22

I’ve been really bad at updating the blog the last month. I’ve moved from Shin-nakano to Yoyogi, I’ve walked to Shibuya and back carrying things and furniture for the apartment, went to Seoul on my own for four days to get a new tourist visa, and now I’m studying and trying to get all the right papers to the right people so that I can get a study loan and start the Japanese course in January. I am also doing my best not to let the jealousy I feel sometimes take over. So far I’ve managed to keep it inside most of the time even though I really feel that it is too much sometimes. But it’s probably nothing compared to how she feels. I’m trying to focus on that I am not the one who should feel sad, which is a huge step forward for me since I’m a very jealous person.

I want to become less jealous, less self-centered. I know it will take time, but I don’t want it to happen when I’m too old to really appreciate it. Maybe it is to lose everything over and over again, to reevaluate your thought patterns, your behavior, your way of seeing the world, yourself and others that is the meaning of living. I think being aware of how to manipulate your brain, understanding that what it is now is not something constant or holy that we shouldn’t touch but a machine that keeps doing the same mistakes over and over again even though it obviously doesn’t work and is nothing but destructive and is hurting ourselves and the people around us. Most people are always thinking they are right since they don’t even know it exists and that the problem it causes is someone else’s fault, never questioning themselves because they trust something so strong and safe must be right. But I never asked for this brain, and when I think about it I don’t think it works the way I want it to, I think it’s very lazy and doesn’t want to change at all, it likes doing what it is programmed to do. In my case, being jealous, maybe because it gives me something that gives me satisfaction for the moment, like attention or a reason to feel sorry for myself.

This is when I have to go in and stop the gear wheels. Every part of my body says that I want to be jealous, I have the right to be and it is uncontrollable. Knowing that it isn’t the only alternative is the key, then I have to push the machine in a direction I like better for days, months, years, maybe all your life. Hopefully I’ll reach a point where the new reaction comes as naturally as the first one, if not it will at least get easier with time.

Other automatic emotions that I think about a lot is anger, being irritated or feeling bad for something that has already happened and you can not change. I think we can live the rest of your life without experiencing these feelings once we’ve learned how to control them, or rather learned how not to use them at all. Even in situations where we think they are unstoppable and its not our fault that we feel that way, like when you wait for someone who is late, if someone is yelling at you without a good reason, if you lose something expensive, if you break something, if your daughter hasn’t done the dishes, if your cat throws up in your bed, try to stop the machine by thinking about what you will gain from being angry/irritated, if it would make anything better. There are many ways to react when something bad happens, and the easiest is probably not the best one. It is never anyone else’s fault if I am angry or irritated. I don’t mean that I should be passive and just let negative things happen to me, but to use the energy I would have spent on being angry to do something more constructive. Am I with a person that is constantly trying to drag me down he or she doesn’t deserve it anyway and I shouldn’t spend time with the person.

Feelings like anger drains you on energy without giving anything back. What has already happened doesn’t deserve my energy, the negative is negative in itself without me prolonging and strengthen its effect. Everything we think and feel affects the cells in our body, our organs, our skin, our brain. The cells are dying and being reproduced all the time, and in a year 98 % of our body is new. If we have worked hard enough the machine has changed a little bit, and each year you will get closer to a way of reacting that is less self-centered and destructive than the one we used to see as the only alternative.

But it will take time and I’m not sure that I can change such a fundamental part of my personality, but the more I think about this the more it makes sense. I have just recently started to realize that I must stop clinging to my pride and defend myself to be able to change, only that has taken about a year. Maybe I’m just slow and everyone else has known this for a long time, sometimes everyone else seems so complete already.

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21

20

I’m feeling better today, after a week of extreme moodswings, anger, sadness and confusion and making everything around me complicated and horrible by saying stupid things. The only tiny positive thing about this mess was that I really realized that I have to change certain things about myself, like stop drinking while being on medication not trying to defend myself as soon as there is something I don’t want to hear about myself. Everyone in my family has been saying this to me for years but I had to crash into the wall to take it in I guess. I need to be less self centered, and to be honest (to myself) I think it’s the only way for me to become really happy. And to create things, to be creative. I tried to think back and remember what has made me most happy in my life so far.

What I came to think of was working as a nursing assistant, it’s very cliché but it’s true. And when I was chosen as the best math student in school in ninth grade. When I won a writing competition in school, that was also 1000 years ago though. Writing, reading. When I’m nice to my parents and they are proud of me. Every time I’ve made breakfast or lunch or dinner for someone. When giving a massage. When taking pictures. Making someone else feel loved and happy. Studying. When I don’t care about how I look and I trust that no one else does either. When I don’t care about what people think about me. When I do anything that makes me forget myself.

But forgetting myself would be so much easier if I had some kind of safety, something consistent and calm to come back to. Often I feel the need to protect myself from everything, from other people, by hiding in me me me. But what I really need is someone that can reach into the core of Amelie and tell me that everything will be alright, that I can stop fighting and begin living. That I don’t have to prove anything to myself or to anyone else.

I’ve only met one person that can make me feel like this, and I love this person and want to give all this and more back to him. I don’t know what to do if I’ve lost it before it even really started. I don’t think I will find it again.

Anyway.

Today I went to Yoyogi park. The photographers, all of them men, no boys or girls or women, obviously thought it was really interesting to see a girl with a camera and wanted to take pictures of me taking pictures (??). One guy that looked a bit like a pervert wanted me to sit in a special way while he was staring at my legs in a really creepy way. Then he stayed about 20 meters from me and kept staring. Another one was very friendly, even though we didn’t understand each other. He didn’t know any english at all but I understood that he was a photographer wanted to take me to the zoo to look at the oldest elephant in the world. I think. But he was lying, because only ten minutes later I found the elephant that definitely is the oldest one! I took more pictures with the elephant, but I’ve bored everyone enough in this post.

 

Then it was getting dark, and I was tired and hungry. I met Marc and we walked to Shibuya to eat. On our way there we found this.

 

We went to a restaurant with tiny chairs and artwork by Yoshitomo Nara. In the middle of the room there was a small house without doors, and Marc took a picture of me where I look very uncomfortable. I must have done some weird adjustments to the camera because all the pictures came out really noisy.

 

Netti just came home from a Halloween/birthday party. I’m really tired and will brush my teeth and go to sleep now.

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19

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18

 

 

I’ve been so alone for so long
forgotten by the world
forgotten to myself
your effervescent eyes have awakened me
and brushed the dust away
but I knew you’d never stay

so I memorized the color of your eyes as I lost myself inside you
and I memorized the way our legs entwined as I drifted off beside you

I miss

god I miss
waking up beside you

at night I cling to you, I’m so afraid
afraid the day will come
and I’ll wake and find you gone
but you promised that you’d not abandon me
and kissed my fears away
but I woke up to that day

but I had memorized the way our eyes
would meet reflected in the bathroom mirror

I miss
god I miss
waking up beside you

I’ve been so alone for so long
I forgot how much it hurts
to wake up so alone

but I memorized how warm your body felt
as you lay half asleep beside me
and I memorized the way the sunlight
filled the room and played upon your body

I miss
god I miss
waking up beside you
I miss
god I miss
waking up beside you

 

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17

On request from Netti’s mother:







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16

hope there’s someone
who’ll set my heart free
nice to hold when I’m tired

there’s a ghost on the horizon
when I go to bed
how can I fall asleep at night
how will I rest my head

oh I’m scared of the middle place
between light and nowhere
I don’t want to be the one
left in there, left in there

there’s a man on the horizon
wish that I’d go to bed
if I fall to his feet tonight
will allow rest my head

so here’s hoping I will not drown
or paralyze in light
and godsend I don’t want to go
to the seal’s watershed

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15

Fernando Falcone

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14

five AM
out again
triangle walks
magpies, i throw sticks at them
they laugh behind my back

getting a feeling
maybe i will dream again
having that feeling
when there’s no one awake
no no one awake

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13

Having a personal space of only 5.33 square meters makes makes me really claustrophobic and stressed out. I knew it would be different from the last apartment where Christian and I shared 83 squared meters, but right now I’m spending my time in a room the size of our wardrobe with two other people here all the time that I’m trying not to disturb. I want to go somewhere but I don’t know where to go, I’ve already walked for hours in every direction. Just feeling very apathetic today, but Andreas is going home in nine days so it will get better soon. I’m really happy for Janet but I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met Marc… don’t think I would have stayed here. I love him for everything he’s done for me and for how loved he makes me feel. Met him the first time less than two months ago, but it feels like I known him for a very long time.

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12

If you knew how much I love you, you would run away
But when I treat you bad it always makes you want to stay

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11

Cat café! Coffee and one (two) hours with the cats for ~80 kr. It’s weird that it exists, but the cats didn’t seem to be that bothered (except when some stupid Japanese put a hat on the cat to take pictures…) and everything was very quiet and stress free. It’s not perfect, but I don’t think being alone all day in an empty apartment without any stimulation at all when the owners are at work or in school is either.

Some of the pet shops here in Tokyo are keeping the cats in small glass boxes outside the store, four or five cats and kittens together, dogs too. Last time I saw it I had to walk away and started crying because everyone walking past the store stopped and were saying how kawaii it was.

Guitar man is visiting Janet for two weeks now, 16 square meters isn’t a lot for the three of us but at least I’ve got a room on my own, and is out walking for a couple of hours every day.




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10

I ordered some clothes today. I’ve been pretty good at saving money and I’m getting tired of the clothes I brought from Sweden. Most of them are summer clothes anyway and now it’s autumn… (uhm, it was 23 degrees yesterday, but it’s cold when it’s raining). I miss my shirts, I’ve got about 10 white ones in my old apartment but I don’t feel like having too much contact with the person who lives there since he turned out to be an asshole. I’ll ask him to send my stuff to mami soon.

I always feel guilty when buying clothes, but this is basic things I need. Especially since I’m not coming home in a month as I thought when I packed my bags.

Everything is from here.

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09

I get headaches all the time now, can’t really concentrate on anything… haven’t slept that well the last week though. I just want Marc to come back from Paris.
The first video game I’ve played in almost 10 years, I loved it and cried at the ending because it was so beautiful and sad. And at least five different people have said that I remind them of the girl! I wish all video games were like that. I tried to play Shadow of the Colossus but it was too hard. I’ll play this one again when I get the chance.



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08

I wish I had a better lens for pictures like this. My standard lens was pretty bad to begin with, now it’s slowly dying. I’ll try to find one that’s not so expensive…



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