Calmer waters

After a week of much turbulence and storms, today I feel in calmer waters. I feel the anxiety in my chest, but more in the background. It's there, but it doesn't fully occupy me.

It's been a week of much crying. A lot of pain. But in the end I don't think I've fallen, or at least not very deep. It's been almost four years since I cried so much about all the pain of my childhood, that it doesn't really matter (as much) if I now change my answer to my question about sexual abuse from a "I don't know, probably not" to a "I don't know, probably yes". I'll never know, and I've already cried so much, I've already pulled so much shit out of my childhood, and I've gotten rid of so much of my childhood pain. If it's a 'no' or a 'yes' doesn't matter (so much), it's the past and I've survived it. I can look into this black hole (it stays a black hole, and this is not going to change either), and endure the anxiety it causes me.

A few days ago I finished the book Now is the hour by Tom Spanbauer. A " slightly dark " book, as a friend told me. And I recognized myself in this darkness. As Tom Spanbauer says in an interview, when he wrote Now is the hour he spent "a few weeks in bed crying furiously. I broke free." I saw myself reflected in this young Rigby John Klusener (Tom Spanbauer), his sense of helplessness, loneliness, emotional abandonment. And I'm crying a lot and I've cried a lot in the last few weeks, freeing myself from the pain, from the shit of my adolescence. And reading this book made me feel less lonely, as a friend who is having a hard time with confinement, lack of hugs, has also told me, reading my texts now. She felt less lonely. Like Rigby John, I left my parents' house to free myself, to start recovering. Shared pain is more bearable.

Today I'm a different person. In the last few weeks I have exchanged so many emails, messages by Signal, Wire or Kontalk, with friends all over the world. I've talked to so many friends on the phone, Signal, or Wire. With a few friends, I broke the confinement. And I've had so many friends and movement comrades write to me with messages of encouragement and support. I have written so many texts, in three languages (Spanish, English, German). Actually, I always write these texts in Spanish, and then I translate them into English and German with the help of deepl.com. German already costs me more. Also with e-mails. When I write to my two remaining friends in Germany, I find it more difficult to express how I feel. I lack the words, and not because I have forgotten them, rather I never had them. The words that come easily to me in German are fear (Angst) and helplessness (Hilflosigkeit), all the rest requires an effort. It flows more easily in English or Spanish, although German is my mother tongue (or perhaps because of this).

This morning I stayed in bed longer, listening to music (Ezra Furman: The Year of No Returning - thank you, Dohle, for introducing me to Ezra). I thought about my friendships. And tears came to me, but they were other tears. Tears for feeling lucky, for feeling loved and well cared for. I also felt sadness, because we can't hug. But I know you are there. I love you all. Very much.