A shadow on the wall.
Hello, dear Diary! It’s such a joy to write to you. So much is going on and there is so much that needs to be said…I don’t even know where to start.
Today was a warm and eventful Sunday. Although I never even left the apartment, I feel like I’ve conquered a mountain today. We decided to dedicate today on cleaning up. I love cleaning up. Steve had to leave after some time to go to the village called Agios Theodoros to meet his sister there. They had some important business to discuss. And it’s for the better that he left me by myself, because I feel much more concentrated when I can clean alone. Cleaning up is considered a form of therapy by some and I totally agree. Today was perfect for me considering that I needed to get involved in something that allows me to ponder over the things that have been taking place recently. Last night I uncovered yet another part of me that was in great need of my loving and attention. It was the 18-year-old me around the spring of 2003 and the nearing of the end of the high school days. In the last night’s meditation I asked my 18-year-old self to come forward and tell me everything he wanted me to know about him and I asked him to express everything that is troubling him. So cleaning up gave me the most wonderful opportunity to converse with him and encourage him to tell me more about himself.
There was so much to do. I began as usual with doing my bed, washing the dishes and straightening out the couch covers in the living room. Then I continued with the usual routine: dusting off the kitchen, then the living room, then the bedrooms etc. The best part of the cleaning up was the final part of it: the balcony. Usually when I feel less inspired than today, I would feel hesitant about doing too much. Today I felt more than energetic. And it was just another chance to dig deeper within myself while in a physical activity. Reaching those dark, dusty corners can be a very rewarding thing to do. I feel like my awareness expands when I make the effort to clean up where I normally wouldn’t. And that just feels very good! The more I do…the more I want to do. Steve has done a marvelous job with the balcony so far – it’s so full of all kinds of plants and flowers, hanging and climbing, colorful and fragrant, that you begin to think you have suddenly gotten lost in a jungle. But it needed some serious dusting and sweeping up…all those dead leaves and blossoms. Now it’s a joy to go out on the balcony and just smell the clean air.
I’m inspired to the very core of me by the moving shadows of the plants. When I see that, it makes me feel the eternity. Time stops. And there are just those shadows, playfully moving slightly here and there. Such beauty.
Now to return to my healing process. Finally after all the cleaning and after many inner dialogues I showered off and meditated. When I felt very centered and calm I asked my 18-year-old self to step forward and share himself with me. At first he seemed a little unwilling to say too much, but then I reassured him that he is finally safe and sound and home is here in the heart. And that I love him infinitely. I asked him what he wanted me to do for him to feel happy. Then he finally told me what really has been troubling him. It was the trauma of a brutal attack by that monstrosity who used to be my brother…until he finally proved that we have nothing in common and I decided I have a brother no more. It was the night before my national Estonian language exam and I felt very nervous, because life then seemed a complete mess. It was some time around March or April. I had previously tried amphetamine a couple of months ago and that had completely thrown me off balance. Well…there wasn’t that much balance in my life anyways, but the drug-taking only aggravated things further. I had no stable home which I craved so very much. Since my early childhood I lived in a broken home with a hysterical mother. I’ve forgiven my mom everything now, because I understand the hardships that she had to deal with as well. But nevertheless the truth is that my life was far from being anything rosy. I basically lived in hopelessness, there was a dark cloud over and around me all the time. From a lack of guidance I didn’t say no to the drug experience. It was a welcome relief to all the pain I felt. The combination of extreme sensitivity, lack of a warm and stable home, no friends to count on or to enjoy myself with, my homosexuality, my dreadfully serious personality, the bullying everywhere and my absolute brute of a brother, who never felt the slightest bit of remorse whenever he went into one of his aggression modes. You couldn’t be yourself around him. Dare to express any bit of anger or disturbance around him and he would basically nearly murder you in his blind rage. He never even said sorry. That miserable night before the exam I was trying to get some sleep after cleaning up all day long. I was the only person apart from my mother, who was never at home, that would clean up mostly all the time. My brother lived a careless life, stealing and getting imprisoned every now and then, hanging out with his “friends”. I tried to stay away from taking life too easily. I would hate to end up like my brother. Anyways, as he got home around 1 am or so, I had already fallen asleep, but became awake soon as I heard the door shut. It was probably raining outside, because he brought a lot of dirt inside with him. That pissed me off, because I’d just labored like a madman to get everything nice and clean. I may have sounded a tad grumpy or perhaps even bitchy… And then suddenly I found myself curled up in bed crying and frantically trying to protect myself form all the blows coming from all the directions. I remember him constantly kicking me in the head with his feet. There was no justice in that moment. What did I do to deserve this awful attack? There was no one there to protect me. I had to deal with all alone. As anyone would do trying to survive in a dangerous situation…I sucked it all up and after an hour of crying I went up to my brother and suggested that we get some “speed”. It was an instinct. I needed to feel good again. The exam didn’t go very well at all…I got only 45 points out of 100. A dreadful result. I wrote a literary essay about the state of politics during that time. I had made numerous spelling mistakes and missed out commas, but the story itself got acclaim. Sadly it didn’t earn me the necessary points to get an honorable or a dignified result at least. I considered appealing the result and trying again…but I left Estonia and it all got left at that. I didn’t particularly need that exam for a life in Cyprus anyways. After this incident I became even more closed in and scared of social interactions. Whenever someone gets angry…I just dread the blind rage that might appear even when there is no actual reason for it. It’s an unreasonable fear and I know it’s rooted in the fear of death. But at the time of the attack I also felt anger, but obviously there was no way for me to show it…I was scared senseless!
That’s all that became revealed to me so far. And it’s been refreshing looking back at my life when I still used to doubt in God and in destiny. I just didn’t know things so well back then. Now I’ve re-membered my 18-year-old self and I intend to shower him with even more love. Hopefully he will share more with me! I’m all ears.
It’s been a long and fruitful day and now I will draw it to a close by saying: Dilige, et quod vis fac!
