learn to relax

Yesterday evening I visited a friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for about a month or so, he cooked some delicious meal and we watched “The Incredibles” and afterwards “Underworld”.

When I left (at about 5 in the morning or so) the minute I got outside the heavy rain started, so I ran to my car and cursed the bad luck that always seem to befall me… But then, quite unexpectedly, some kind of internal monologue went on in my head, like another voice saying “What are you whining about? You have been there for about 8 hours, it could have rained all that time as well and maybe it was just dry the moment before you left. And so what? It’s not you who has been specifically targetted. Drive home and wait in the car until it rains a bit less and go inside. No fuzz.”

So I did, and I wasn’t barely home and the rain already subsided, so I didn’t have to wait for long to go inside. So learning to relax is basically a chance of attitude towards things, I need to work on that more…

Maybe I’ll need to look at it that way as well towards the guy my ex cheated me with. I feel like I could tear his limbs out (still! and it has been exactly half a year ago), but then again… He didn’t do it to taunt me, if Iva would have had a relationship with somebody else it would have happened to that guy as well. When they were doing whatever they were doing at that moment I don’t think he had “Let’s get Richard with this” on his mind. Yet I have the wicked feeling that it’s unjust that guys like him just seem to get away with everything without learning from an experience, and that it’s a kind of duty to teach him otherwise. Yet I’m left with the mess, still receiving mail/bills from time to time adressed to her, getting phonecalls of irritating telemarketeers asking for her, and the fact that I had to go to the doctor for the damn STD test.

Speaking of telemarketeers, this beautiful gem of a conversation I had a few days ago (translated):

Me: “Richard Loerakker speaking, good evening.”

TM: “Good evening, [blahblah] from [lame insurance company], am I speaking with Mrs. erhmm sorry if I pronounce it wrong, Mrs. ‘Cowsherova’?”

Me: “No, you’re talking to Mr. Richard Loerakker”

TM: “Oh, erhm I’m sorry. Can I speak to Mrs. Queuecherova?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry you can’t, she doesn’t live here anymore”

TM: “Oh stumbles I’m so very sorry, my condoleances, I’ll make a notice of this”

Me: “Pardon? She’s not dead, she just lives somewhere else in Almere, but not with me anymore”

TM: “Oh, sorry, I misunderstood, I heard ‘She doesn’t live anymore’”, I’m very sorry to have bothered you sir, good evening”

Me: “Good evening and good luck in your next attempt to sell something”

- click - tuut - tuut - tuut—

I wish these goddamn calls would stop, it really irritates me. I think next time I get such call I just say she’s dead and save me a few minutes of irritation and the person who calls a few minutes of emberassment.

Like I’ve posted a few days earlier I had to go to the doctor to be tested for the possibility of having a sexual transmitted disease. I already postponed this too long in my opinion, because I already knew for months my ex didn’t had safe sex with the guy, but I was scared to go there, I’ve never had such situation before and didn’t know what would happen.

A friend of mine was so kindly to shed a little light on what happens and told me they will take a blood sample and some sample from the penis. Since I’m scared (well, WAS, actually now – but I’m running ahead of things now) of needles I got very nervous about it. I can’t actually remember when the last time was that I had a needle stuck in me safe for the dentist, so I wasn’t sure how I would react to it. Lucky enough me managed to calm me down a little and I was able to sleep a few hours before having to go.

So I woke up next day, a glorious morning, yet not for me. I was already running a little late because I slept through my alarm, but I didn’t want to go there before having a quick shower first (hey, you also brush your teeth before going to the dentist, right?). Lucky enough some patients that were first took a little more time than expected so I could sit in the waiting room, reading some stupid magazines that had stories in them about celebrities and affairs, which was not the ideal stuff for me to read still. After about 15 minutes I got called in by the doctor.

When I entered the room she(!) asked wether it was ok that there was an intern there as well. And then I noticed someone very silent on my right that looked like this:

I am NOT a racist or anything, but I definately had not the intention to drop down my pants and show my intimate parts while someone looking at me wearing a hijaab. This is what WikiPedia has to say about the hijaab and here I quote a small part of it:

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their khumu-r over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband’s fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the (female) slaves whom their right hands possess, or old male servants who lack vigour, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards God, that ye may attain Bliss. 24:30-31

So no way I was going to pull down my pants in front of a Muslim woman who actually has to lower her gaze according to the Qu’ran, now having been in this situation I seriously doubt wether it is a good choice for female muslims to work in a field like this and having the help men, it it’s not for her comfort, then please for mine.

Anyway, I’m running ahead of things, again. I also before got a referral note to go to a psychologist, and I thought I should seek out the one that helped me before, but it appeared that she has been assigned to me by the Arbo Union, and now that I work for a German company I’m not member of that anymore. So I first asked for the address where I should go for the psychologist, and after that I have the girl sent away.

Warning: People with strong visual imagination should skip reading next part and scroll down to the next red line.

sigh So, after the girl left I got asked to undress myself and sit on the bench whilst she put on some rubber gloves and unwrapped something that looked like some kind of cotton pad for your ears, but smaller (thank goodness for that!). Then I closed my eyes (I just couldn’t watch) and what happened next where I think the 10 longest seconds in my life…

It was not pain, like you feel when you accidentally hurt yourself with a knife or something else, but it felt very disturbing. It felt like the burning sensation you feel when you trie to pee but can’t really, except that it was way more sensitive. I tried to shut it out, but I couldn’t feel anything in my body except for that one muscle, the tears welling up in my eyes and feeling the twisting and turning as a kind of grinding in my head, like the crunching you hear inside your head you when eating potato chips. At this point something broke in me, I felt filthy, dirty, kind of humiliated, can’t actually describe it, but I hope I will never have to do this again. When it was finally over I quickly got dressed again and left that room.

(Thank you)

After this I got another referral note for the clinic ad the hospital where they take the blood tests, and since one of the other points on my 43Things list is Stop procrastinating and so far I had little to add, I immediately went to the hospital (no appointment needed), and pick a number.

Some 20 minutes later it was my turn to go to counter 1 and I handed the referral note. While she was processing the form and read for what kind of tests I was there she looked up at me without tilting her head, shrug and let out a sigh, and I got this feeling again, as if I am the one who cheated and made a freaking mess out of things, and when I went back to sit down waiting for my turn to get punctured it went worse. At a sudden I had this feeling all the other people were watching me, or rather watching right through me, knowing why I was there. Lucky enough a poster drew away my attention. It was about a company called Emotional Brain and they invent new medications. On the flyer it said they were searching for people with anxiety problems and such for some new (already stable) medication, so I quickly noted their phone number and web site, could be handy.

Then it was my turn to get sucked dry by the hospital vampires I sat down when the nurse noticed the eczema on my arms and said that it will hurt more when she has to draw blood, so I braced myself and prepared for the worst…

It was in and out before I knew it, I felt almost nothing and seeing the needle slide in, the tube geting filled with your blood and retracting the needle was not a disturbing sight, it was rather interesting to watch. I think my “luck” is that I am so used to the pain and itches of the eczema that the needle is nothing in comparison to it or something. Anyway, if it would take having a needle in my arm for one hour a day to get rid of the eczema, well, PLUG ME IN, puncture me, it’s a 100 times better than the compulsory behaviour to scratch!

After this I could resume the regular day things like work and visiting a collegue of mine who is still ill… but the events of the morning still linger in my mind, and for me it’s an experience I will not lightly forget…

It has been about a year ago when my relationship with my (now ex) fiancee has been flushed through the toilet (ok, the shit backed up again and some re-flushing was needed), so it’s time for me to recap things in my mind and decide on how to move forward.

But apparently this is not so easy as it seems, there is still a lot of garbage left in my brain that needs to be cleaned up. We lived together for about 4 years, in which my ex did some big changes to the house I still live in. Ok, I didn’t do really much before to make my house “MY” house, but I felt at home… Now I don’t like coming home out of work anymore, there are so many things in my house that remind me of her that it feels like it’s not my house anymore. In the past 2 months, I hardly have been in my living room, as I feel alienated there. The only rooms I frequently can be found in is my computer room (which has still at least the feeling of “home”), my bedroom (for the 3 hours of sleep I manage to get) and the bathroom. I am not in the position right now to completely change my house again or move to another house, so I need to find out how to cope with this and try to feel at home in my own house again.

Sometimes I have the feeling that I am sitting in a train, fallen asleep, and just passed the railwaystation where I wanted to get out. I’m 34 now, and in my view accomplished yet little in life, save for being able to persue (and getting) the job that I always dreamt about. But what if I want to have a family life? I’m very afraid this is an impossibility, the station where I didn’t get out of the train… On the other hand, I’ve been subscribed to a few dating sites and most of the women on there that are around my age already have kids. It’s not that I don’t like kids, but if I can choose between raising my own flesh and blood or someone else his kids I prefer my own offspring. The thing I hate however is how easy other men shun from their responsibility. If you are old enough to have sex and to have kids you’re old enough to bear the responsibility of taking care of them as well.

Theoretically – provided that I’ll find someone who wants to be with me and having children with me – it means that by the time my kids would reach the age that they can have driving lessons I will be well over 50 already, which feels like unacceptable for me. I want to be in the age that I will be still able to play with them without getting exhausted within 10 minutes. So on the one hand, I have the feeling (instinct?) I want kids that have my genes, on the other hand I’m afraid I’m just too old for it to really enjoy it anymore. It’s a confusing mixed set of feelings that I don’t know how to deal with yet.

I simply have this feeling that each day the world seems to turn faster, each day getting shorter… I look around me and I already see the decay of people, like a collegue of mine, about my age, but his kidneys are almost completely destroyed. Last year I’ve been to a burial of an ex-collegue, also around my age and a similar problem (he got bone cancer and the chemo therapy caused his donor kidneys to be refused by his body). This truth hits me in the face and gives me the feeling that time is running out for me as well, even though this doesn’t necessarily has to be.

This weekend I’ve been on a visit to my parents (my mother celebrated her birthday) and to my grandparents. When I arrived there and saw my grandmother sitting on the couch and I was shocked to see how quickly someone can change to a shadow of their former self. Her memory really got worse in very short time (about 2 or 3 weeks). When we were there she asked numerous times (about 40 times) why all the people were there, what the special occasion was (her daughters birthday) and why she was still in her pyamas (because she hardly can walk, let alone getting dressed). When I left to go to band practice I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, its painful to see someone you love to be in this state, it feels so unfair.

Today I’ve spend some time cleaning up my mailbox. It was cluttered with nonsense mails, newsletters and other stuff and I really needed a bit more disk space. I already removed all photo’s of volleybal from my gallery, as it has nothing to do with me but with my ex (and the guy she cheated me with is on those photo’s as well). When I encountered the mails I’ve sent and received from him (yes, I was stupid) last November I suddenly felt the anger rising again. I was surprised by it myself although I should have expected this would happen, since I usually have a hard time forgiving or forgetting something (one time it took a timespan of 6 years before I took revenge on someone who once treathened to kill me), and since the last time it happened was on the day my father celebrated his birthday, so that makes it a birthday party I will never forget. While I had to explain my parents why she was not there she was “enjoying” time with the guy. I still have troubles dealing with this, she was my first real love and it was the first serious relationship I was in. I still have feelings for her – as stupid as it sounds – but I simply will not allow it that she will have another chance to hurt me, so as soon as the last things are arranged (dividing stuff, paperwork etc) I’m going to try to ban her out of my life completely.

Another thing that still worries me is that I have to go see the doctor. When my ex had sex with the other guy she was irresponsible enough by not using protection. I asked her wether she’d go to the doctor to have her tested, but to my knowledge she never did or she didn’t tell me the results. So I need to have this checkup, because I don’t want to take the chance that I might have some STD and infect some other girl that I’d like and ruining it all. I know that the chance is slim (I don’t have any symptoms of having a STD), but I don’t know the whereabouts of that other guy. I don’t know how many times he got drunk and stuck his dick/tongue/whatever into places where it didn’t belong in the first place before he fucked my ex, so I think the best thing to do for me is to have a checkup myself, because the only one I trust in this case is myself.

Rinse, this is not over by a longshot, you weaselish bald fuckface.

Yesterday evening I heard from my mother that it’s not going well with my grandmother. Her memory was already going from bad to worse lately, but now her health also seems to be rapidly going backwards. My grandfather is not able anymore to support her (that is, to prevent accidents that can happen), so I feel very uncertain how things will go on from here. The thing I really hate about this is that she knows what’s happening to her, which I wouldn’t wish to anyone in the world… I’ve accepted this is something I cannot change, but it’s still a hard pill to swallow.

I couldn’t enjoy it… I realised that it was the first birthday I attended of them without being with my former girlfriend, and that I am alone. And when I looked at other people and see they are loving couples and how happy they feel with eachother the dread sets in. Yes, I shamelessly admit, I envy my friends, but at the same time I feel happy for them.

Yesterday evening I found out the hard way I still have a lot of supressed anger in me. In the last few days I already had the feeling something is not right, and my dear friend Sampie exactly knew where the sore spot was, but I was in a bit of denial.

On Fridays I always visit a group of friends who help eachother in sustaining their goals, and yesterday the theme of talk was how to go on in the future. I was surprised to find out some of them also had a certain anger in them, and when I started to talk about how I felt the thing I fear most happened. I get locked up in my own feelings, unable to talk or even utter a word, and felt the rage evolve in my brain.

One of the things I am blessed (or in this particular case cursed) with is I have a very powerful visionary imagination. When still at school people called me a dreamer, often caught in my own thoughts and complete oblivious to what happened around me. Maybe that’s why I was teased so much at school.

But yesterday this imagination went beyond my control, and I saw the things I wanted to do to the guy whom my ex fiancee cheated me with, and it scared the shit out of me. I saw visions akin to American History X, where the guy puts the other guy with his jaw on the edge of the sidewalk and kicking him in the back of his head (I was surprised they even coined a term for it, “curb stomping”), or the scene from Reservoir Dogs where one of the robbers gives a captured police officer a special razor treatment… I think it suffices to say that I didn’t want to speak out these things, I usually am of a non-violent nature and I felt quite upset with these thoughts and didn’t want to upset my friends with them.

Together with Sampie I already found out a how it works in my brain, and, thought I hate how it works, I have a hard time changing it. I’ll try to explain how it goes, but doubt wether I can capture it on print/screen as well as I have it in my head:

In my youth I’ve been teased a lot, mostly at school, up to a point where physical hurt was no exception (I recall a cigarette being put out in my neck, being pushed off a dyke when cycling to school – ended up with by back against a tree, thrown into water together with bike and so on), of which I at that time didn’t know how to defend myself against. I couldn’t tell this to my parent either, I felt ashamed for it and wondered why these things happened to me and what was wrong with me… and the rage built up in me…

Now fast-forward to the present. Two months ago my now ex fiancee cheated with a guy she had been cheating me before with last year. In the period between I had an email conversation with him (yes, I’m stupid) in which he said he’d never wanted to drive me and my girlfriend apart and felt very sorry for what he’d done and that it was because of alcohol. I was so stupid to believe him, and to believe her that she’d never do it again and that she felt nothing for the guy. Now that it happened again I feel enraged. In the first place to my ex, because I cannot understand why this had to happen, and why she told me. But I can’t hit women, never did and never will, I’ve not been raised that way.

But that guy is a complete other story, somehow it feels like he opened pandoras box in my head, and all anger about things done to me in the past are somehow accumulated upon him, that he personifies my rage against the wrongings. In him I see the people who hurted me in the past, oblivious of what they do and just carry on their lives and destroying the lives of others. These people will never learn until they are taught a lesson. And I am more than willing to be his teacher.

I am not so crazy to look him up (I know where I could find him, should I want to), he’s not worth it, after all he is a fucking liar and a weasel. But, should I accidentally meet him on the street, better pray there is no curb nearby.

Ps. I have about 1 hour to calm down and compose myself, my ex girlfriend comes to pick up some more things that belong to her. Lucky enough I’m going to visit a friend who celebrates his birthday today in the evening, so I hope it will divert my attention a bit so more cheerful things.

Today I had to ready a laptop with all Microsoft patches so we can hand it over to someone. Of course things don’t go as planned, after the 2nd patch cycle (46 patches) it now hangs on reboot, reboots the PC if I dare to use the restore CD, can’t run except in safe mode without networking and cannot use the system restore function as it only provides a rollback for a few patches, not all 46. Furthermore in the software list it doesn’t say which update is installed when, and I have to reboot after uninstalling each patch.

I guess today is not the day to feel relaxed…

It’s 3am here, and I have a terrible itch because of my eczema, so I am still awake and trying to divert attention to something else, but to little avail….

Yesterday I went to bed in time for a change, I managed to fall asleep quite easy, contrary to the usual turning and twisting routine… And woke up refreshed even before the alarm could go off at seven. I think I should try this more often, even though I am a nightbird.

It was a nice trip, but it didn’t ease the tension much. I had some troubles with side effects like audible hallucinations and was very drowsy and sleepy.

Now that things are finally getting better for me it is easier to relax.