Love and Skydiving - A Well-known Metaphor

Have you ever sky-dived? 

The scariest part of sky-diving is the part where you’re sitting on the edge of the plane, and you’ve just watched the people before you jump out and become tiny black dots in a matter of seconds.

You’re sitting on the edge, wondering why you ever thought it would be a good idea to fly 13000 feet up in the air in a tiny airplane, strap yourself to a stranger and jump out of the plane.

But once you’re there, sitting on the edge, you don’t have a choice. The guy you’re attached to has all the power and when he pushes you out of the plane, the only thing you can do is try to remember to breathe.

The first few seconds are absolutely terrifying. There is no up or down. There is no center of the world. There is only cold air and complete confusion.

The guy you’re attached to knows what he’s doing though. So even though it feels like an eternity, you are very quickly horizontal in the air, arms and legs bent in the correct position.

You are now rushing toward the ground faster than you could ever have thought possible.

Once you’re falling like this you can’t scream. The air is rushing toward you in far too great a speed, forcing into your lungs. So you grit your teeth and do your best to just breathe. The air burns cold as you breathe in through your nose. You remember you were supposed to look up and once you do that, the fall doesn’t seem quite as scary. Keeping your eyes on the horizon you see the mountains. The pretty, pretty sights. And if it wasn’t for the difficulty of breathing and the rushing sound of air you might be able to forget that you’re hurling towards the earth in 60 miles an hour.

You actually fall for such a long time that it starts to feel a little bit comfortable. It’s still a chaotic sensation of wind and coldness, but the view is pretty and the feeling is exhilarating.

Then the guy on your back signals that it’s time to pull the chute.

You might have thought that the best part of a sky-dive is the falling. But falling is overrated.

When the chute opens and you go from 60 miles an hour to 10 miles an hour it feels like time stops and you’re just stuck in the middle of heaven, floating.

Serenity.

That is the word that best describes this feeling.

The rushing sound of the wind stops and you suddenly realize how peaceful the earth really is. You look down, and everything is still tiny below you.

Insignificant.

And still so very important.

But this post isn’t just about sky-diving. It’s also about love.

Whenever I kiss a guy I really, really like, I get this feeling that I’m falling without a parachute. It’s the most exhilarating, fantastic, and scary experience. And you’re so lost in falling that you forget that you’re even supposed to be wearing a parachute.

I’ve come to not particularly like these kisses. Because when you fall without a parachute it’s going to end bloody.

Last weekend I kissed an old friend. We have always balanced that fine line, but timing has never worked out before now. And it’s not true love – we’re both too jaded right now for that. And we each deal with issues that make us unfit for each other. But I trust this guy more than any other. I’ve told him my deepest darkest secrets. And he hasn’t rejected me. He’s been there. And we’re not super tight like that. We don’t hang out that often. But for the last ten years he’s been the guy I knew would always be on my side. He’s been my friend. And I’ve been his friend.

Anyway. We kissed. And it just felt so natural. So comfortable and effortless. As I left his place and took the bus home I felt safe and completely happy with myself and my actions. Because I knew I trusted him. I knew I liked him. But I also knew that I didn’t have to be afraid of us ever becoming a couple. Of us building a future together. Of me sacrificing my dreams for his happiness (the story of most of my relationships). It just felt right.

It felt like he was my parachute.

And I know I’ll land soft on the ground sometime in the future. Everything has to end after all. But right now I’m just enjoying floating in the air.

Because after all falling is overrated.

An Annoyingly Deep Post

I haven’t said much here. I’ve always used this blog as a place to moan and bitch and be annoyingly philosophical (and occasionally to gush about geeky stuff). 

I saw this blog as a relatively safe place to be negative and whiny.

But there’s never a safe place to do that. You shouldn’t try to minimize the pain you inflict on others. You should try to figure out why you have this need to whine or be negative in the first place.

I got a roommate when I moved over here. She told me I needed to get out of my own head. She said it was okay that I bitched, moaned and complained to her. She wanted me to come out of my shell. It’s not that I’m shy. I’m not. But I protect myself from the world (side-effect: protecting the world from me).

Being that level of open with another person might seem trivial to those who already know how to do that, but it’s a whole new world to me.

The thing is, once you start to open up, once there’s somebody else than yourself listening to your thoughts, it becomes clear that something isn’t right.

So far in my life I’ve managed to create coping mechanisms (deny, deny, deny all the problems). But I don’t want to deny my problems. I don’t want to develop coping mechanisms. I want to not have a need for them anymore.

No more thinking 15 steps ahead, trying to anticipate the actions of others, to try to figure out how they will end up hurting me.

Did you know that if you think 15 steps ahead, everybody will potentially hurt you? And then you begin to take steps to avoid them hurting you. You try to please them. Try to make them like you, so they will nice to you in return.

The underlying assumption is that they will hurt you. They might not intend to, but they will end up doing it anyway. It’s just a matter of time (this is a lesson learned through experience). And since they don’t mean to, it’s up to you to stop it.

Crap has happened to me and I’ve been hurt. I guess it has happened to a lot of people. My personal way to deal with it has been to say that it was okay, because the person responsible for the sending the shit-storm my way didn’t know better.

But you know what? That’s fucking bullshit.

People should know better than to bully each other. To torment each other. To lie. To use violence.

I’d like to think I am this complex mess. That my problems are truly unique. That at least in my level of fucked-up-ness I can be something special. But I’m really not. My personal set of problems are just a regular round of trust issues, coupled with mild anxiety and debilitating feeling of guilt.

Trust more. Worry less. Forgive those around you and yourself.

Yeah.

Fuck if I know how, though.

Observations of the American People

Once you go somewhere that doesn't have this, you immediately want it. 

You are generally more open and engaging towards strangers than Danes. You say what’s on your mind, and I kind of like that about you.

You are seriously obsessed with the flu. Get over it. You do not need to get a vaccine. If you get ill, you’ll still survive. I promise.

People in Washington really do love to hike.

You are incapable of pronouncing Danish words (including my name). It’s highly entertaining to hear you try though.

You really do need a car to get around. Mostly also because campus is kind of boring.

Everybody in college wears sweats. I only packed my pretty clothes (because, really, why do anything else?) and while I do feel fabulous all the time, I’m also aware that I’m most likely the only one to be in a skirt and heels.

Apparently the general consensus of Americans is that if a female has short hair, she must be a lesbian. And while it’s always nice to know that I’m welcome in the Diversity Center, it’s a little overwhelming to be surrounded by a flock of shorthaired lesbians/bi/whatever, who assume I need a ‘safe place’ to hang out.

Also, why are there no taxes in Oregon? It’s like this mythical place of wonder and Voodoo Donuts and no taxes.

... yeah.

It happened. I officially lost another boyfriend.

No, I didn’t misplace him. He’s not that kind of lost.

I left him in Denmark. I told him I didn’t want a long distance relationship.

And now, a month later the gravity of the situation has hit him.* He changed his status to single on facebook.

Everything has an expiration date.

I don’t know what I expected. That nobody was gonna get hurt, I think.

Ugh, I am such a bitch.

But whatever. We had a good run. It ended. Time to look to the future, I guess.

What I really want to do is watch Fight Club on repeat. But I'll settle for this video of Joseph Gordon-Levitt singing Lithium.

*A side-effect of being honest: You hurt people. 

The Irrationality of Rationality

I had an existential crisis the other night. I had moved into campus and met my new roommates. We were talking about decorating the living room area by putting up posters and fairy lights. I got on amazon looking for posters. And that’s when the ‘fun’ started.

I looked through what must have been thousands of posters, and even though I tried,  I truly couldn’t pick out something fit for hanging in a living room. It was ridiculous.

I kept looking for that perfect thing that would fit in and give a sense of ‘home’ to the white walls. Nothing was good enough. And the few posters I did find, I wasn’t comfortable buying, because what if my roomies didn’t have the same taste as me? What if they didn’t like them? There was just too many variables to take into account.

My roomie saw me struggling and promptly told me to back of the poster-searching. That she would take care of it.

“You don’t need to put that much thought into it, you know? It’s just posters,” she said.

I wanted to agree with her, because somewhere in the back of my mind I knew she was right. But I just looked at her and hyperventilated slightly, my fingers still itching for browsing through just one more page of posters, because maybe the poster would be there.

She shook her head in disbelief. “God, how did you ever choose a college?”

The truth is I didn’t. I stumbled over it and thought ‘Why the hell not?’

I know that’s not what you’re supposed to say. I’m supposed to say that I chose to do this because it is a dream of mine (which it is). But I never dreamt of Pacific Lutheran University. I dreamt of the states. So how did I end up here in Tacoma? A combination of availability, timing and the will to act (I can feel that I’m a student again, because I immediately thought of the garbage can theory).

I spent one of my exams last year, arguing to my professor that it didn’t matter what actions what taken. What was importance was the simple fact that an action was in fact taken. The human mind and its inclination to eliminate cognitive dissonance would soon come up with more than enough reasons for why that particular action was taken.

You didn’t need a rationale beforehand. That would manifest itself soon enough as your need for a personal narrative would take over and create a story that incorporated your actions and made sense.

Even though I know that there is no way to act rational, I always try to do it. I look at all the posters to find the best one (and do you know how many posters amazon has? It’s freaking daunting). I try on all the shoes in the store in my size before buying any (if that). I routinely browse ikea.com and the likes in order to find the perfect bookcase (three year into the search, and it still hasn’t happened [but does that mean I give up and just buy something that is ‘good enough’? Of course not, because I’m stupid like that]. The result? All my books are piled in countless stacks on the floor).

It’s not perfectionism, as my roommate assumed.

It’s not stupidity, as I’m inclined to believe.

It is a deeply irrational attempt at acting rational. Or rather, it’s an attempt to control the world around me by collecting all relevant data (even though that’s impossible).

I think I’ll stop trying to do that. It’s quite stressful.

A Bite out of New York City

I’m alone.

For the first time since Thursday I’ve spent more than 20 minutes by myself.

I’m sitting at a café a block and a half down from the hotel. It was deemed an acceptable distance by my sister. She takes her responsibilities as Big Sister very seriously and I can’t blame her. I wouldn’t have my parents be pissed/disappointed at me either. And as my father would say, “New York is a very big and a very dangerous city”. While that is true, you guys would cringe if I told you some of the stuff my parents have lectured me about before I left. Suffice to say my father is capable of some very creative thinking regarding things to be wary of. I never knew he had such an active imagination

I’ve come to accept that as the youngest of 4 siblings I’ll always be the baby even though I’m 25. And not just to my parents – my siblings as well, to some extent anyway.

I’ve been in NYC for 3½ days now. It’s an overwhelmingly big city. But I’ve found the café I’m sitting on right now and it’s beginning to feel more like a city I actually like – and not just this huge grey mass of buildings and people dotted with yellow cabs.

I never really feel at home in any city before I’ve found a café I ‘click’ with.

Anyway. The amount of stuff I’ve done and things I’ve seen is overwhelming. The days seem to go on and on and on. I mean this in a good way. But it’s definitely also exhausting.

By the way, how come it’s so freaking difficult to find any apples in a city nicknamed ‘The Big Apple’? I looked in every shop I came near. Finally I located some and promptly bought them. I happily paid the 2 dollars a piece that they cost.

And then I take a bite and it tastes sour and sorta tangy. I had wanted something sweet and juicy and this wasn’t it.

Maybe it’s the universe’s way of being ironic. Or maybe New York City really is like a big apple. Or maybe I'm reading too much into one bad apple.

I'll talk you soon.

Anxiety a.k.a The Great Perhaps

I’m sitting at my local café, looking at an Ikea catalog and getting inspiration for how I might decorate my apartment. I’m thinking about getting some new pictures and a bookcase. I have no bookcase. My many, many books are piled and stacked against the wall of my living room. It’s not pretty. It used to have some sort of chaotic charm to it. But then the stacks got tipped and books just spilled all over the floor.

So yeah. I need to do something about that.

But it’s a moot point for the moment. My plane for New York leaves in less than 18 hours.

I figure this need to decorate the apartment is my coping mechanism against the great unknown which I’ll find myself in very soon. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach; a mixture of excitement and anxiety, when I think about where I’ll be this time next week.

Some people clean when they feel this way. I trawl through Ikea’s website and the sites of any other furniture outlet I know of (and I know quite a few).

I can’t believe how many times I’ve said goodbye in the past week. It’s weird. It’s hard. And I can’t help but look forward to just be on the plane, flying away from everything. Away to the great and wonderful ‘perhaps’ that is my future.

See you in 4 months, Denmark.