Traces of Me

Brazil edition - Adaptation

Wheeew! I'm finally here. Just a note - I promised someone I would never disappear again. And I hate it when my bloggers (yes, my bloggers) disappear on me.

I arrived in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Tuesday night, after an almost 30 hour trip. After flying against the rotation of the earth for so long I'm incredibly jet lagged and I'm still finding it very difficult to focus on anything, both physically and emotionally. The physical part is a bitch; I feel as if I were drunk and can barely walk on a straight line. Emotionally, it's draining. I feel tired constantly and need to sleep in the middle of the day quite a bit. The time zones are still a mess as well, not in terms of sleep but as in I have completely lost track of what time or day it is.

The rollercoaster has been incredible. Late flights all the way here including one that took off without waiting for the rest of the passengers that hadn't arrived, which meant an extra 5 hour stay in Chile for all of us that were in transfer. By that stage I'd met a whole bunch of Brazilians who were also flying here and we had many laughs at the smoker's lounge while sipping very, very tall coffees. I actually had a pretty amazing time and started to get butterflies even though I still had another 4 hours to fly here - and I hate planes. I'm not scared of them, I just hate them. However, after all the dread and tears leaving Donna at the airport, the whole things was amazing - I even made a "Chile airport" video I'll post later.

I'm still staying in a lot and catching up with my parents and sister. That alone is a lot right now - we've all changed and this re-adaptation is terribly instense. A little scary, too, and certainly overwhelming, although fabulous.   

I have a crazy array of thoughts and emotions taking over me right now, so much so that I feel quite numb. Confused, even. An attempt to put somewhat decent sentences together right now... Well, I'd be in way over my head. So this is just a quick catch up, to let you know I made it alive, that I'm having a really great time - and of course, that I haven't forgotten about you. Oh, no. This is also a public apology to those of you I haven't had a chance to reply to - I'm thinking of you. I'll get back to each and every one of you very soon and can't wait to catch up!

More soon. Very soon.

Love from the land of Brazil.

The Other Side Of The World

I just spent the last hour and a half ranting and raving and crying and pacing. This is the first time I'm actually typing with the laptop on my lap, as opposed to on a table, leaning against the side of the couch, a blanket over me - because I am shaking - but no warmth is going to take this away. My heart is racing.

In about 5 and a half days, to be precise, I am flying to Brazil and staying for 9 weeks. It's the first time I'll see my parents in over two and a half years and I miss them so very much. If you know me at all you know how close to my family I am and how important to me they are - how fundamental are my roots to the person that I am or hope to become. My family, and that includes my partner, are not only my number one priority, I am also one of those people who believes in the importance of the foundations of my life. I need badly to do some grounding. To reconnect with my culture and be around all things Brazilian - the music, the ocean, the streets, poetry, the sun that shines a certain way only in Brazil, the warm nights, all of it. This trip actually started to be planned when one night a few months ago I called my dad crying in the middle of the night and said "dad, I need to go to Brazil, I really really need some time there". I was feeling so lost and confused, living only by half, tormented by panic disorder and old ghosts that won't leave me alone, completely terrified of destroying my relationship because I was being thrown around by life and not handling anything. I live with the love of my life, and the well-being of our relationship is as important to me as my own. Therefore, this trip was thought of with everybody's well-being and needs in mind. Even though Donna and I have never spent a day apart, I believed this would be incredibly beneficial to all of those involved.

I still do, but my beliefs are hanging by a thread, on the verge of being completely overshadowed by fear. I started shaking today when I bought a couple of things I'm taking to my mom and Julia, then shook some  more when I made an appointment to get waxed from head to toe and by the time I got home I was pacing and ranting. It finally started to dawn on me that this is actually happening. Tuesday is fast approaching and I find myself terrified. Now, I'm supposed to be excited about this, sleepless, thrilled to the core, jumping up and down. I've been needing to do this and wanting to for such a long time I can't even remember. I miss my parents impossibly much, as well as almost everything in Brazil. And I am excited. So very much. But today.... today I started to get scared and I know it won't go away; I'll just have to deal with it. My old and faithful readers know - and the new ones certainly don't since no one bothers with archives anymore - that I have a long and extremely painful history with my parents and alcohol. My mother in particular. My mother has drunk too much and fucked up even more since I was ten. My father, although a peaceful drinker, got hooked when I was sixteen, just moving in with him because if I stayed and put up with it I was going to die. My panic disorder went to lengths I hope to never feel again because I don't know if anything in my life would survive it, even if I managed. I was depressed and destroyed and for three years I did little but suffer while I tried desperately to hang on to the hope that one day it would get better, and I'd feel human again.

My first love followed my mother's footsteps and managed to do to me when I was 24 the exact same thing my mother had always done - and although to a much smaller degree, they both still put me through their drunken stupor, their pathetic coping mechanism that has traumatized me and scarred me forever. So I sit here and think of the beaches in Brazil, the sun on my skin, the summer I've been craving fast approaching. I think of hugging my mom and dad and being close to them for the first time in so long and my heart feels warm and whole. I think of being with Julia and enjoying all the good things with her, my loved sister who is without a doubt my very best friend. I think of seeing friends and laughing about the past, people who remember the person I was before I ever fell in love or acquired an Australian accent, and I think of all the tales I'll hear and all the talking about the past, present and future. I think of the life changing experience that this is going to be and that I need so much.

And then. Then I think of all the pain and suffering that is very likely to be waiting along with all the joy. I think of all the drama, the screaming, the fighting, the unbearable pain, the snapping (on my part) and the walking away that is bound to happen repeatedly (on my part again) - if I'm not in fact running away, as I have done so many times before and will continue to do because I REFUSE to put up with the drunken bullshit. I've lived with it long enough to understand where it comes from, and I've tried helping all too many times - enough to know all I can do, in this case, is to accept that it is the way it is. I believe in people being a whole package, with all the beauty, love, generosity, and the countless sharp bits. I knew a long time ago that it was my choice, and my choice only, to take it - the whole package - or leave it. God knows I'm only too aware of my own shortcomings. I chose to take it and will always do so, because I would never give up the incomparable beauty and preciousness of my mother, not even when the price to pay is as high as living a very real nightmare. My mother is one of the most special people I will ever know and she gave me what very few people are capable of giving. She is the person who comforted me, rescued me and loved me when few others could, and made life bearable when nothing else would. She is also the person who has hurt me the most, who left me scarred and traumatized, unstable and terrified. God and the worst devil imaginable. Always.

I'm nervous in so many ways. I know I will miss Donna in a way that can only be compared to the way I missed Brazil when I fist moved to The Other Side Of The World. I know that this is going to be amazing for me and that I will come back more grounded, re-energized, more centered and with more to give and to learn. But I won't fool myself into thinking it won't be impossibly difficult to bear the distance. I'm a little bit past the point of believing that if I have positive thoughts it will be easier - bullshit. I know this trip is going to be incredible and that it's a journey very much worth embarking upon and I completely believe it will bring me growth as a person, a sister, a daughter, a friend and a lover.  Many incredible things are to come of this. However, as much as I know these things, I also know there is a world of pain awaiting. I'm terrified that the first time I see my mom she will be inebriated, that the first thing I do when I get there is cry, and that I'll long for the arms of my girlfriend to hold me - and she won't be there, although the knowledge that she will certainly be only a Skype call away does bring some comfort - that I know I'll need.

I'm ridiculously happy and so, so completely scared.

(Even though I've been writing this for an hour and a half without giving any thought whatsoever to it being public, to who's going to read it or what they'll think of it - which, I confess, is incredibly exciting and refreshing, particularly because these days I'm so jaded and think about getting rid of this blog more often than not - now that it's done I can't help but think about it, so yet again it can't go without a disclaimer: comments are appreciated, advice not so much).

Unspectacular quirks

"I have been tagged so that I may embrace blogging self-centeredness and force the same on others. I will enjoy this." Says Kim.

And proceeds to tag me. Good words Kim - as usual baby! Now why do so many of us think we're too cool to play meme? Okay, maybe not me 'cause I'm so not cool. Really. And I do play meme. See, I'm digressing instead of doing as asked. Pardon me. I will play.

*drum rolls* 6 unspectacular quirks of mine.

1. I find it incredibly difficult to be brief. Right now, I could write 6 essays about this. At uni everyone hated having to write really long essays. Me, I was relieved, I find so much easier elaborating indefinitely. It's one of the things that make my writing often crazy, and the dissecting and predicting and answering my own questions and explaining over and over isn't for any readers' possible benefit, either. It's how my mind works, I go over everything again and again and again. It's tiring. Here I was thinking I suffered from panic disorder, not OCD.

2. I have abnormally good memory. I started to notice it in school, with spelling, learning foreign languages and equations. Later in life I became the person others seek to remind them of a name, a place or a conversation they forgot. I recall phone conversations word by word, so when someone else is on the phone while I hang out to find out what that important, half an hour phone conversation was about - and they sum it up in a sentence! - I just don't get it. When I press for more, they say that was all. Which is when I get to the conclusion that either a)they're drunk, b)they're demented or c)unlike me, they have the capability of being brief. Hm.

3. I cannot STAND people touching my books. If you do I might have to kill you. They're MINE. Do. Not. Touch. It makes me nervous and terrified and if you bend it the wrong way or (how dare you) get them dog-eared, your chances of survival are very, very slim. Beware of the dog.

4. In my ipod you'll find a combination of artists that can only be explained by having been compiled by different people. The list ranges from Bon Jovi to Frank Sinatra. And Louis Armstrong. Celine Dion to Ella Fitzgerald. Lee Ann Womack to Coldplay. There's Air Supply (go right ahead and scream at me all you like) and Jewel. Al Green and Alan Jackson. Pink and Johnny Mathis. Stevie Nicks and Nat King Cole and Brian Adams. And I'm the one who put it all there. Oh yea.

5. Everyone I know finds my taste in women very odd. (I don't have a taste in men, pardon me boys. I think you're all gorgeous). And what I like in others I don't on myself. Donna has gray hair and I find it incredibly sexy. In fact I find gray hair sexy on most people. But on myself I can't stand it. Dye. Dye. Dye.

6. I'm about to finish a degree in photography, portraits are what I love and do best, and yet I have never, ever photoshoped/airbrushed a photo of myself - not even playing around - and I have no idea why. It never even occurred to me until my sister came to visit and I saw her do it. "Oh yeah, I do it all the time!!" "Really??" "Yeeeaaaaaaa, don't you?" "I've never done it" "NEVER?????" *shocked expression, openmouthed*  It certainly isn't because I think there's nothing to fix. It simply has never occured to me. Odd.

There, I've done it. It only took me half the night with all the distractions. I never would've thought that I could get so completely bored and then take off with the pixies by thinking about myself. Now I know. Thank you for the lesson, Kim! *laughs* Maybe I should write about you and you can write about me next time.

I wanted to make this terribly interesting but I'm afraid I'm actually going to fall asleep in front of the computer. I'm going to be brave and post this even when I can barely read. But there are rules:

1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

Alright, I don't know a whole lot of people anymore on this side of town and I do think some of these gorgeous bloggers might be a bit too cool (or maybe just serious) to post on this, but here we go. Sam, Staz, Jane, Raz, Eliza and Neil.

Your comments are going to have to wait until tomorrow. *explains herself to sleep*

IP Block

I had to block an IP address from viewing the blog. Unfortunately. I could see it coming, too, and I know it's not bulletproof - but I've decided I should give it a go.

So if you're reading this right now, all (3) of you, even if you've never commented before - especially if you are In Australia - could you please leave me a comment and let me know I didn't accidentally ban you? Just a word is fine, I just need to make sure I didn't unfairly and accidentally banned the wrong IP. I had to do some guess work.

Thanks much. Apologies for the inconvenience.

*thinks high school. thinks stalker. bangs head against wall*

Lucky (blogging blues)

The air is incredibly fresh and cold outside and the afternoon graced me with a beautiful moment of blue skies that left me full of melancholy.

I'm already (and still, and yet again) disillusioned and feeling something not unlike bitterness about the blogging world, and ultimately about people. It's not a feeling I welcome, but one I accept for what it is. I surprise myself by getting sad and extremely disappointed, which serves only to remind me - alert me - to having expectations, contrary to what I like to believe. I find myself stumbling upon blog after blog written by people somewhat full of themselves, full of lessons to serve ready and nothing to learn. I am amazed by the fact that people lack the simplicity - and joy - of being friendly and open.

The so-often-written-about feeling of being back in high school strikes me hard, and I never, ever, EVER, want to be anywhere remotely like high school again. The lack of kindness leaves me gasping and wondering why it is I write a blog and not a journal. I know the answers and yet right now they count for nothing.

As the day turns into night, I'm ready to hit "post" at the bottom of the page and not look back for today. I will instead surround myself by all the gifts that life has given me, so many of them right here by my side.

Thank god for the "off" button. I'm, afterall, one lucky girl.

We love (Olympics 2008)

I want to talk about my experience of the Olympics. I've been so confused, emotional, having a hard time writing, learning to blog again (whatever the hell that means), I've been close to my family and sharing special moments across the world... There's been so much. I keep questioning myself, wondering if I should write about this or that, if I should just keep quiet, if I should just soothe myself in an embrace and leave the writing to others. I ponder over what's worth writing about. Wondering how long I'm going to keep writing about writing. Am I entertaining? Or thoughtful or insightful? Or completely dispensable? Should I really be doing this? Who cares? Is it going to make me feel even more lonely? Who the hell wants to know about my damn experience of the Olympics? Puh-lease, Monica. Questions, questions, questions, everywhere I look. I'm tired.

Except, it doesn't matter. It so doesn't matter. This is just me, finding my way; And if I want to get anywhere at all I'll have to start by allowing myself to write about whatever I want, whenever I feel like it. I must be kind and give myself the freedom to be grammatically incorrect, nonsensical, and maybe even completely boring. In the end, it's just me and I'll be the one alone with my thoughts through the night. Worth writing about? I'll take from now on - or try to, at least - a new (so old) perspective. If I think it or feel it it deserves to be written about. If it's boring, stupid or plane lame, so be it.

It's just me. And right now I want to write about my experience of the Olympics. I'm well aware most people have had more than enough of it. It makes me feel like Valentine's day. I embrace the beautiful side of it and take the opportunity to celebrate something while everybody else calls it Hallmark Day and rants about how pathetic it is. Whatever.

I've always been a true romantic.

I've had such an amazing time. I was moved to tears repeatedly, day in day out. I wanted to write a post I was going to call "Dear channel 7" bagging the shit out of their coverage of the Olympics, and then I realised that their HORRENDOUS coverage did nothing to spoil my time.

We've all been connected as a family that we are, from the screen of my computer in Melbourne, Australia all the way to Brazil - Donna, my mom and Julia breaking all barriers of language with cheers, cussing and laughter. So much laughter. Being in Australia makes everything happening at the Olympics so much more emotional to me, because in a way I feel so far away from home - even though this is home now. I also get to barrack for two countries and get angry at them all when they fuck it up.

Here's a little history. I'm crazy about my volleyball. We all are (us Brazilians), although people think Brazil=soccer. And we're damn good at volleyball. So every morning and every night we all gathered in front of my computer and watched Brazil play, beach and indoor, together. On Skype. Most of the time Donna and I actually had to watch the games on the computer, P2P transmission (not quite so legal), terrible image, lag.... because it was the only way to watch it at all.

But we screamed and cheered and I put my Brazil jacket on, yellow and green cotton on my hair, and we forgot about everything else for a moment. I'll tell you right now that those ladies, as well as the guys, work their asses off every single day under circumstances that are so below the ideal. I know that's what it's like in most countries. But I'm Brazilian. Then out of the blue comes a Brazilian girl and wins a gold medal for long jump. Nobody had even heard of her. She talks about her life, I hear the Brazilian national anthem for the first time in years and bawl my eyes out with her. I can't help it.

On to our volleyball. First, let me tell you that we had two Brazilian teams of beach volleyball girls. One of the girls (from the team that was supposed to be the best of the two) got injured and had to leave Beijing. The girl who came to replace her is absolutely fabulous, but the two had never played together. They made it to quarter-finals, to be eliminated by the Americans. The other two made it to the semi-finals, only to be eliminated by - again - the Americans. It was the first time ever we didn't get a medal in the women's beach volleyball. Ever. Then our world champion boys got beaten by no one other than the Americans on the semi-finals too.

But we also had out indoor volleyball girls. The team that had played every single semi-final for the last 20 years and had never got through to the final. (One of the girls was actually playing her 5th and last Olympics). There were so many tears, so many fights, so much work, so many dreams... We gathered here again yesterday to see them play the final. Their very first one. Against, of course, the Americans.

And we won. I cried so much watching these girls hug and cry and scream and jump and be so unbelievably happy. It was so damn gorgeous, and so moving. And so I heard the national anthem again and again I cried. And I missed home. Brazil-home. My dad called me this morning and said "Julia told me you cried last night. I did, too."

What else could we have done?

I spent these two weeks enjoying the people I love the most, right here next to me on the couch and over in Brazil, too. And I had such a fabulous time. Tomorrow is already scaring me. Donna and I had an incredible time together, being able to relax and enjoy each other's company since she's been on holidays for these two weeks. There's been so much love. There is so much love. Tomorrow will be the start of another week and I don't want to let this time go. I've enjoyed the simple and truly important things in life in a way I hadn't in a while. I felt close and connected to the people that I love the most in the world and I was reminded yet again, as I am so often, why I fell in love with this person I chose to spend my life with. Without the burden and tiredness that work brings, I saw her shiny, relaxed, stunning, her heart the most beautiful I could ever dream of knowing. Lucky? Blessed? Privileged? I'm all of them.

I don't want these Olympics, these holidays, to end, and they won't. Not really. As we sit here, the TV shows beautiful images of special moments that happened in the course of these two weeks, gorgeous music in the background, images of China, and they talk about how it all started. Then they say we had "One World, One Dream", and a Chinese man paints characters on a paper to symbolise what we have now, in the end. It says "eternal friendship." It is so utopic, and maybe that's why it doesn't fail to move me. That's what dreams are made of.

As I type, Donna sings a song from a commercial ad that's playing, about the Olympics and Australia. She does it as a kid would, to make me smile, making my heart melt with her sweetness, and I just want to hold her forever. The TV keeps on talking about mountains we climbed, heartaches, surprises, heroes, dreams, the makings of history, victories and memories. And as we sit here once again waiting for the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, I already know I'm going to bawl my eyes out once more and I can only be grateful and thankful to the universe and to ourselves for the fact that we've gone through everything that we have in this big Life and still have our innocence, this ability to appreciate the beauty in things without being bitter or jaded.

We love.

When a word is just a word (the journey)

*edit: I wrote this post on my mobile phone, so it's been (very slightly) edited, given a title and assigned categories. It was also only half an hour after I finished writing that I realised this post is just another way of saying the same thing I did when I answered the first questions of "The Great Interview Experiment". I did write then:

I took a break from all writing. I wouldn't exactly called it a break - although it technically was, I know.  If you had asked me at the time, I would've said I just couldn't do it. I still do find it hard to explain and I think many posts will come from trying to put that into words

Clearly, I was right.

Note: I've decided to send Firefox's spell-checker to hell and write words such as "realiSe" the way we do in Australia. *end edit

I was talking to Donna, my girlfriend, last night about the fact I haven't written in ten days and wondering why. She's been on holidays for almost two weeks now and since that happens so rarely, we've been making the most of our uninterrupted time together. We've been watching the Olympics like mad, going out for very nice coffee, even catching up with friends (we're home bodies 90%98% of the time) and cuddling a hell of a lot, enjoying being close, talking, and also having quiet time together. I love that we can do our own thing and be close enough that we can feel each other's warmth, hold hands or entwine legs. Pure bliss.

That obviously means that even though I have the computer on 24/7 (oh yeah), Gmail and Greader doing their work and tweets popping up on the screen every five minutes, I haven't been reading much at all. In a short and somewhat shallow explanation, well, I just haven't had much time to read or write. I normally spend long ours doing just that, so it's the obvious conclusion.

But is it?

I'm out on my own right now and have been giving it some thought, remembering what I felt like when I used to write every day. Sure enough I did have a lot of time on my hands, but that's far from being all. I was also deeply immersed in myself, in discoveries, in pain, in need, going through a long process of professional analysis and then getting out of it, finding out my mother had cancer, turning my life around because of it, going through the battle with her, being so so scared, wanting so badly to express myself, to connect, to be heard - writing was such a natural response from my heart, my mind and my body. Even my panic disorder making the computer screen blurry made me want to write. It was simply and purely channeled energy.

Pain and angst and my god, youth, all made me write. However, there is also something else, related to it all but deeper still, that made it all happen. I was so switched on. I feel as if time has dulled me - I actually often feel dumb. Not in the traditional sense, but in the depth of my thoughts. I studied literature non-stop, I drank poetry, I lived and breathed the work of geniuses, I listened to music day and night. My mind was fast and so sharp. A simple thing, an image, a word, the dawn, fresh air, a tear, anything got my mind going and relating and co-relating and drove my thoughts to the very corners of my imagination. Everything was lyrical. Anything was poetry. The depth of each thought was potentially endless.

And that is when, even as I write this, I realise what meshing in completely with somebody else did to me. I learned maybe more than ever before, and it was absolutely necessary. I loved with a heart that had never been broken and even though I at times get angry with myself for it, there's nothing I would change if I could, nothing I would take back. The carelessness with which I loved and gave myself was so precious and the beauty of it so infinite. I learned things that no genius could ever have taught me, not in a million years. I learned about innocence, about the child within me that I want and need to preserve, I learned about passion, about giving and taking and about respect. I learned for the very first time about boundaries. I learned about love. But my god. My god. I lost so much.

I lost so much.

Thank god for poetry. Thank god for writing. Something tells me it will be a long way back to myself. 

Domestic bliss (anger)

I'm angry. And I just cannot stand being angry. Anger is, in fact, a feeling I despise. It makes me incredibly frustrated with myself, it makes me want to throw things, it make me want to vomit and it's overall terribly unpleasant.

I'm not the angry type. When something gets to me in a bad way I tend to feel tired, upset, or even very sad. I feel frustrated a lot, which is also hard to shake off. But angry, I just don't cope with.

My mom gets angry a hell of a lot, and did so all too often since I was a kid/teenager. Julia, my gorgeous sister, is also quite snappish. Don't get me wrong, they're not only the people I love the most in the world, Julia is also my very best friend and closest ally in whatever circumstances. She's also the person I admire the most in the world. But I admit, snappish, she is. So was my first girlfriend. I've gotta tell you, it scares the shit out of me, makes me recoil instinctively.

I believe that my being someone who suffers from anxiety, has such an intense personality, very strong opinions, forever blunt and even loud-ish, I suppose most people expect me to be of the explosive type. I think it would make perfect sense if I was. I draw odd looks from people when I tell them I never yell when fighting, never curse when pissed off (which I do at all other times) or when I reveal I'm not the angry type. I might just have gone the other way because I'm traumatized. Because I refused to scream if it meant there was the slightest chance I'd make someone feel the way my mom could make me feel. I refused to be like my mom because I HATED it, and more importantly, she had plenty of amazing things to say and I just didn't want to listen because she was yelling at me. To this day slamming doors devastate me.

If someone yells at me I speak softly. If they get crazy I get more and more rational. If they hurt me I feel sad. But not angry. I'm calm, and above all else I am gentle. It's something I work on and I like being that way - I sure wouldn't mind someone being understanding of me when in a crisis as I am of them. However, I - surely enough - attract people who seem to snap more often than they sneeze, and of course they'll proceed to dump their all their pent up shit on me. And that, after all, is what never fails to make me angry. It makes me FURIOUS. F-U-R-I-O-U-S. Hey, what the fuck? Go take your frustrations out on someone else. What part of "I've done nothing to deserve being treated that way" is hard to understand? Listen, I'm not that understanding that I'll let you get away with that. Understanding, yes. A moron, no.

So here I am breathing angry energy and getting angry too. I try to stop myself from shaking, think of a nice little cottage in the mountains where I'd take off to so I could enjoy this crazy winter by an open fire, be surrounded by books, my computer, chilly fresh morning air, and an endless supply of coffee, all on my lonesome. Just for a few days. If I could afford it. I'd talk to my mom and Julia on skype and they'd watch the games Brazil is playing and Australian TV won't show, and they'd be silly and make me laugh through my angry tears just as they did only a few hours ago. We'd get the cameras working and they'd "awwwwwww" me and "I just miss you so much" me and "your new hair colour looks fabulous, send us a photo" me. And make me feel loved.

I love my girlfriend so very much. I do. She's a dream. And at any given day the situation could be reversed and she could be trying to comfort me - although that is not something she does a lot, which is exactly why the craving is so huge on my part. Right now there's nothing to talk about (I say in an uncharacteristic way, knowing to just let it go). It's not anything that can be mended, it's not an issue. It's just frustration and anger and it will go away.

But right at this very moment she is infuriating me.

*Image above by wordle*

Interview part I

Almost six months ago, Neil came up with a fascinating idea. His words:

“The Great Interview Experiment” was a simple idea.  One person would interview the next person in the comments, creating a chain.  The connections would be random.  A-list bloggers would be interviewed by a newbie who could hardly string two sentences together.  This would strip us all of any hierarchy.  We would be celebrating the medium and our common bond — blogging about our personal lives.   In the personal blogging world, we are all interesting, all worthy of being interviewed.  The experiment did not require any conference panels of blogging “rockstars,” private parties sponsored by websites isolating all the ”top” blogs from the run-of-the-mill ones, or closing keynote speeches by bloggers that everyone has known for years.

It's still happening six months later, and he reviews it and writes again about what drove him to start it. I hope he doesn't mind me taking suck a big chunk of his words, but I didn't want to paraphrase it.

I’m idealistic, but I also understand human nature. I don’t believe most of us truly believe that “everyone is interesting,” Or maybe that’s not the point. We tend to want to interact with others who can “help” us. We want “rockstars” to emulate and “losers” to avoid. We feel the need to segregate and isolate, to box things into clear-cut packages like “mommyblogging” and “Alltop (Does anyone really “love this site” who isn’t also ON the site? Reminds me of Amway)” so we can better handle the chaos of the blogging world… as well as make friends and connections, attract attention, build our egos, and earn some money.

I’m guilty of all of these myself. After a while, you being to want something more out of blogging than just using it as self-therapy. But sometimes, I like to me to remember what excited me about blogging in the first place. It was after my fourth or fifth post — and some guy in Ohio came onto my blog and commented on my lame post about the TV show, “24.” It didn’t really matter what he said.

“This is the coolest thing in the world.” I thought after reading his comment. “Some crazy guy actually gives a shit about what I said. I’m like Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes and I just got my first letter!”

After that, I was hooked on blogging.

I WAS IMPORTANT.

I took a deep breath and signed up and I was interviewed by Gin (she's posting the whole thing on her blog once it's done). She had a good dig through my archives and came up with ten questions for me - some of them very difficult to answer but very good. I've answered the first two, so far.

It was amazing writing about this stuff that has been stuck inside for years (as I said to her, it came flooding out). I thought it deserved a post, so here are the first two questions.

1. Hard not to notice you took a really long break from blogging. You have a long list of archives. You were blogging before blogging was cool. Did you take a break from all writing or just blogging?

(Just today I was thinking about the blogs I used to read six years ago, with the little 'chat box' on the sidebar. It was all so different. Less pretentious. More liberating. This is hard stuff to get used to).

I took a break from all writing. I wouldn't exactly called it a break - although it technically was, I know.  If you had asked me at the time, I would've said I just couldn't do it. I still do find it hard to explain and I think many posts will come from trying to put that into words.

I've never written about those years in detail, so it's a huge deal for me and requires a lengthy response. Back in 2004, when I was still writing voraciously, I used to get a lot of emails from people who read my blog and wanted to thank me for writing about something they particularly identified with, or just to say hello. And I always replied. One of them was unbelievably sweet (it actually moved me to tears) and I wrote a long reply. We emailed back and forth everyday for two weeks and fell in love hard and fast - the connection we shared I can only describe as otherworldly. The writing on my blog started to slow down because I wrote so much on emails to her that there wasn't much left to say, in a way. I was 24, it was my first love and the first time I ever considered a relationship. It was overwhelming, all consuming and incredible, and I worried about her privacy in terms of what I wrote on the blog - still do. I was living in Brazil, where I was born, and she was an Australian living in Melbourne. The first time we spoke, first on MSN and then on the phone, it went on for 13 hours. We both knew what was happening and we weren't quite sure how to handle it.

Well, only a few months before that, on my birthday, I'd gotten a plane ticket from my sister and my mom - I'd been saying for quite a while I wanted to go study overseas and "explore the world". So, cutting the story short, after 5 months of speaking every single day for hours, applying to different schools, organizing visas and all the rest of it, I packed my bags, traveled to the other side of the world and moved in with her.

All I wrote during that time was a post here and there and many love letters. I was too busy falling in love, and then too busy getting my heart broken.

2. Why such a long break?

It wasn't something I decided to do - it just happened. I'm a very passionate person and have a very hard time doing anything without giving it a thousand percent of me, which I guess that was part of it in regards to the blog. My experience online had been terribly intense and I knew it wasn't going to be anything remotely like that when I moved to Australia. And I certainly didn't want anything half-assed. Life was crazy, I was really concerned about writing something that didn't involve just me, and she was jealous because I had a deep connection with my readers. I didn't want to blog anonymously either because I don't see the point (more on that some other time).

I still don't know how to handle the privacy thing - it's very difficult, because I want to write as openly as I did before but don't feel that I can. A part of me would like to write about some of those magical moments in detail, but I don't know if it will ever happen. I don't know who reads my blog but I don't try to hide it. It's my real name and my real life and that's the only way I'll have it.

When I ended things a year and a half later, I was destroyed and had lost all insight and self-awareness that I had. I was a wreck. I was nothing but lonely and lost. I couldn't write because I wouldn't have been able to put two sentences together and I had truly lost the sense of who I was.

I moved on, suffered like hell, had other experiences and a little over two years ago I met the person I want to spend my life with. However, I am still in the process of  - as terribly lame as that sounds - finding myself. I lost too much too hard, and getting to know myself again is a lot harder than letting myself go was.

The interesting thing is, had I been writing, it wouldn't have happened - I am sure of it. Losing touch with myself and not writing is the same thing for me, if that makes any sense. Writing comes to me naturally, almost as an instinct. That doesn't mean it comes easily - I often described the experience of writing using the not-so-sexy image of vomiting my soul. It's often hard and mostly gut-wrenching when it comes from within, which is why it's so powerful and so important that I do it.However, when that connection with my inner self was severed, the writing was gone.

It's a reflection process. When I'm confused, my writing has no beginning, middle or end. When I'm angry it's resentful and bitter, full of "periods" and capitals as if I'm screaming at the world. When I'm anxious it's truncated and difficult. When I'm sad it's full of wondering. When I'm excited it's endless and flooding. When I'm calm it's knowing and certain. When I'm at peace with myself and the world it's simple and to the point. I believe that writing and understanding myself go hand in hand and one is always pushing the other forward.

Another blogging post (let it be)

Yeah baby. More.

I actually don't have a lot to say right now. Well, that's not quite true, it's simply too much and I've forgotten how to write. No, really. I'm still so overwhelmed by the blogaria and yet I seem unable to pull away from it. I don't remember ever reading so much outside the pages of my books (although I'm one hundred percent sure I did) and I seem to be in a permanent stage of confusion in so many aspect that I can't even begin to put it together.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, it just puts my mind into overdrive and the thoughts come up tangled and shy. I know I should just write about anything and get familiar once again with the process of letting it flow from my mind, through my body, to my hands. When I say I haven't really written in two years I don't mean just online (which you already know). I mean at all. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Except for the occasional letter to my girlfriend, who you still know nothing about BECAUSE I HAVEN'T WRITTEN, there was no writing done here. Which means, dear reader, that my head is a complete mess. Writing keeps me sane - it always has and always will and I've known that for almost as long as I've known myself. I needed to keep writing, in whatever way it came out, and instead I just let it slip away from me. The longer it went on for, the harder it became to get it back.

I'm extremely happy to be "here" because it's the first step towards getting myself there again, and probably the most important one, at that. However, I've been reading too much and I find myself at a loss. I don't want to worry about how the writing is going to come out but I do. I don't want to worry about structure or even meaning. But I can't help it. All the "I"s in my sentences, the fact that they're so short, starting them all with "but" or "and", it bothers me. It actually gives me the shits, to put it properly. I need to convince myself to just write, it can be so simple, but I went and read a million posts, half of them about writing, including the judges of the fucking world who write about everybody else's posts and blogs from the height of their almighty goddamn noses - I wonder if they bought TRUTH or if it was up for grabs and I just missed the boat. Hell. I tell myself it is pathetic to be affected by any of it in the slightest... but if I'm honest, I am. I feel as if there are a million pairs of eyes watching me, judging me, criticizing me and although I don't give a shit what they think, I want them gone. I don't want to be stared at.

I am very much aware there are very few people reading this, but that's beside the point. I feel haunted. Sure, I have thought about the very foreign idea of writing on a paper journal, but I don't want to, which is another problem. See, I am also haunted by the past. These archives of mine, the ones right here, this writing made my life as it is now. With them come so many memories of that time and of writing here. Times that were without a doubt some of the most precious I've ever had because I was writing here - it was an enormous part of my life and it changed me forever. I start thinking of everyone that was right here with me, on this very page, and I miss them so tremendously. And then I miss so much that I was and lived then - my mom's apartment where I lived for a year before I moved to Australia, that time that was so difficult but also so full of joy, and I miss my family, I miss the laughter that came side by side with the pain, I miss the friends who I never met and the passion inside me then. It's not that it isn't there, it's just been so long and so much has changed that I can't get myself started.

I also worry about the privacy of whoever I write about, so I freak out. More.

But the worst enemy of all is the self-analyzing that comes with writing - more so when doing it publicly. Blogging makes me so much more self-aware, I learn comstantly, my senses feel sharper and everyhting is clearer. I tend to be more understanding of the world and more kind with myself. More forgiving to the people I love and to myself. The sense and the reality of this community and everything that it brings me, along with the process of writing, makes me better. I crave it. Need it. But I also tend to get obsessively analytical - more than the usual, and I feel the need to write exactly what I'm thinking and how it's happening, I feel like even annotating my breaths, pauses and silences. But when I'm trying to do that and wanting to write a post that is actually "good writing", there is a massive and obvious conflict and I get stuck, caught by my own trap. I don't want to write drafts, edit anything, I have the need to be one hundred percent honest because it's the only way I know how to be.

I know the answer to all of those things. The recaps I want to do of the last couple of years, the 'about me' page I want to write, anything I want to say, I just need to do it however it happens and let it be. I must simply let it happen, and in time everything will find its its place on the page and its way of being. It's okay. I need to take a deep breath and know it's okay. Because it is.

If only I wasn't consumed by self-doubt, criticizing myself so much, analyzing every goddamn thing so profoundly. Christ.

*Note: I wrote most of this yesterday, edited a million times, hated it, drafted it. My god I never draft. Now i finished writing and I'm just. Going. To post it. The end.