Wednesday, August 24, 2016

transcribed from my new journal

23.08

Zürich, Switzerland.

The last few weeks has been a whirlwind. The lowest lows mixed with the highest highs and everything in-between. Most recently has been the theft of my purse and with it my journal. I bought that journal in India and chronicled an amazing year in between its covers. In it I wrote of the complicated emotions in my head and heart, I captured snapshot glimpses of moments of my life from around the world. I found peace when I looked back on where I was, who I had been, and what compelled me to sit down and write on each day. I was drafting ideas for short stories, writing the first drafts of blogposts, and exploring myself and my life one line at at time.

I don't care about the inconvenience of losing my wallet (with it all of my credit cards, my debit card, Deutsches führerschein, Versicherungskarte, everything really). I can replace the bag, the coffee thermos, the books, the headphones. But I can't replace that journal. A year of my life has been taken from me by some con artists looking for a quick dollar - a free meal - I don't know what else. Well the joke is on them, because I had almost no money. At that moment in time all of the money to my name was in that wallet and comprised of a pathetic 50 franc bill and some loose change.

To the two guys that did it - I have no sympathy for you. I'm not going to lie and say here that I'm sorry you're in a position in your life that drove you to do this. I'm not going to create some fake aura of empathy and understanding.

That's not how this works.

If you read that journal in that bag with the pathetic amount of money in it, you would see that I , too, have fallen on some hard times. I hit what I thought was rock bottom last year only to be surprised on a few more occasions that there was a lower place in which I could sink.

I've been desperate, unemployed, and without a home. I've wondered what will happen in the next days, hours, moments in time in a future I could hardly fathom.

But you, you took the easy way out. I'm sure we were an easy target. A young couple fresh from announcing our engagement to half of my new family. our guards lowered as we sat there - huddled close together, laughing at private jokes, and playing a game on one cell phone pass back and forth with giggles and happiness.

I've been making myself sick considering all of the things I did on that train differently than I usually do:

  • putting my wallet into a purse, instead of keeping it in my pack
  • grabbing a handful of the most important things from a suitcase and putting them all in one place
  • putting that purse above my head, in the overhead compartment, slightly behind my head and out of my peripheral vision
  • consciously moving my journal from my pack into this new purse, despite having already packed it away
I've found myself dwelling on what I consider to be my mistakes when the fact of the matter is this was not my fault. 

V is right - you can't anticipate everything all of the time. You can't blame yourself for the actions of others, especially when the mere concept of those actions are so hard for you to fathom and understand. 

So now I need only to resist the urge to blame myself. Stop thinking the twisted thought that this is somehow karma stepping in and slapping me across the face for letting myself be so happy. I was depressed and scared for so long that to be struck with the happiness and joy that is the idea of marrying and living with V that maybe it was not fair. Maybe I needed to be torn down in order for everything to be evened out - for equilibrium to be reached. 

But no, these are the thoughts that I need to avoid. I deserve to be happy just as much as the next person. I've worked hard and dedicated myself to a future here, in Switzerland, with the man I love. I'm not fated to have something bad happen to me every time I celebrate something good. No. 

That's just not how this works. 


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