Flickery Vision

It has been a time of motivation again. With me totally not being over Melinda my lazyness and state of being scared stiff crept back in. It took several sleepless nights of thinking, self-discussion and self-motivation to get back on track again. Changing your life completely is kinda hard after all. Well, nothing worth living for just drops into your lap, so I have to get going.

I didn't do much concerning the apartment, except keeping the areas I already cleared half-way clean. But I managed to pay half of my debts back at least. If I should manage to really stop smoking, I should be able to pay back the rest soon. Laying off an addiction is of course not really easy. Though I did it before, it requires rigid self-discipline.

Choose Life

Sometimes we need a kick in the face just to realize how awfull our life really is. Melinda obviously doesn't realize what she did to me. And I mean that in a positive and negative way. She has no idea how our break-up kickstarted the reconstruction of my life. Nobody really does. And the way she talks to me, the way she acts with other people (as far as I can see that on facebook posts, fotos and stuff), it's just as if nothing ever happened. The whole break-up seems to be nothing more than something unimportant in the past to her. I#d like to be there. She seems truly happy. Of course I never told her how much I suffer and brood myself, so it might be possible it's a mask, but I don't think so.

Melinda has no reason to feel bad or sad. She's starting a new life and that is easier without me. She made a conscious decision. It's easier to leave everything behind. Now when I'm rebuilding my life, I can see that. If I would've been in her position I wouldn't have chosen the easier path, but that's probably easier said than done. I'm glad the break-up woke me up. I'm glad the break-up opened a way for her to build a new life for herself. But I'm not glad it had to be that way.

"Why is he rambling about that whole topic again?" you might ask. Well, I'm still in the progress of digesting the end of what was not only the best relationship I ever had, but truly one of the happiest times of my life. Even though much of my life was in disarray, being with Melinda made me just happy. I'm looking forward to the day this blog is finished. When I will have brought my life in order. I can imagine that that will feel just as good. Maybe even better. Maybe I will have someone to share it with then, too. Sharing the spoils of this mammoth project with someone I love? It sure sounds great. But as I said, it is easier without anyone for now and even if I wouldn't have chosen it this way, that decision has been made for me. One thing is sure: Now that I'm here I won't change it.

No, I'm not saving myself up for the off-chance that Melinda comes back. I'm not hurt and broken about relationships in general and won't shy away because being close with someone could mean getting your heart broken. I'm doing this for me. There's no need to call this selfish, since I'm not gonna hurt anybody. There's no need to call me emotionally unavailable. I choose to be alone for now. It is easier. It lets me concentrate on the Naphtha project. This is just more important right now.

Everybody's Going To The Moon

I want to start updating more regularly now. I think one update a day or every two days is quite reasonable, at least in the beginning. That should keep me on my path, too. But let's recap the past week: Well, it seems there wasn't much to that weird nightmare after all. At least nothing I noticed specifically. Still, a lot of things have happened. I've been working a lot on cleaning up the first room, in which I spend most of my free time. It's almost done and it feels great. I am proud of myself and I feel a lot more comfortable in it now. That's what I want for the other rooms, too, so let's get to it!

Last night I lay awoke for some time. After having a quick chat with Melinda I thought about the fact that I probably won't see her ever again. And even if I will, it's likely not to be in the next five or six years. I thought of how meeting her just as a friend after all that time would be like. Yeah, yeah, delusional fantasizing, I know. But this led me to something I have been ignoring for many years, if not all my life: Where do I see myself five years from now?

Sometimes, things like that are asked in job interviews and now I know why. Being the lazy slacker I was, I never really thought about it. I probably would've given a rather vague answer until now. You don't want to employ someone like that. But actually thinking about it, I imagined how I want my life to be five years from now. And boy, do I have a long road ahead of me.

But this gave me a sense of perspective. I thought a lot about it and started transforming those goals into paths that would lead me there. What started as a rather bad way of thinking turned into a new revelation for me, giving me strength and a determination I was starting to loose again. It gave me a new goal. A better goal.

I have a vision of my future life and I want it to become true. Not just “I don't want to be miserable anymore” – the way I started this blog – but “I want to achieve!”

Have you ever sat down and just thought about what exactly you want to achieve in the next five years? For a good two hours? I highly recommend it. It was my salvation.

All Nightmare Long

Just woke up sweating. I'm used to waking up rather harshly, sometimes sweating and/or screaming. That's usually just abruptly ending nightmares and only freaks out my girlfriends, but this was different. The dream I had wasn't a nightmare, just something with one of my hobbies, then Melinda showed up and I awoke.

Could it be that Melinda's sudden appearance and me knowing it was only a dream turned it into a shocking and nightmarish experience? Might be. But this was different than my other nightmares. It felt as if something had happened. Something important and possibly bad.

No way of knowing, I gotta get going. But a weird feeling in my guts remains.

What Do You Do For Money, Honey

Monetary problems were worse than they are now, but I'm not fully out, so let's talk about it. My old freelancing jobs kinda dryed up in the past months (more on that when I talk about work). Since I didn't have a job to bring in enough money until recently, I piled up a small amount of debts. Something I'm really ashamed off. I hate owing people money. Worse so when it's people I know.

So here's a list:

• Small amount to a company.
• A bigger amount to my driving school.
• A bigger amount to my dad.
• A bigger amount to my best friend.

Even though I'd like to do it the other way around I have to pay the commercial debts first and I started with it just today. As a matter of fact, the first two debts are paid and a thing of the past. Leaves my dad & best friend. I won't be able to pay out either this month and I told them both about it. Keeping in contact about it is the least I can do.

Over The Hills And Far Away

I talked to Melinda yesterday. The whole conversation started really well, I felt confident and thought I was totally stage five, it felt great. For those of you who don't know, the five stages of grief: Anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I spent a lot of time in phase four, phase two & sometimes three coming back from time to time to haunt me. I thought I was in five now, though and that made me really happy.

Then she told me her next job assignment would be in the Far East. Alright, that didn't bother me at first. But the more I realised it and saw how she didn't have anything else to say about it, really. Before she broke up with me we had both hoped for her to get an assignment near me, so we could see each other more regularly. Though I was fully aware that would be different now, I secretly had hoped for it still to happen. Even though we would've been split up, I thought she might drop by (she was never in my country before and always wanted to go here at least once). A silly thought, but with that gone and the fact that she will stay there for at least a year, I guess I will never see her again.

Sure, the odds for that weren't great to begin with, but it kinda hit me again at that moment. Especially since she didn't care.

Seems I'll have to push my ego/self-esteem a bit further before I can really accept all of it. Meh.

Room Of Nowhere

On to the next point! Apartment! My apartment is a mess and looks like hell. Seriously. It's just another chaos that adds to my stress level and is in dire need of a restructuring. So here's the plan:

Clean up the place
Sort and organize stuff
Re-envision room design
Buy/sell/dump furniture
Paint
Re-design rooms

These steps will have to be done for six rooms all in all and since I'm playing with the thought of changing room structure & purpose (where is a working space, hobby space, living room, etc.) I will perform the steps one by one for all rooms at once. Of course I will still only clean up one room at a time, but first clean all rooms, then sort all rooms, then re-design.

Why re-design the whole thing and not just organize it? Easy. It doesn't have a real structure right now, one room is just a dumping area without any purpose and the arrangement of furniture confines me, narrowing free space down to a minimum. Free space always gives me a good feeling. A feeling of freedom and happiness. I have observed this effect when entering certain apartments of friends or relatives and I will follow their example.

Before it comes to redesigning, I will share a rough illustration of the blueprints. Maybe someone has some good ideas about it. Until then it's clean up time and I'm starting with it right now.

Working Man

Wow, a whole lot of posts yesterday. That's the way, isn't it? First structure your thoughts, make a plan and then get going.

I didn't do a whole lot of actual work yesterday though, because I had to further refine my thoughts first. But no more excuses! Work begins today!

Oh and btw.: I won't be advertising this blog largely. Even though I can use any support I can get, the stuff I write here is rather personal and even though I feel proud of trying to change all this, my mistakes and the downright bad things about me and my life are something I am ashamed of. Maybe this will change to a point where I can say "Yes, I made mistakes, but I don't care if you know about them because then you will also know what I overcame / have to overcome." Since I'm posting this publicly, I guess subconsciously I want everyone to know. I'm not sure. Might put up a link on the old DZA blog. Those few that visited it regularly were largely not my rl friends, so it's less embarrassing as a start.

However, if anyone should really find his way here, I am happy over supportive words, ideas, tips and tricks or whatever you want to drop in the comments, so I know I'm not going to be alone on my way through this.

Face Of Melinda

I can only make assumptions here, but there is a condition that pretty much describes - in detail - the way Melinda acted. Down to the very words and phrases she used several times to describe what she felt. Emotionally Unavailabe. Until a few days ago I didn't know that phrase. But the more I think about it, the more it explains. Emotionally unavailable people (most often men, but women, too) have difficulties showing their love/feelings and can't commit. If you ever watched Sex And The City (my mom practically forced me to) Mr Big is such a person. Even though feelings exist, those people are afraid of a relationship. It binds them and it robs them of possibilities (not as much other possible love interests, but regarding their own lives). Getting a deeper understanding of this condition (and thus Melinda's reason for the break-up) has helped me a great deal to get to a point where I can deal with it.

Considering our age group, this is rather common and will just go away with time or it will stay until the person manages those emotions and can process the reasons for it. The first possibility will probably take some years, the latter can come tomorrow, in a year or never.

I sent her a message the other day since I had not heard from her in weeks. She told me this was because she pretty much shut down all communication to the outside world. I guess because she wants to focus on her current tasks. And that is the problem. With her fully focusing on her job, to a point where she doesn't even talk to people that aren't working with her, how is she supposed to come to terms with her emotions. She told me the break would go until she "got her shit together", but I guess she can't do that until she confronts those feelings, and I guess that won't happen until her situation changes to a point where she doesn't have to focus that much anymore. Since I know her schedule, that point will be around early spring next year.

Wow, about eight months, that's hard. At least eight months of suffering, wondering when it will happen and if it will ever happen. And then what? Let's say she would really get her shit together instantly, which won't happen. Then we will have been broken up for about nine months, in which she will not have thought about me a great deal, since she focused on something else. Will there still be any feelings left?

How about me? Either I suffer for nine months (and believe me, one month was hard enough) and will unconsciously resent her for it, or I will move on  emotionally and it will be questionable if I still have a lot of feelings for her.

If you look at it like that and analyze it logically, the best choice would be to move on, forget about her and find happiness either alone or with somebody else. Usually I try to let logic and rationality decide my course of action, so I should do that, right? But I can't. Even with one month of distance (or more if you take into account that I wasn't able to talk to her since January, really), our relationship was the best I ever had. I felt complete and truly happy. I still love her and I'd gladly suffer and wait for her. But what is the point in making myself miserable, probably for at least a year, if I can't even tell how big the chance of us getting back together is? It is probably rather small. Like...really small.

I don't know how to handle this in the end, but for now I will go with a mixture of what my gut and my mind tell me: I will not dismiss my feelings, but I will shut them out for the time of this renewal. Until my life has changed. This is kinda the same thing she's doing, but at least I won't hurt anyone with it right now. Maybe I could. I think she still loves me and if I told her she would think that I moved on and completely dismiss me (which would probably cause her some bad thoughts as well). If I told her, that is. But I won't. I won't lie to her, not even withhold the truth from her, but with our current level of (non-)communication I'd have to actively seek her out to tell her. And I won't do that. I don't want her to get the wrong impression and I don't want her to feel bad because of me, which would cause stress and hinder her in her situation.

I can't just shut my feelings for her out like that to focus on rebuilding my life. I can't. But I have to try. Else it will destroy me.

Psycho Killer

Alright, let's go with the topic of Psyche first. This is pretty much the most important topic, since I can't solve the others with this one in disarray. Also it is the topic that has troubled me the most lately. There's three main points to it: Stress, sloth and misery.

Stress. Probably hard. Probably easy. I never had any training in stress reducing exercises or anything and it is vastly affected by all my other problems, which cause a lot of (di)stress. Which also makes it kinda easy to solve, because it will just regulate itself as I go on accomplishing other goals. I'll largely ignore this for now, even if it is a big factor. I just need to stay focused and psyched up. Which leads to our next point.

Sloth. You could probably just call it lazyness, but that would be an understatement in my case. My sloth has been the main reason for me to get in this position. It has plagued me since 7th grade or so and has repeatedly been my undoing. I have problems with it. Massive Problems. To a point where it might be an idea to go to a shrink. Heh, wouldn't be the first in my family to do so. Anyway, over the years I found out that there's a thing to keep me going: Time.

Deadlines and dedication to a reachable goal that is not completely out of sight always made me move more quickly (or at all). I never envisioned the changes I wanted in my life so I failed. I spent pretty much all night doing just that now. Setting goals and trying to see them, envision them. I am psyched up about my plan like never before and this blog binds me to that commitment. I will try to keep it up this time. I will prevail. But while we're talking about commitment...

Misery. I have been quite miserable lately. Not only due to the various problems in my life which I managed to dismiss to a point of ignorance, but mainly because my girlfriend left me. Since this blog is pretty much in-depth personal about me, I might as well tell what's going down. For the sake of not always saying "girlfriend" let's call her Melinda. That's not her real name, but as good as any.

With an ocean between me and her, you could call it a really-long-distance relationship. Or rather not, since we aren't in a relationship anymore. Melinda told me she wants to "take a break", since she "can't be in a relationship right now". As much as I see that she is indeed in a troubling, life-changing situation, I have to say that this looks pretty much like something else. I talked to several people that have been in a situation like her (which I won't discuss here) and they all told me the same thing: Their relationship gave them strength in it. It was a secure haven amidst the storm. A romantic thought, but reasonable. What Melinda did was something else. It had (nearly) nothing to do with the situation. I will discuss this in a seperate post.

Blitzkrieg

Here's a rough list of what areas of life need to be changed (in no particular order). I will analyze them further as I get along, so we will have a better understanding of what needs to be done.

• Health
• Apartment
• Work
• Social
• Psyche
• Money
• Studies

Fade To Black

Last night I had a moment of clarity. Thinking about a way to deal with the loss of my girlfriend, I saw how miserable my life is. Not only because she left me, which put me in a state of agony and apathy all by itself, but in general. Everything is in disarray around me and I am the only one to blame. I want to turn my life around. A goal I have set for myself several times in the past, but it never worked, I could never follow through.

Why do I think it will work this time? Because I pretty much hit bottom. Sure, I'm not starving or live on the streets, but that's mostly thanks to my parental monetary support. I have come to a point where I have only two choices: Kill myself or change something...everything. I can't stay in this hell that is my life, but my last shred of dignity keeps me from taking the easy way out. So this is the only possible way: Overhaul my life, rebuilding it in a way that it is worth living in.

Genesis

A story. A young man, Naphtha is his name. He has been quite miserable lately. His apartment is one big mess, in which he dwells only on one centralised spot, mountains of garbage all around him. This goes to a point where constantly sitting on the same spot in the same pose has made his back look like the face of a freshly pubertizing teenager. His teeth are tainted by smoking and in a bad shape because of his constant grinding. His lungs can handle the smoking even worse. He owes money to a few people and can barely uphold his "life" style. He doesn't have a drivers licence. He doesn't need it, because he just sits in front of his living central all day, the computer. His girlfriend has told him she needs a break (aka effectively left him), his parents and siblings told him his life is leading nowhere and with his studies several terms over the norm, this seems rather true. His life has degenerated into rotting on the spot, succumbed to eternal apathy.

But this must end.

I am Naphtha.

And I want a better life.

Join me on my quest.