heart beats so fast and i am so cold. this must be something else and i am just expressing things through worrying about the t, like i worry about the hair on my stomach, or obsess over small things. that is the only explanation i can give. i started crying out of nowhere yesterday while talking to jorge. i have an appointment today with magdalena so i guess we'll talk about it. i don't want to go on quetiapine again, so i've been researching about CBD oil for anxiety because it seems like a much natural? alternative. i'm just having flashbacks from three years ago where things almost got out of control, and also having flashbacks of last year (even a few days ago) where i was totally habituated and woke up in the middle of the night, had no trouble sleeping without white noise generators, and could be in silence with absolutely no problem. this is honestly so tiring. i feel the need of cutting or hurting myself because of the weight i feel in my chest. and i am so cold. and besides, i don't want to write in any of the forums about tinnitus because i know myself and that is a spiral that will be hard to get out of. so i just don't do it. i don't want to lurk or write in any of those sites. yesterday i felt so uneasy that i recovered davinia's number from my google directory and thought about writing to her, but i didn't know about what to write exactly. so i did not do it. but i have no one else to talk to about this that can understand my condition and how desperate i feel. so i guess i'll write to her tomorrow kind of just telling her what has happened and ask her what she has done. but there's nothing to do really. just to wait until there's nothing left to wait for. i just have to wait and see if i habituate again. jeez. the fourth of january i woke up almost at this hour (a bit earlier too) and just lied there in "silence" without perceiving it. what i'm pissed about the most is that i already had it under control. i didn't react to it emotionally. i heard it but i didn't notice it. i could wake up at six or five or even in the middle of the night and went easily back to sleep again. in 2018 i think it took me three months to calm down and thorught the rest of the year i kind of adaptated to it. 2019 was almost non existant. i had zero issues. 2020 was the year i couldn't notice it. and apparently 2021 is where everything went to shit. and i'm pretty pissed because this has been one of the hardest things i ever had to go through, and to go through it AGAIN? god, please help me. i'm desperate. i want to sleep. i want to focus on other things. also, the funny thing is that all of this found its highest point on the day that announced the quarantine, so i guess it must be my anguish regarding being prisioned in this house for days with my grandma. at least the situation is different than three years ago when it started because i now know that i can live with it normally, that it is possible to be happy and to not perceive it, which at the beginning was a huge question and a huge doubt for me. so there's that. and that i don't really listen or think about it obsessively 24/7, i just worry about it at night and sometimes while watching TV because it comes up. i can't wait to go back to villavicencio and maybe relax a little bit. i'm also thankful beause i have the support of my family and the few friends i have, even in quarantine. i know i've said it a few times, but i'm just so tired. talking to jorge really helps, and i know he worries about me. santiago also helps a lot. it's comforting to know that. i just wished i had someone to talk to at this hour haha i miss alex, he was always awake at night and i remember that whenever i was sick, he would be online and we could talk about it. what do i think it might be? my subconscious trying to express something, but i can't pinpoint what would that be exactly. maybe the regret of spending NYE here, without my parents, and perhaps the regret of not going on vacations with them. i don't know. but it's always funny because this happens almost yearly at the beginning of a new year. i get some kind of mental health crisis and i feel so vulnerable and broken. yesterday i was thinking about andres caicedo and his letters, and the way he felt so fragile and the unestability of his mental health issues, and how he couldn't live without his mom. i feel exactly the same. as if i was a little child in need of protection.
8/01/21. friday. 4:24 pm. happy new years to everyone reading this corner of the internet. it's a bit late for that, i know, but i didn't had the time to come here and write. also my mood's been a bit off and everthing's pretty boring. spent my new years eve lying in bed watching youtube videos because my grandma went to sleep early that day, so at 12 o'clock i was falling asleep, and after that i wished a happy new years to my family, a couple of friends and my eyes closed until 3 or so. that was kind of the recap of the past week. also i have been a bit depressed or off, no friends, in quarantine, with my grandma, and i have been paying so much attention to my tinnitus these past few days that it's starting to wear on my sleep. i'm remembering how things were three years ago (on february it will be three years since the onset of my t) and it's just so sad. the earwax, the wax impactation, the ear irrigation, the tinnitus, the anguish and the sadness that came afterwards, the tmj and the feeling of fullness in my left ear. and i've been obsessing over it the past few days because throughout 2020 i could't hear it. my parents house has white noise 24/7 and the sound of a creek and the birds and the cicadas, so at night i didn't have to put on the white noise app on my phone and i kind of forgot about it. but this house is so silent and the quarantine doesn't help because i have to be here all the fucking time. i'm so tired. so so tired
22/12/20. martes. 12:41 pm. estoy escuchando el episodio de mi banda sonora con santiago moure. y me da risa y tambien tengo un poco de desespero, pero no se porque. la entrevistadora es una mamera y no deja hablar al man y se la pasa interrumpiendolo y repitiendo cosas. pero mas que eso me da risa que describe al man como un humorista "caustico e irreverente". y pienso en lo canson que debe ser que se refieran a uno de esa manera, especialmente cuando uno esta al frente. o sea, para mi seria muy loco y me daria pena ajena. ahora sigo con esta entrada que ya estan poniendo la mesa para el almuerzo.
later that day. 6:25 pm. acabo de terminar de hacer pan de yuca y espero que no me queden duros porque es la tercera o segunda vez que los hago y hace dos años no horneaba cosas asi. mi mama quiere darlos de novena a los vecinos y eran algo relativamente barato y facil de hacer, mas porque mi hermana ahorita esta cocinando la cena de navidad (si, desde ya) y tiene la cocina ocupada. en fin. creo que mi sentimiento de desespero puede tener algo que ver con la conjuncion de los planetas porque eso ha influido a mucha gente. tambien en estos ultimos dias he pensado en muchas cosas respecto a mi vida y a fantasmas del pasado que me persiguen aun hoy (meses despues). lei hoy el horoscopo y las predicciones para el 2021, y decia algo sobre los vinculos familiares y vinculos amorosos. creo que solo hay una persona que me ha querido como me gusta ser querida, que tambien era escorpio y que tambien tenia experiencia. a lo largo del 2019 y 2020 no me he sentido bien en ese ambito. me he sentido ignorada, en un segundo plano, poco apoyada, etcetera. puede ser porque 1) el man sea un tonto, 2) inexperiencia. y que pereza enseñarle a alguien a querer a estas alturas de la vida. pensaba ademas que yo merezco que la gente se alegre de mis logros y eso no lo tengo ahora, al menos en lo que era la cuestion sentimental. el man se desaparece, me contesta a veces, y esa intermitencia es cansona. igual ya habiamos hablado de dejar todo asi, pero no se porque segui hablando. no se. igual y todo eso me da mucha pereza. voy a probar los pan de yucas.
19/12/20. saturday. 10:24 pm. i am 23 years old and i am the same age that had my ex boyfriend the year we met in buenos aires after 7 years of knowing each other and almost 3 years of an on and off relationship (2011 and then 2013-2015). i was 20 and he was 23 and exactly three years ago we both were in a room back in my hotel. he looked so pretty after showering and his body was so beautiful i had to take a picture. he had the most beautiful legs i've seen. and it was really funny because i'm the kind of girl who speaks her mind about what she considers beautiful about the other person, and i think that men are not really used to be called beautiful... anyways. and we slept on the same bed and it was summer in argentina so the nights were hot and we only had a single bed, so i ended up sleeping on the floor but at some time in the night he got up and told me to get back to bed and we fell asleep again. and one night after spending the whole day walking around, we showered together, hooked up, showered again and after that we went out to buy martini flavored condoms and two pizzas with beer. my hotel was close to the obelisco so we sat around eating it and touching each other and i remember being so happy. those five days were a dream really... i wish i could've stay longer, or even prioritize him over one of my friends. i'm not really sure of why i'm remembering all this... i guess i'm just anxious for having someone touch me, you know? i'm longing human touch after ten months of quarantine and perhaps me re-living that memory is a way of dealing with all of this. he touched me and i caught fire. haha it's funny the way i behave whenever i'm head over heels for someone. on april last year i hooked up with a guy who i had a crush on for about five years, and well, if i'm interested in someone i will show it, but this case is funny because i was a bit nuts. i remember i wrote in my diary something along the lines "i know ice cream is your favourite food. i want to be sugar, i want you to eat me and then flow through you blood. i want you to die off a sugar rush" or something like that. i wanted him to stab me. it's really funnny the way i deal with infatuation.
16/12/20. wednesday. 8:40 pm. you know, i dreamed about you for 29 years before i saw you. i dreamed about you, i missed you for 29 years.
8/12/20. tuesday (festive). 12:09 pm. i am writing from my old-but-renovated computer. i decided to install a new solid state disk and so it turns on in less than 20 seconds and everything is much faster. it was my attempt to maybe alongate its life as i aspire to be a master and then phd student for the next 5 years and so i will need a fast computer who won't leave my side and be my best friend forever. these past two weeks have been very... um... eventful i guess. first, i finally sent my grad school application after almost three months of work: statement of purpose, writing sample, three letters of recommendation, academic cv, transcript and diplomma translations and every document you can imagine. i have been feeling really bad ever since i submitted it. maybe it's the feeling that i'm not good enough to even aspire to be admitted, and that it was the outcome of a bad fever dream in which i believed myself capable of getting in. i mean, being objective i believe that i'm a good candidate: i have work and research experience, my statement of purpose is really good, i have clear interests and my recommendation letters are good. the professor i talked to said that i strongly fit in the program and in her research interests. but my mind plays games on me, and i have almost two months left without any response and that is a really long time if i'm honest. i was already picturing myself living in ithaca and spending my summers helping farmers around the NY area. it's really the program of my dreams, and if it doesn't work out i'll be really sad. but as i said to my therapist: if i didn't try it, i'll be sadder. so yeah. that's how things are regarding that topic. on another hand well, my posture's been getting better. i'm exercising and being conscious of my back helps a lot, but today i saw a darker hair in my stomach near my belly button and i freaked out, burned it with a lighter and got myself a burn scar :-) not proud, but i'm not paying for a laser treatment and until now i haven't been able to not-care. i know it's just hair, but to me it means something else, i just don't know what exactly. i have a fear that it will turn into a full-on mustache. it is now 12:36 and it is raining non stop even when dry season will start in the next few weeks. the desire of cutting my uterus off is alive and thriving whenever this happens. what do i have to do? i take care of myself: stopped drinking, cut out dairy, sugar, gluten. went lowcarb. but apparently none of this works, and now i find myself with a hairy stomach. i want to kill myself. i don't know what to do now. laser is always an option, but it's expensive as fuck, and honestly is not worth it with the amount of hair i have (let's be real, it's like three or four dark hairs. two in my belly and two in my right nipple). all of this just makes my dysphoria worse. i don't want to have this body that hates me so much. i feel as if it were against me. and i am crying and i feel depressed because it's really hard to finally start feeling neutral towards your own body and then spiral back into hating it.
17/11/20. tuesday (non festive). 11:16 pm. i finished the book i was reading this afternoon. as i said in my last entry, letters and correspondance interest me too much. maybe i just enjoy gossip. but there is also this way of communicating and a.c. sums it up pretty well. it's like endlessly talking and taking care of each word and curating the meaning and savouring it why it lasts because your recipient is not there and it can't answer. anyways. body dysmorphia hit maybe a bit too hard today. years of bad posture and maybe just genetic bad luck have made me the happy winner of a lovely buffalo hump in the back of my neck. i hate it so much. but well, there's only so much one can do, right? if i ever get a liposuction on that part i'll be the happiest woman on earth, at least for a few months while the fat sets again behind the neck. i'm really tired. can't be bothered to wash my teeth. good night
16/11/20. lunes (festivo). 5:42 pm. esta hora en la que la nostalgia de un futuro perdido se le pega a uno al cuerpo, y no se va ni con jabon ni con estropajo. y uno mira por la ventana del baño y ve el sol naranja empezando a esconderse y eso significa que uno no hizo nada con el dia, que se la paso acostada leyendo y pensando en lo que tenia que hacer, pero que en ultimas no hizo nada y que le va a tocar pasar la noche haciendo eso que no hizo, por irresponsable. ya termine todos los documentos que me piden en la maestria, todo ese papeleo de cosas, de gente, de redes y de moviles inmutables que son cartas de recomendacion, academic transcripts, diplomas y toda esa vaina. empece a leer el libro de la correspondencia de andres caicedo que me hicieron llegar tellez y caicedo como regalo tardio de cumpleaños. digo tardio porque de no ser por los servicios de paqueteria del pais probablemente hubiera llegado a tiempo y yo no hubiera pasado tiempo sintiendome tan mal. pero me alegra volver a tener amigos en mi vida, especialmente a alguien como tellez con quien pase tanto tiempo y con quien hicimos tantas cosas que recuerdo con tanto cariño. y bueno, la correspondencia es especialmente linda, habla mucho de cine, me gustaria poder hablar asi de musica o de algo, pero no me dan las tajadas. y tambien le escribe a los amigos cartas y me parece curioso todo ese genero epistolar que ahora ya no tiene mucha cabida porque todo es instant message y pues se podra hacer una complicacion de chats y a lo mejor resulta divertido, pero no tiene lo mismo de antes. creo que ahora gracias al caducamiento de las cartas e incluso de los correos se ha vuelto muy aburrridor escribir. y bueno, creo que eso tambien depende. cuando uno chatea con alguien del que uno esta tragado es muy chistoso porque es instantaneidad hace que uno tome mas riesgos y la ansiedad de la respuesta se resuelva en menos tiempo. antes era escribirle uno a alguien algo risky y esperar quince dias o dos meses a que llegara la respuesta. sobre los correos y como es el nuevo genero epistolar, recorde el correo que le escribi a jose en enero del 2019 a manera de volver a construir un puente que pense destruido. me gustan los correos porque a veces me abruma la mensajeria instantanea, y porque creo que el chat tiene otras dinamicas que no permiten la poesia o la prosa o por lo menos la escritura gomela. voy a poner el correo aqui, porque me gusta mucho:
Hola, Aqui es muy tarde ya. No he podido dormir los ultimos diez días; siempre termino despierta a esta hora y sigo sin entender porque. Ultimamente he pensado mucho en usted. Espero todo marche bien en Holanda, en su MBA, y que el frio no le este dando tan duro. Revisito las vacaciones de mitad de año y todo se me hace muy raro, no hay nada que me ayude a entender las cosas; a lo mejor no hay nada que entender y yo solo estoy buscando excusas para mi mal dormir. Creo que por eso estoy sentada escribiendole este correo sin estar segura de que lo vaya a abrir. Es un año nuevo y como si fuera un ritual, busco a personas de mi pasado en la cabeza, para alguna manera enmendar las cosas conmigo misma. Pero con usted la cabeza no me sirve. Mi "año en musica" esta lleno de canciones que le mostre o que me mostro, y tambien queria darle las gracias por eso: seguro que de no ser por usted me hubiera quedado escuchando Panda. Revisite el episodio trece de Las Aventuras de Pete y Pete hace poco y todo cobro sentido. Gracias de nuevo. No se que hace la gente cuando escribe correos y no sabe si tendran respuesta. No quiero revivir fantasmas pasados, solo quiero recuperar el sueño de vuelta. Un saludo desde los llanos de Colombia, Daniela.
11/11/20. wednesday. 11:39 am. yesterday was my 23rd birthday. i never thought i would get this far on life, and really it is a surprise. every birthday that has passed since i turned 16 seems like a miracle. this year felt different though. i'm not sure if the reason is that we're in the middle of a pandemic, or that i found that the group of friends i had for the past 5 years don't really care about me or what happens to me, but even though i couldn't really go out or spend time with my other friends, it was a really nice birthday. daniel came and brought me clarified butter as a gift, and my sister cooked a really good pizza, and my mum decorated the dining room and brought some cake. we talked and laughed and they sang me the birthday song. but some of my ex-friends (let's call them that lol) wrote me through IM and well, i couldn't bother to answer them but i'm a polite person so i did. but one of them came around saying things like "i miss you" and i couldn't help but laugh because i know it's bullshit, she and i were never close, and for her to come with this bs that she doesn't even believe is funny. it's disrespectful to me. and so i told her to stop because i felt bad and i don't want to feel like i owe her some kind of answer when i was really hurt a month ago when all of that happened. anyways, as i told john: las redes sociales son lo peor que le puede pasar a las amistades muertas. somehow they think that as long as i'm on their socials i'm approachable and still their friend. sike: i'm not. don't come saying empty words to me. they don't mean anything. i don't miss you. you don't give a fuck about me so don't come faking it. another thing: i'm so tired of the Discourse running around on social media about not having the energy of answering and caring for your friends and that giving a fuck about your friends is normal and you shouldn't excuse yourself for ignoring texts and not answering messages. i call bs on all of that discourse which is trying to normalize isolation and depression. surprise: you can lose friends by losing all contact with them. as a friend i get tired from not hearing answers, not getting texted back. getting tired and not forgiving someone that ghosts me and ignores me doesn't make me a bad person. i recognize where i feel appreciated and valuable, and well, i prefer to spend my time in that kind of relationships. i guess this is adulthood.