The hippie chick returns

It was a nice winter night. My first semester was about to come to an end. It was the night of the Christmas Lights on campus. The whole campus would be lit; a huge party was taking place in one of the campus plazas. I was going with a few friends and we were just hanging out at the apartment. Suddenly, a car stops in front of my place and someone waves at me. I take a look outside and there she is. The hippie chick reappeared. In a few seconds my life became a mess again. All the feelings that I had managed to suppress were coming back at once. I didn't know how to feel. We went to the party. Once again I found myself under the moon and the stars (this time with fireworks as well) sitting with the one person that made me doubt everything I had ever felt.

She never really said why she left. The story didn't really make sense and it seemed like she was just wasting my time. I didn't really understand why she came back to see me, but it felt like she was playing with me… Keeping me interested enough not to give up on the idea. Giving me just enough hope not to forget about her. Her life was a mess, but she wanted to keep "the nice guy" around just in case she ever decided to get her shit together…

Back then I was naïve enough to actually play that role… and I did, pathetically well. I few more events occurred with this girl, each one as illogical as the previous, but I played along. I was inexplicably intrigued by that one, and it would be a while before, she stopped popping in and out of my life.

The hippie chick

It was a month into my first year in College. I was single and I was free. I was young and felt that my life was about to get better. I saw her three days a week and never spoke. Her crazy long hair looked as if she just got out of bed and went straight out the door. She wasn't particularly cute, but I found it hard not to like her. She spoke freely and seemed intent on being a rebel. Her eyes said things that I did not really understand. There was a lot I never understood about this girl.

One day after class, we went for lunch at the old place up the hill. It was a one of my favorite places. It was inside the campus, but secluded enough to make you forget everything and everyone around you. We talked about many things. I was overwhelmed by the fact that the person I found so interesting thought that I was the interesting one (Something I would not really understand until much later).

It was a Monday night and I had just gotten out of a 3 hour class at 8:00pm. It was a great night. Nice clear skies gave room for the moon to shine on our hilly campus and I decided to stick around instead going to my apartment. I was sitting by the Theater and I noticed her coming toward me. I was glad to see her there. She was heading to a big theater event scheduled for the entire week and asked me to join her.

An outdoor stage had been setup at the top of what we called Olympus. It was impressive. For one whole week, people from several different countries were to come together here every night, under the stars and the moonlight. One week of live theater from all over the world. It was a great event, unforgettable. And I got to share it with her. Every night that week, we met at Olympus to see the acts. The week ended strangely… it seemed like we said goodbye that Friday. For the next few months we didn't really see each other or speak much. She had stopped going to class for some reason. I rarely saw her. When we did see each other it felt empty. Something was missing. One day she just disappeared.

She has been my strangest friend. I tried to make sense of it, tried to forget about her, and sometimes it seemed like life had a plan for us if only we would listen, but who really listens at 18?

I am just curious

Curiosity is a strange creature. Selective as can be, it chooses some and ignores others completely. I am a very curious person. The question is: how curious can a person get without getting into trouble? In most cases, I believe that curiosity can get a seemingly normal person into great trouble. For many years I chose to keep many of my deepest thoughts secret. All the things I wanted to do, but never dared to do, kept accumulating in my mind.

Like many people, I saw my curiosity as something incompatible with the everyday experience. So I kept it quiet. I made sure to look seemingly normal. On the inside I was going out of control. All the experiences that my mind could come up with were soon to be within my grasp. All I needed to do was find creative ways to manifest my minds needs without other people noticing.

Every now and then I would open my little Pandora's Box and liked what I saw. The problem is that after you take the first look it virtually impossible to stop. It started with small things, but little by little it escalated into a truly life changing experience. Trying new things, new experiences, and new sensations became an addiction. Sometimes I might have felt extremely deviant. Sometimes things were not exactly what I expected. The one thing that has always been consistent is that with every single curios experiment my thirst for more has only increased.

I've become addicted to my curiosity. It doesn't scare me as much as it used to. I'm just not sure how normal you seem when it becomes obvious that you live your life one curiosity at a time. How normal can someone be when they lose the need to blend in with the crowd?

I have issues with control

Most people out there are somewhat content with their lives. I have issues with control. Actually, I have an issue with other people having control of my life. I prefer to live and let live, though apparently that is not always possible. Every singly social relationship that we establish has some sort of exchange of power. I hate it when others try to have power over me. I also hate co-dependence. That is probably the worst kind of exchange. In co-dependence, we consciously choose to give someone else the power to control us in exchange for the power to control them. It very stupid, but everybody does it at least once in their life. Some poor souls live that way forever.

I was once asked to describe myself during a Psychology course in College. My answer was "free spirited". The professor said: "Really, you have no attachments, no responsibilities?" I said: "Well, maybe I do have those, but I feel that I am meant to be a free spirit." In a calm and sincere voice he said: "That's a very difficult thing to achieve, but I understand perfectly".

From that day on my life changed. I started looking at myself, not the way I thought I was or the way I wanted to be, but how I really was. I thought I knew myself and in one moment, one very simple question, I saw what I truly was. I was not even close to my ideal; I was on the wrong path. Everything that I was doing in my life, all my choices and decisions were taking me farther and farther away from that image of myself that I treasured so much. I was not liberating myself, becoming a "free spirit"… I was chaining myself to the conventions of social norms and structures, trying to be normal, trying to be functional according to someone else's definition of the term. I had to change, but how? It would take years…

I hurt the ones around me

I allow others to close to me. Maybe too close. I have tried to get away from people, but for one reason or another I find myself surrounded by great people. This should be a good thing, but I am a dangerous soul. At first glance, I am visually appealing. I am well mannered, well spoken, intelligently intriguing, and respectful. Once people notice, something inside them draws them to me. Slowly, my company becomes a necessity. I might give subtle hints that there is a lot more to me than what they see. Innocently, they start to come closer. Little do they know that they have only seen the tip of an iceberg.

The problem I seem to have is that all the features that make me so attractive slowly become painful. As people notice that my needs are greater than what they can give, frustration begins to appear on their beautiful faces. When all the love they can give me is never enough to satisfy me, sadness arrives. When after giving and giving they find that they don't receive the same attention, desperation consumes them.

It is not my intention to hurt the ones that get close to me. I just don't want to hurt myself trying to give them the type of happiness that they think I am able to give them. I have tried to convince myself that it doesn't have to be this way. I don't have to hurt anyone… Maybe they hurt themselves by getting close to me.

Waiting, just waiting…

We are always waiting for something. I've gone through most of my years waiting for something big to happen. Maybe I'm not supposed to wait. Maybe I should make it happen. Am I just waiting for the right moment? I'm not quite sure what it is that I am waiting for.

I'm always waiting for my life to somehow change. Maybe I want things to get better, but when they do I feel that it's not enough. Nothing is ever enough. My mind wants great things, things too great to just wait for them to happen. I'm just having a hard time figuring out exactly how to get there. Every journey has its price and sometimes the price is a lot higher than we expect.

If I decide to go on my trip through life the way I am meant to, I know that I will probably lose many of the comforts that I have managed to accumulate in my seemingly normal path. I haven't decided if I'm willing to pay that price yet. It has taken me many years to reach this point and changing everything to chase the unknown is simply scary.

I'm waiting for the fear to leave me. I'm waiting for my life to change. I'm waiting, just waiting…

I have anger toward my father

I can't say too many bad things about my life growing up. My brothers and I had a roof over our heads, we were never hungry, and both of our parents were present. My mother was always a gentle and happy person. She did anything for her kids. My father, on the other hand, had issues. He struggled with anxiety and depression for most of his life. The effects of his mental illness marked me and my brothers deeply. From a very early age we were indirectly forced to cope with my father's instability.

I remember being afraid of him when I was very young. He used to stay in his room, dark and gloomy. Anything we did that resembled joy and playfulness could potentially anger or disturb him. I'm sure he had moments of short lived happiness, but I really can't remember any. Growing up we grew accustomed to his illness, but that didn't make things any easier. We had inadvertently fallen into his world. I was the eldest, and for reasons beyond my own comprehension, turned out to be the most affected.

Strangely, I inherited some of my father's symptoms. While I see myself as a total opposite, I'm probably the person most like my father. I have worked really hard not to be like him, so over the years I have taken my own depressive personality and shaped into something very unlike him.

I developed anger toward my father. I feel that his failed attempts to understand life have crossed over into my own. My search for meaning has often driven me to try to understand my father's madness. He would stay up late at night (and still does) reading book after book, taking disorganized notes on infinite notebooks, writing distorted versions of a reality that only exists in his own mind, and talking about his shit like if it made any sense.

Even after years of moving away from him, I still receive a phone call every now and then. I have to listen to my father talk about his childhood (the same stories over and over again). He asks me for advice. I try really hard to help him objectively. But deep down, I know he will only take two or three words that made sense to him and add them to his distorted discourse as he sees fit.

I have secretly read his notes. I have seen my name on several pages. I don't understand what he is trying to find and don't think he'll ever find anything. He is getting old and is alone in the world. All he has are his books, his notes, and his severely distorted memory of what his life has been. Maybe I'm not really angry… maybe now I just feel sorry for the guy.