Setting goals

"We chase unreachable heights, in the hope to find happiness, only to find we are still the same, because in fact we are chasing ourselves."

- Darren White

(Triggered and inspired by a conversation between Arthur Vaso and myself)

I have crashed many times over the past five years. Many, many times before realising I was chasing my own tail.
Does this mean that I don't crash anymore? On the contrary. I came back last week (note: this was written a few months ago) from a three-week stay in a mental hospital. Oh, I crash and when I do, I do it good and hard. Rock bottom, here I come.

Then what?

Realization is just a first step. It can also be the first hurdle, the one you never get over, that one that you will see in the distance and that becomes so BIG when you come near it, that it seems it will swallow you whole.
It's a first baby step.

What is unreachable? That is a first question everyone needs to answer for themselves. It's different for everyone, but we all share this: if we don't realize we are chasing a phantom, or our own tail, we will end up bitter and frustrated.

Unreachable for me (to make it less abstract) is:
- walking;
- playing the violin again;
- dancing again;
- speaking fluently;
- not feeling lonely;
- setting goals that jeopardize my mental and physical health.

Up until recently I tried to achieve the impossible by trying to reach every one of these goals. Seeing this list I think that everyone who knows me realizes that it's a list that is setting me up for failure. And I finally I agree.

I used to try and aim for the impossible. And I admit it still feels a little like defeat by admitting I can never reach these goals. It made me deeply depressed at first, almost suicidal. But I am slowly learning to set new goals, little steps, small things that make me not only happy, but also proud of myself.

Like writing poems, alone or together with the marvellous poets I met everywhere, as well as my other friends. Or finding out what fun sports are available in a wheelchair when you also have limited use of your arms. Or finding friends, even though my loneliness is something innate (also something I needed to learn to accept.)

I still chase myself. But I set the reachable goal now that I finally found the truth and am aiming for acceptance of self.

The Missing

The Missing - Season 2

I am triggered into writing about my own life, because of the second season of this series. It talks about a few aspects that are always kept away from the public:

1. After having been captured and regained 'freedom', people are everywhere so happy that you are free, and then move on. 
2. The fact that you are not you anymore. A different you emerges, you are born again, not in a good way oftentimes. You have to reinvent life
3. So many things, so normal for others, do not exist for you anymore.

ad 1) Of course people move on, it's only logical. What is NOT logical however is that people expect you are happy to be free, that you are able to move on with your life. That is an impossibility, a gross lie you try to live by... And fail eternally. 

ad 2) I am not me anymore. I am not the person I was and never will be. That I have a different name now is quite apt. I am not a caterpillar born into a butterfly though.. I am a butterfly turned to caterpillar, living a humble life.

ad 3) These are a few examples:

• I cannot be touched anymore. If I want someone to touch me, I have to take the initiative first, if not I flashback in such a hard way that I might become catatonic. Although I am improving, this still happens;
• Speech, already an issue, is my major issue now. I can speak about myself in poems with emotion, everywhere else I can only speak about myself in a mechanical way, a summing-up-the-facts way;
• I live the life of a hermit, the world is too loud for me. I have friends, very real and loving friends, but they are online friends. I love my friends dearly, I fear physical nearness. I long to be with you, my love, physical, but it scares me so much the same time.

I am building a new life on the ruins of my old life. I hope that one day I can say I was born at age 20, when my true life began. And that it is a happy life ever since.

Dancing and wheelchairs

Dancing and wheelchairs.

As I have written before, I can stand, with effort, I've learned to make a few steps, with even more effort. Is it worth it?
Nah! Not at all. Walking is very nice if you have pleasure in it, but if not it's just a nuisance. Yes, you read that right: a total nuisance.

I do my therapeutic walk every day, because I need to for the blood to not clot somewhere, and to keep part of my body in shape. But I hate it. I am paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down, can sense something here and there but that's about it. Walking is like floating in the air, and it's scary to say the least. WALKING IS OVERRATED. There, I said it ;)

I used to dance. I have a few dancing heroes, like Célestin Boutin:

and Sergei Polunin:

I started to dance while I lived with my grandfather, he was a ruthless and cruel man, as you already know. He also wanted me to excel in everything I did. He taught me to play the violin AND....
he made me take dance lessons.

I danced and it became my way out of a world of misery, all through my years I have danced until I got my injury and was forced to stop. I have learned to make my peace now. But do I miss it? Yes. I would most probably have never reached the level of perfection of both Célestin and Sergei, but my love for dance was and still is absolutely the same.

So, I enjoy watching ballet in all its forms: classical, contemporary, street dance.

And to make this perfectly clear: I am okay with my wheelchair, and I moved my passion from dancing to writing :)