mad-and

My memories from 10 years are pretty crystal clear. I remember some days like I remember last week.

What sticks with me from that year was this sense of hope that I had. Hope for better times. Perhaps I could finally feel happy by seeing the girl that I've been talking to online. Perhaps school could become better and I'd feel more at ease with everything in my life.

What was my life back then, anyways?

It was rather mundane. I'd wake up, go to school and then I'd come home and stay online with her and then maybe do some homework, watch a movie, and then going to sleep.

Daydreaming, listening to music, arguing with mom, stressing out about school.

Writing on that RHCP forum I ran. Waiting for new albums from Bon Jovi, Velvet Revolver and The Smashing Pumpkins.

I was skinny, I had very bad acne, I had zero self-confidence, I was deeply in love and infatuated, I had no money.

But life felt good in a way.

I remember one Friday during that February when together with an ex-classmate we went to the train station to look up the times for various trains that could take me closer to her. I remember this being so difficult to achieve, like she was living on the Moon or something.

It seems rather absurd now, of course. But it was the reality back then due to the fact that I had no money and I still lived with mom and dad and they practically had a say in everything.

She wasn't nice to me that night -- a behavior that forebode later cruelty but I forgot easily back then.

And then I remember this most beautiful Saturday when I woke up early to go help dad do some work.

And I remember cleaning my room and looking out the window as the sun reappeared after months of winter.

And it was a glorious day and I felt happy like finally my time has come.

Bon Jovi released their new single that day if I remember correctly.

And it was a good song, now the type of shit that they'd release years later.

It was a good day. I had a moment of clarity that obviously stayed with me long after.

My birthday was fats approaching and I was finally turning 16. I somehow felt old, mostly because I still hadn't kissed a girl.

But that would soon change and I wanted to make it happen.

I asked dad if I could go see her. I said I didn't need anything for my birthday if he'd allow me to go see her.

He said no, of course. And I can't blame him.

But by April the 'no' became 'maybe' and then I took a train and off I was to see this girl I've been talking to.

To kiss her and feel truly happy for the first time in my life.

A glorious year this 2007.

'What the fuck are you doing?'

I closed her profile on Facebook. It's insane. Why would I ask her if she went to see La La Land? Why would I do that?

Do I simply need her attention? t's nuts, I don't love her, I haven't seen her in 3 years now.

And it's been 5 years since we've been together.

She's far away, happy with some other guy. Why the fuck do I care if she saw La La Land or not?

It's funny how the mind works. It tends to erase all the negativity and you end up feeling melancholic about certain people in your life.

You romanticize certain years or events. You forget that you weren't right together but at the same time, whatever happened between the two of you was something you both needed.

And I needed her and I'm happy I got to know her.

You know that stupid saying, you should be happy it happened, not sad that it ended.

Why can't we do both?

Anyways, it's another January out there and it's cold and I'm getting fatter and lazier and more depressed than ever.

I feel like I'm heading nowhere fast, like the nowhere man that I am.

I really hope she did go see La La Land... and at the end, maybe she thought of me for a second.

See?

This is why I go to a fucking psychologist.

When I'm not too sleepy to do so, that is.

I sleep too much, I don't work enough, I spend too much money on shit I don't need.

This is me. 26 years old almost.

Lovely.

It has been a very interesting year that will provide much fascination down the line. It's been a year of a lot of mistakes and lessons learned. I look at myself from a year ago and once again I see a naive person which is good, I guess. It means that I bettered myself in some shape or form. I don't feel inspired anymore these days. It eludes me, it's never there when I need it. And I do need it, more than ever.

I was looking at a photo of you from some time ago... you were sitting on my bed, smiling and taking a selfie. You look so beautiful in that photograph. It pains me to look at it but I'm glad you sent it, that I have it. It makes the experience all that more real and I need that... Because time goes by and you become anything but real... you become another myth in my existence, another distant memory that gets distorted.

But we live on, frozen in time. Lifeless, on that bed of mine, in the deep nights of November. I wish I could remember your scent, I wish I could recall your voice.

I wish so many things.

But we march on, we have to. And who knows where the fuck we're headed. Maybe nowhere, maybe into greatness, I don't know.

I'm afraid of running into you on the streets. I see you sometimes in other women, but it's never you. And it's a relief...

And it's a regret.

These are my days. Frozen winters in time of me losing over and over again.

Of fear and abandonment.

Of learning the hard way.

Always the hard way.

Is there another way?

I'm supposed to be in bed by now. After all, it's 4am. But I came across these photos of my old high school, and I just had to open up this journal of sorts and jot down some memories. It's been 10 years since my freshman year in high school. One of the more difficult years of my adolescence.

My small town high school went through some reparations of sorts where they fixed up the old buildings and they also built a new one which amazingly enough, looks uglier than the older ones. Same old cheap, grey Romanian building with zero personality and zero architectural qualities.

But who the fuck needs that anyways?

What bothers me the most is the fucking football field they built right in the middle of the entire campus. And it's sealed off with these tall fences. It looks retarded.

It's as if the new Apple Campus would have a big fucking fenced off football field right in the middle.

But then again, it makes perfect sense for them to do that. I don't exactly remember my old high school for its smart and competent people. And no, it's not a fucking family as they describe it on Facebook. At least it wasn't 10 years ago.

It was a joke. A really bad one at that.

Teachers who should have never been teachers, principals who don't care about students and class masters who are totally useless and afraid.

Shit, I guess it IS like a family after all.

A Romanian family.

All jokes aside -- my high school years were a total waste of time that didn't teach me anything. Maybe a bit more humiliation and helplessness. Like I didn't get enough of that at home.

I remember all those old teachers that were just fucking awful with their students. It angers me because these were people with a certain type of responsibility but they couldn't care less.

No one tried to inspire you at my high school. They were far too busy trying to scare you into studying. They terrorized you from the start. Stern, ugly people. Some of them died a few years ago. Good fucking riddance.

I remember that poor kid who killed himself at 16 years old because he thought he wouldn't graduate his freshman year. He was so terrorized by the thought that he would fail chemistry (when in fact, it was just a cruel ploy by the teacher, to threaten students).

That poor kid... He went home on a June day and he just hung himself. And nothing ever came of that. No one ever batted an eye.

The scumbags went on teaching and us, we went on studying.

Or pretending.

It was all a big 'let's pretend'.

I remember my first day of high school. Super shy, a bit scared, a bit excited. New faces, old faces. I had no idea what was ahead of me. That first fall of high school was debilitating. I remember that disappointing revelation that most of the teachers were not your friends, were not mentors, they were not even fucking teachers. They were enemies.

It was mind games and bad grades and fear and a slow descent into carelessness and apathy.

And that still characterizes me.

I could never grow to respect the academic medium. Especially after I graduated and came to the big city. I just couldn't. I couldn't take it seriously. To me they were all enemies. They were against me. They were not there to help me achieve something. They were not there to teach, to inspire, to help you grow.

They were there to fuck you up.

So I quit. Twice. Because it was bullshit.

In this country, it IS bullshit.

As bullshit as that new fucking building they built. They can build as many buildings as they want if they're totally unable to build up people. Because in the end, that's what they're there for. To build you up, help you grow. Especially when you're in your adolescence, some really fucking crucial and vulnerable years of your life. Years that will follow you forever.

I always disliked my high school. Today, after 10 years I reminisce. Of all the teachers I had, of all the colleagues I had. Of all the pain and loneliness.

Of all those wasted opportunities.

Of all those wolves at my door.

 

I grew up in poverty. It wasn't all that bad, but I remember that at times, the simple concept of having meat in the refrigerator was pure luxury that we couldn't afford. I also remember quite well how a bottle of Coca-Cola was something special that you could rarely have. There were times when we used to scour the entire house for pennies in order to buy bread.

I don't hate these memories. After all, these were the moments in time that taught me humility.

The moments that I DO hate, however are the ones that taught me humiliation and instilled a sense of fear.

Quite the difference between the two, humility and humiliation.

Back then, you could ride the bus and the train for free if you were under a certain age. And my parents sure loved to take advantage of that privilege, by forcing me to lie about my age. The bus drivers all knew, of course. I looked way older than what I was claiming to be. And I hated doing that. Why couldn't I buy myself a regular ticket. Why couldn't I ride the bus or the train without the fear that I might get caught.

Once I did the fatal mistake of telling the bus driver that I was actually older than 7 or 9, or whatever was the cut-off age. When you're a kid, you have this sense of pride when you cross a certain age and it felt like shit having to lie about it. I wanted people to know that I wasn't a little kid anymore. I was a boy now!

Boy, was that a mistake.

I remember the angry look on my dad's face when I did that. I tried to redress it, of course. It was bullshit, anyways. It's not like the driver didn't know. Everyone pulled this shit back then. Poor country with poor people. I probably got a slap for that when we arrived home. Made sure to never do that again.

The train rides were usually worse, since you'd also receive a nagging feeling of anticipation. On the bus, it was instant shame. On the train, however, it always took a while until the conductor came and asked you for your ticket. So we'd spend 10-15 minutes in horror, thinking that we'd be kicked off in the middle of nowhere. This is a fear that didn't really leave me once I became an adult.

We were instructed to look out the window, act like we're invisible. Make ourselves unnoticed. Maybe this way the conductor will look through us like we didn't even exist.

He never did, of course. He always asked about our age. And we were forced to listen to our parents lie.

I guess I repressed these memories for a while. They came back today, while watching a short movie about a young kid and his dad going into town to fix their TV.